ABSTRACT
Now were S. Nautius, and Sex. Furius Consuls: who as they were surveying and mustering the legions, and disposing of a good Corpus de guard upon the walls, and other places wherein they thought it expedient to keep a standing watch and ward: behold a mightie number called and cried hard for peace, & with their sedicious clamors, put them in exceeding feare: yea & afterwards, forced them to assemble the Senatehouse together, and to propose concerning the sending of certaine embassadors to CII. M art ius . The Lords of the Senate seeing evidently the commons hearts to faile them, accepted and granted the motion propounded. Whereupon were Oratours sent unto Martius to treate for peace. At whose hands they received this heavie and stout answere 2: 'If so be the Volscians had their lands restored to them againe, then there might be some parle and treatie of peace: but if they will needs at their pleasure still enjoy that bootie which by war they have gotten, then would he in remembrance of private wrongs done unto him by his countrimen, as also of the friendship and courtesie shewed him by strangers that had given him entertainement, do his best to make it knowne unto the world, that his courage and stomacke is incensed, and not abated and quailed by his banishment.' Then were the same Embassadors ent againe the second time, but they might not be admitted once to set foote within the campe. It is reported moreover that the verie priests in their Pontificalibus, in their rich vestiments and goodly ornaments, went with supplication to the tents of the enemies, and turned his heart no more than the embassadors had done before them. Then the dames of the cittie came flocking all about Veturia the mother, and Volumnia the wife of Coriolanus. Whether this proceeded from any publike counsell and was done in pollicie, or came on ely of womens feare, I find but little in any records. But howsoever it came about, this one thing is certaine,
they persuaded so eOectually with them, that ooth Veturia an aged woman, and also Volumnia with her two little sonnes that she had by Martius, went toward the enemies campe, to see if women by their praiers and teares, might save the cittie, which men with speare and shield could not defend. When they were come into the camp, & word brought to Coriolanus, that there was an exceeding great traine of women thither arrived: at the first, he, as one that had relented, neither for that publike majestie in the Embassadours, nor yet at the religious reverence, which he both conceived in mind, & saw with his eies in the clergie, stood much more stifly bent against the teares of seely women. But afterwards one of his familiar friends, who had seen and knowne Veturia there, mourning and bewailing exceedingly above the rest, as she stood betwixt her daughter in law and her little nephewes: 'If mine eies be matches (quoth hee) and deceive me not, here is your mother, your wife, and children.' Whereat, Coriolanus, faring like a man well neare beside himselfe, arose from his seate, and ran to meete his mother, and to embrace her. But the woman falling in steede of praiers into a fit of choller: 'Let me know (quoth she)1 before I suffer thee to embrace me, whether I am come to an enemie or to a sonne, whether I be in thy campe as a captive prisoner, or as a naturall mother. And have I lived indeede so long, and rubbed on still in this miserable old age of mine for this, to see thee first a banished man, and after that to become an enemie? Couldest thou finde in thine heart to waste and spoyle that countrey which bred thee, which fostered thee, and brought thee up? And be it that thou hither marched with a cruell intent and full of threats, would not thine anger and fell mood slake, when thou didst set foote within the borders and marches therof? And being come within the sight of Rome, arose not this in thy mind & thought, Within those wals yonder is my house, there are my house goods, my mother, my wife, my children? Why then, belike if I had never been a mother, and borne a child, Rome had not been assaulted. And if I had no sonne at all, I might have died well ynough in my native countrey, whiles it remained free. But as for me, neither can I suffer ought, more for thy dishonestie and shame j nor more to mine owne calami tie and miserie than this: and most wretched caitife though I be, yet long time so I cannot continue. But for these here, looke thou well to it, I advise thee, and have pittie of them, who if thou goe on as thou beginnest, are like to feele untimely death, or indure long captivitie.' Then his wife and children hung about him, and clipped him: whereat the women fell a weeping on all sides, bewailing their owne
