Your most sweet voices: now you have left your voices, I have no further with you.' Was not this mockery? SICINIUS Why either were you ignorant to see't, Or, seeing it, of such childish friendliness To yield your voices? BRUTUS Could you not have told him As you were lesson'd, when he had no power, But was a petty servant to the state, He was your enemy, ever spake against Your liberties and the charters that you bear I' the body of the weal; and now, arriving A place of potency and sway o' the state, If he should still malignantly remain Fast foe to the plebeii, your voices might Be curses to yourselves? You should have said That as his worthy deeds did claim no less Than what he stood for, so his gracious nature Would think upon you for your voices and Translate his malice towards you into love, Standing your friendly lord. SICINIUS Thus to have said, As you were fore-advised, had touch'd his spirit And tried his inclination; from him pluck'd Either his gracious promise, which you might, As cause had call'd you up, have held him to Or else it would have gall'd his surly nature, Which easily endures not article Tying him to aught; so putting him to rage, You should have ta'en the advantage of his choler And pass'd him unelected. BRUTUS Did you perceive He did solicit you in free contempt When he did need your loves, and do you think That his contempt shall not be bruising to you, When he hath power to crush? Why, had your bodies No heart among you? or had you tongues to cry Against the rectorship of judgment? SICINIUS Have you Ere now denied the asker? and now again Of him that did not ask, but mock, bestow Your sued-for tongues? Third Citizen He's not confirm'd; we may deny him yet. Second Citizen And will deny him:
I'll have five hundred voices of that sound. First Citizen I twice five hundred and their friends to piece 'em. BRUTUS Get you hence instantly, and tell those friends, They have chose a consul that will from them take Their liberties; make them of no more voice Than dogs that are as often beat for barking As therefore kept to do so. SICINIUS Let them assemble, And on a safer judgment all revoke Your ignorant election; enforce his pride, And his old hate unto you; besides, forget not With what contempt he wore the humble weed, How in his suit he scorn'd you; but your loves, Thinking upon his services, took from you The apprehension of his present portance, Which most gibingly, ungravely, he did fashion After the inveterate hate he bears you. BRUTUS Lay A fault on us, your tribunes; that we laboured, No impediment between, but that you must Cast your election on him. SICINIUS Say, you chose him More after our commandment than as guided By your own true affections, and that your minds, Preoccupied with what you rather must do Than what you should, made you against the grain To voice him consul: lay the fault on us. BRUTUS Ay, spare us not. Say we read lectures to you.
How youngly he began to serve his country, How long continued, and what stock he springs of, The noble house o' the Marcians, from whence came That Ancus Marcius, Numa's daughter's son, Who, after great Hostilius, here was king;
Of the same house Publius and Quintus were, That our beat water brought by conduits hither;
And [Censorinus,] nobly named so, Twice being [by the people chosen] censor, Was his great ancestor. SICINIUS One thus descended, That hath beside well in his person wrought To be set high in place, we did commend To your remembrances: but you have found, Scaling his present bearing with his past, That he's your fixed enemy, and revoke Your sudden approbation. BRUTUS Say, you ne'er had done't--Harp on that still--but by our putting on;
And presently, when you have drawn your number, Repair to the Capitol. All We will so: almost all Repent in their election.
Exeunt Citizens BRUTUS Let them go on;
This mutiny were better put in hazard, Than stay, past doubt, for greater:
If, as his nature is, he fall in rage With their refusal, both observe and answer The vantage of his anger. SICINIUS To the Capitol, come:
We will be there before the stream o' the people;
And this shall seem, as partly 'tis, their own, Which we have goaded onward.
