CHAPTER XXXIII
—-Flower of warriors,
How is’t with Titus Lartius?
MARCIUS.—As with a man busied about decrees,
Condemning some to death and some to exile,
Ransoming him or pitying, threatening the other.
—Coriolanus
The captive Abbot’s features and manners exhibited a whimsical mixture of offended pride, and deranged foppery and bodily terror.
“Why, how now, my masters?” said he, with a voice in which all three emotions were blended. “What order is this among ye? Be ye Turks or Christians, that handle a churchman?—Know ye what it is, ‘manus imponere in servos Domini’? Ye have plundered my mails—torn my cope of curious cut lace, which might have served a cardinal!—Another in my place would have been at his ‘excommunicabo vos’; but I am placible, and if ye order forth my palfreys, re
