English 30-1 Practice Set 1

Enter Coriolanus with Nobles.

CORIOLANUS.

Let them pull all about mine ears, present me

Death on the wheel or at wild horses’ heels,

Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock,

That the precipitation might down stretch

5Below the beam of sight, yet will I still

Be thus to them.

FIRST PATRICIAN.

You do the nobler.

CORIOLANUS.

I muse my mother

Does not approve me further, who was wont

10To call them woollen vassals, things created

To buy and sell with groats, to show bare heads

In congregations, to yawn, be still, and wonder

When one but of my ordinance stood up

To speak of peace or war.

Enter Volumnia.

15I talk of you.

Why did you wish me milder? Would you have me

False to my nature? Rather say I play

The man I am.

VOLUMNIA.

O, sir, sir, sir,

20I would have had you put your power well on

Before you had worn it out.

CORIOLANUS.

Let go.

VOLUMNIA.

You might have been enough the man you are

With striving less to be so. Lesser had been

25The thwartings of your dispositions if

You had not showed them how ye were disposed

Ere they lacked power to cross you.

CORIOLANUS.

Let them hang!

VOLUMNIA.

Ay, and burn too.

Enter Menenius with the Senators.

MENENIUS.

30Come, 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.

35Pray be counselled.

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.

40Before 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.

45Return 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.

50You are too absolute,

Though therein you can never be too noble

But when extremities speak. I have heard you say

Honour and policy, like unsevered friends,

I’ th’ war do grow together. Grant that, and tell me

55In peace what each of them by th’ other lose

That they combine not there.

CORIOLANUS.

Tush, tush!

MENENIUS.

A good demand.

VOLUMNIA.

If it be honour in your wars to seem

60The same you are not, which for your best ends

You adopt your policy, how is it less or worse

That it shall hold companionship in peace

With honour as in war, since that to both

It stands in like request?

CORIOLANUS.

65Why force you this?

VOLUMNIA.

Because that now it lies you on to speak

To th’ people, not by your own instruction,

Nor by th’ matter which your heart prompts you,

But with such words that are but rooted in

70Your tongue, though but bastards and syllables

Of no allowance to your bosom’s truth.

Now, this no more dishonours you at all

Than to take in a town with gentle words,

Which else would put you to your fortune and

75The hazard of much blood.

I would dissemble with my nature where

My fortunes and my friends at stake required

I should do so in honour. I am in this

Your wife, your son, these senators, the nobles;

80And you will rather show our general louts

How you can frown than spend a fawn upon ’em

For the inheritance of their loves and safeguard

Of what that want might ruin.

MENENIUS.

Noble lady!—

85Come, go with us; speak fair. You may salve so,

Not what is dangerous present, but the loss

Of what is past.

VOLUMNIA.

I prithee now, my son,

Go to them with this bonnet in thy hand,

90And thus far having stretched it—here be with them—

Thy knee bussing the stones—for in such business

Action is eloquence, and the eyes of th’ ignorant

More learned than the ears—waving thy head,

Which often thus correcting thy stout heart,

95Now humble as the ripest mulberry

That will not hold the handling. Or say to them

Thou art their soldier and, being bred in broils,

Hast not the soft way, which thou dost confess

Were fit for thee to use, as they to claim,

100In asking their good loves; but thou wilt frame

Thyself, forsooth, hereafter theirs, so far

As thou hast power and person.

MENENIUS.

This but done

Even as she speaks, why, their hearts were yours;

105For they have pardons, being asked, as free

As words to little purpose.

VOLUMNIA.

Prithee now,

Go, and be ruled; although I know thou hadst rather

Follow thine enemy in a fiery gulf

110Than flatter him in a bower.

Enter Cominius.

Here is Cominius.

COMINIUS.

I have been i’ th’ marketplace; and, sir, ’tis fit

You make strong party or defend yourself

By calmness or by absence. All’s in anger.

MENENIUS.

115Only fair speech.

COMINIUS.

I think ’twill serve, if he

Can thereto frame his spirit.

VOLUMNIA.

He must, and will.—

Prithee, now, say you will, and go about it.

CORIOLANUS.

120Must I go show them my unbarbed sconce? Must I

With my base tongue give to my noble heart

A lie that it must bear? Well, I will do’t.

Yet, were there but this single plot to lose,

This mould of Martius, they to dust should grind it

125And throw’t against the wind. To th’ marketplace!

You have put me now to such a part which never

I shall discharge to th’ life.

COMINIUS.

Come, come, we’ll prompt you.

VOLUMNIA.

I prithee now, sweet son, as thou hast said

130My praises made thee first a soldier, so,

To have my praise for this, perform a part

Thou hast not done before.

CORIOLANUS.

Well, I must do’t.

Away, my disposition, and possess me

135Some harlot’s spirit! My throat of war be turned,

Which choired with my drum, into a pipe

Small as an eunuch or the virgin voice

That babies lulls asleep! The smiles of knaves

Tent in my cheeks, and schoolboys’ tears take up

140The glasses of my sight! A beggar’s tongue

Make motion through my lips, and my armed knees,

Who bowed but in my stirrup, bend like his

That hath received an alms! I will not do’t,

Lest I surcease to honour mine own truth

145And, by my body’s action, teach my mind

A most inherent baseness.

VOLUMNIA.

At thy choice, then.

To beg of thee, it is my more dishonour

Than thou of them. Come all to ruin. Let

150Thy mother rather feel thy pride than fear

Thy dangerous stoutness, for I mock at death

With as big heart as thou. Do as thou list.

Thy valiantness was mine; thou suck’dst it from me,

But owe thy pride thyself.

CORIOLANUS.

155Pray, be content.

Mother, I am going to the marketplace.

Chide me no more. I’ll mountebank their loves,

Cog their hearts from them, and come home beloved

Of all the trades in Rome. Look, I am going.

160Commend me to my wife. I’ll return consul,

Or never trust to what my tongue can do

I’ th’ way of flattery further.

VOLUMNIA.

Do your will.

Exit Volumnia.

COMINIUS.

Away! The Tribunes do attend you. Arm yourself

165To answer mildly, for they are prepared

With accusations, as I hear, more strong

Than are upon you yet.

CORIOLANUS.

The word is “mildly.” Pray you, let us go.

Let them accuse me by invention, I

170Will answer in mine honour.

MENENIUS.

Ay, but mildly.

CORIOLANUS.

Well, mildly be it, then. Mildly.

William Shakespeare, Coriolanus, Act III, scene ii. First printed in 1623. Public domain.

Written by ScholarAB for this practice set.

Heat

From plains that reel to southward, dim,

The road runs by me white and bare;

Up the steep hill it seems to swim

Beyond, and melt into the glare.

5Upward half way, or it may be

Nearer the summit, slowly steals

A hay-cart, moving dustily

With idly clacking wheels.

By his cart's side the wagoner

10Is slouching slowly at his ease,

Half-hidden in the windless blur

Of white dust puffing to his knees.

This wagon on the height above,

From sky to sky on either hand,

15Is the sole thing that seems to move

In all the heat-held land.

Beyond me in the fields the sun

Soaks in the grass and hath his will;

I count the marguerites one by one;

20Even the buttercups are still.

On the brook yonder not a breath

Disturbs the spider or the midge.

The water-bugs draw close beneath

The cool gloom of the bridge.

25Where the far elm-tree shadows flood

Dark patches in the burning grass,

The cows, each with her peaceful cud,

Lie waiting for the heat to pass.

From somewhere on the slope near by

30Into the pale depth of the noon

A wandering thrush slides leisurely

His thin revolving tune.

In intervals of dreams I hear

The cricket from the droughty ground;

35The grass-hoppers spin into mine ear

A small innumerable sound.

I lift mine eyes sometimes to gaze:

The burning sky-line blinds my sight:

The woods far off are blue with haze;

40The hills are drenched in light.

And yet to me not this or that

Is always sharp or always sweet;

In the sloped shadow of my hat

I lean at rest, and drain the heat;

45Nay more, I think some blessèd power

Hath brought me wandering idly here:

In the full furnace of this hour

My thoughts grow keen and clear.

Archibald Lampman (1861 to 1899), from Among the Millet (1888). Public domain.

1I don't know whether you know Mariposa. If not, it is of no consequence, for if you know Canada at all, you are probably well acquainted with a dozen towns just like it.

2There it lies in the sunlight, sloping up from the little lake that spreads out at the foot of the hillside on which the town is built. There is a wharf beside the lake, and lying alongside of it a steamer that is tied to the wharf with two ropes of about the same size as they use on the Lusitania. The steamer goes nowhere in particular, for the lake is landlocked and there is no navigation for the Mariposa Belle except to "run trips" on the first of July and the Queen's Birthday, and to take excursions of the Knights of Pythias and the Sons of Temperance to and from the Local Option Townships.

3In point of geography the lake is called Lake Wissanotti and the river running out of it the Ossawippi, just as the main street of Mariposa is called Missinaba Street and the county Missinaba County. But these names do not really matter. Nobody uses them. People simply speak of the "lake" and the "river" and the "main street," much in the same way as they always call the Continental Hotel, "Pete Robinson's" and the Pharmaceutical Hall, "Eliot's Drug Store." But I suppose this is just the same in every one else's town as in mine, so I need lay no stress on it.

4The town, I say, has one broad street that runs up from the lake, commonly called the Main Street. There is no doubt about its width. When Mariposa was laid out there was none of that shortsightedness which is seen in the cramped dimensions of Wall Street and Piccadilly. Missinaba Street is so wide that if you were to roll Jeff Thorpe's barber shop over on its face it wouldn't reach half way across. Up and down the Main Street are telegraph poles of cedar of colossal thickness, standing at a variety of angles and carrying rather more wires than are commonly seen at a transatlantic cable station.

5On the Main Street itself are a number of buildings of extraordinary importance,—Smith's Hotel and the Continental and the Mariposa House, and the two banks (the Commercial and the Exchange), to say nothing of McCarthy's Block (erected in 1878), and Glover's Hardware Store with the Oddfellows' Hall above it. Then on the "cross" street that intersects Missinaba Street at the main corner there is the Post Office and the Fire Hall and the Young Men's Christian Association and the office of the Mariposa Newspacket,—in fact, to the eye of discernment a perfect jostle of public institutions comparable only to Threadneedle Street or Lower Broadway. On all the side streets there are maple trees and broad sidewalks, trim gardens with upright calla lilies, houses with verandahs, which are here and there being replaced by residences with piazzas.

6To the careless eye the scene on the Main Street of a summer afternoon is one of deep and unbroken peace. The empty street sleeps in the sunshine. There is a horse and buggy tied to the hitching post in front of Glover's hardware store. There is, usually and commonly, the burly figure of Mr. Smith, proprietor of Smith's Hotel, standing in his chequered waistcoat on the steps of his hostelry, and perhaps, further up the street, Lawyer Macartney going for his afternoon mail, or the Rev. Mr. Drone, the Rural Dean of the Church of England Church, going home to get his fishing rod after a mothers' auxiliary meeting.

7But this quiet is mere appearance. In reality, and to those who know it, the place is a perfect hive of activity. Why, at Netley's butcher shop (established in 1882) there are no less than four men working on the sausage machines in the basement; at the Newspacket office there are as many more job-printing; there is a long distance telephone with four distracting girls on high stools wearing steel caps and talking incessantly; in the offices in McCarthy's block are dentists and lawyers with their coats off, ready to work at any moment; and from the big planing factory down beside the lake where the railroad siding is, you may hear all through the hours of the summer afternoon the long-drawn music of the running saw.

8Busy—well, I should think so! Ask any of its inhabitants if Mariposa isn't a busy, hustling, thriving town. Ask Mullins, the manager of the Exchange Bank, who comes hustling over to his office from the Mariposa House every day at 10.30 and has scarcely time all morning to go out and take a drink with the manager of the Commercial; or ask—well, for the matter of that, ask any of them if they ever knew a more rushing go-a-head town than Mariposa.

9Of course if you come to the place fresh from New York, you are deceived. Your standard of vision is all astray, You do think the place is quiet. You do imagine that Mr. Smith is asleep merely because he closes his eyes as he stands. But live in Mariposa for six months or a year and then you will begin to understand it better; the buildings get higher and higher; the Mariposa House grows more and more luxurious; McCarthy's block towers to the sky; the 'buses roar and hum to the station; the trains shriek; the traffic multiplies; the people move faster and faster; a dense crowd swirls to and fro in the post-office and the five and ten cent store—and amusements! well, now! lacrosse, baseball, excursions, dances, the Fireman's Ball every winter and the Catholic picnic every summer; and music—the town band in the park every Wednesday evening, and the Oddfellows' brass band on the street every other Friday; the Mariposa Quartette, the Salvation Army—why, after a few months' residence you begin to realize that the place is a mere mad round of gaiety.

Stephen Leacock, from “The Hostelry of Mr. Smith,” chapter 1 of Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912). Public domain.