No More Learning

Let go.
VOLUMNIA. You might have been enough the man you are
With striving less to be so; lesser had been
The thwartings of your dispositions, if
You had not show'd them how ye were dispos'd,
Ere they lack'd power to cross you.
CORIOLANUS. Let them hang.
VOLUMNIA. Ay, and burn too.

Enter MENENIUS with the SENATORS

MENENIUS. Come, come, you have been too rough, something too rough;
You must return and mend it.
FIRST SENATOR. There's no remedy,
Unless, by not so doing, our good city
Cleave in the midst and perish.
VOLUMNIA. Pray be counsell'd;
I have a heart as little apt as yours,
But yet a brain that leads my use of anger
To better vantage.
MENENIUS. Well said, noble woman!
Before he should thus stoop to th' herd, but that
The violent fit o' th' time craves it as physic
For the whole state, I would put mine armour on,
Which I can scarcely bear.
CORIOLANUS. What must I do?
MENENIUS. Return to th' tribunes.
CORIOLANUS. Well, what then, what then?
MENENIUS. Repent what you have spoke.
CORIOLANUS. For them! I cannot do it to the gods;
Must I then do't to them?
VOLUMNIA. You are too absolute;
Though therein you can never be too noble
But when extremities speak. I have heard you say
Honour and policy, like unsever'd friends,
I' th' war do grow together; grant that, and tell me
In peace what each of them by th' other lose
That they combine not there.
CORIOLANUS.