Alc.
Sound to this coward and lascivious town,
Our terrible approach. [Sound a parley. The Senators appear upon the walls.
'Till now you have gone on, and fill'd the time
With all licentious measure, making your wills
The scope of justice. 'Till now my self, and such
As slept within the shadow of your power,
Have wander'd with our traverst arms, and breath'd
Our sufferance vainly. Now the time is flush,
When crouching marrow in the bearer strong
Cries, of it self, no more: now breathless wrong
Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease,
And pursy Insolence shall break his wind
With fear and horrid flight.

1 Sen.
Noble and young;
When thy first griefs were but a meer conceit,
Ere thou hadst power, or we had cause to fear;
We sent to thee, to give thy rages balm,
To wipe out our ingratitude, with loves
Above their quantity.

2 Sen.
So did we woo
Transformed Timon to our city's love
By humble message, and by promis'd means:
We were not all unkind, nor all deserve
The common stroke of war.

1 Sen.
These walls of ours
Were not erected by their hands, from whom
You have receiv'd your grief: nor are they such
That these great tow'rs, trophies, and schools should fall
For private faults in them.

2 Sen.
Nor are they living
Who were the motives that you first went out:
Shame, that they wanted cunning in excess,
Hath broke their hearts. March on, oh noble lord,
Into our city with thy banners spread,
By decimation and a tithed death;
If thy revenges hunger for that food
Which nature loaths, take thou the destin'd tenth.* ^note

1 Sen.
All have not offended:
For those that were, it is not square to take
On those that are, revenge: crimes, like to lands,
Are not inherited. Then dear countryman,
Bring in thy ranks, but leave without thy rage;
Spare thy Athenian cradle, and those kin
Which in the bluster of thy wrath must fall
With those that have offended; like a shepherd,
Approach the fold, and cull th' infected forth,
But kill not all together.

2 Sen.
What thou wilt
Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smile,
Than hew to't with thy sword.

1 Sen.
Set but thy foot
Against our rampir'd gates, and they shall ope:
So thou wilt send thy gentle heart before,
To say thou'lt enter friendly.

2 Sen.
Throw thy glove,
Or any token of thine honour else,
That thou wilt use the wars as thy redress,
And not as our confusion: all thy powers
Shall make their harbour in our town, 'till we
Have seal'd thy full desire.

Alc.
Then there's my glove,
Descend, and open your uncharged ports,
Those enemies of Timon's, and mine own,
Whom you your selves shall set out for reproof,
Fall, and no more; and to atone your fears
With my more noble meaning, not a man
Shall pass his quarter, or offend the stream
Of regular justice in your city's bounds;
But shall be remedied by publick laws
At heaviest answer.

Both.
'Tis most nobly spoken.

Alc.
Descend, and keep your words. Enter a Messenger.

Mes.
My noble general, Timon is dead,
Entomb'd upon the very hem o'th' sea,
And on his gravestone this insculpture, which
With wax I brought away; whose soft impression
Interpreteth for my poor ignorance.

[Alcibiades reads the epitaph.]
Here lyes a wretched coarse, of wretched soul bereft:
Seek not my name: a plague consume you caitiffs left!
Here lye I Timon, who all living men did hate,
Pass by, and curse thy fill, but stay not here thy gaite.
These well express in thee thy latter spirits:
Tho' thou abhorr'dst in us our human griefs,

Scorn'dst our brains flow, and those our droplets which
From niggard nature fall; yet rich conceit
Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye
On thy low grave; on faults forgiven. Dead
Is noble Timon, of whose memory
Hereafter more—Bring me into your city,
And I will use the olive with my sword;
Make war breed peace; make peace stint war, make each
Prescribe to other, as each other's leach.
Let our drums strike— [Exeunt.

CORIOLANUS.

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