Sunday, April 26, 2020


I’ll bring him to you.—

[to the Senators]Let me desire your company: he must come,

Or what is worst will follow.



-Menenius Agrippa



Coriolanus                               Act III, scene i, line 334



‘Him’, in the line above is Coriolanus. Menenius and the senators and the tribunes have been discussing Coriolanus, and Menenius has agreed to go get the fellow. When Coriolanus comes before them all he ends up getting banished from Rome. And of course that doesn’t work out particularly well for anyone, does it?


Interesting phraseology: Let me desire your company. It’s perfectly understandable, and yet it’s not something you would ever hear, except perhaps in genteel British society. It takes the onus off of you and puts it on me. It also seems a bit subservient. He’s not telling the senators what to do. He’s telling the senators what he’s doing: he’s desiring their company. Let me desire your attention to the picture below.

If you were talking to the lady who lives here you might say something like let me desire your company. This is Windsor castle, and the lady living here is Queen Elizabeth II. You're probably not going to be talking to her anytime soon.

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