Men.

The Augur tells me we shall have news, tonight.

Bru.

Good or bad?

Men.

Not according to the prayer of the people, for they love not Martius.

Sic.

Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.

Men.

Pray you, whom does the wolf love?

Sic.

The lamb.

Men.

Ay, to devour him, as the hungry plebeians would the noble Martius. You two are old men, tell me one thing that I shall ask you.

Both.

Well, Sir.

Men.

In what enormity is Martius poor, that you two have not in abundance?

Bru.

He's poor in no one fault, but stor'd with all.

Sic.

Especially in pride.

Bru.

And topping all others in boast.

Men.

This is strange, now! do you two know how you are censur'd here in the city, I mean of us o'th' right-hand file, do you?

Bru.

Why—how are we censur'd?

Men.

Because you talk of pride now, will you not be angry?

Both.

Well, well, Sir, well.

Men.

Why, 'tis no great matter—give your dispositions the reins, and be angry at your pleasures— you blame Martius for being proud.

Bru.

We do it alone, Sir.

Men.

I know you can do very little alone, for your helps are many, or else your actions would grow wondrous single; your abilities are too infant-like, for doing much alone—oh that you would turn your eyes towards the napes of your necks, and make but an interior survey of your good selves! Oh that you could!

Bru.

What then, Sir?

Men.

Why then you should discover a brace of as unmeriting, proud, violent, testy magistrates, alias fools, as any in Rome.

Sic.

Menenius, you are known well enough, too.

Men.

I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves a cup of hot wine, with not a drop of allaying Tiber in't: one that converses more with the buttock of the night, than with the forehead of the morning. What I think, I utter, and spend my malice with my breath. I can't say your worships have deliver'd the matter well, when I find the ass in compound with the major part of your syllables; and tho' I must be content to bear with those that say you are reverend grave men, yet they lie deadly that tell you, you have good faces.

Bru.

Come, Sir, come, we know you, well enough.

Men.

You know neither me, yourselves, nor any thing; you are ambitious for poor knaves caps and legs: you wear out a good wholesome forenoon, in hearing a cause between an orange-wife and a fosset-seller, and then adjourn a controversy of three-pence, to a second day of audience. You are a pair of strange ones.

Bru.

Come, come, you are well understood to be a perfecter giber for the table, than a necessary bencher in the Capitol.

Men.

Our very priests must become mockers, if they shall encounter such ridiculous subjects, as you are; when you speak best unto the purpose, it is not worth the wagging of your beards, and your beards deserve not so honourable a grave as to stuff a botcher's cushion, or to be intomb'd in an ass's pack-saddle. Yet you must be saying, Martius is proud; who in a cheap estimation, is worth all your predecessors since Deucalion, though peradventure some of the best of them were hereditary hangmen. Good e'en to your worships; more of your conversation would infect my brain, being the herdsmen of

the beastly plebeians. I will be bold to take my leave of you* ^note.