ACT I
ACT I, SCENE I. Rome. A street.
[Enter a company of mutinous Citizens,
with staves, clubs, and other weapons]
First Citizen:
- Before we proceed any further, hear me speak.
First Citizen:
- You are all resolved rather to die than to famish?
First Citizen:
- First, you know Caius Marcius is chief enemy to the people.
All:
- We know't, we know't.
First Citizen:
- Let us kill him, and we'll have corn at our own price.
- Is't a verdict?
All:
- No more talking on't; let it be done: away, away!
Second Citizen:
- One word, good citizens.
First Citizen:
- We are accounted poor citizens, the patricians good.
- What authority surfeits on would relieve us: if they
- would yield us but the superfluity, while it were
- wholesome, we might guess they relieved us humanely;
- but they think we are too dear: the leanness that
- afflicts us, the object of our misery, is as an
- inventory to particularise their abundance; our
- sufferance is a gain to them Let us revenge this with
- our pikes, ere we become rakes: for the gods know I
- speak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge.
Second Citizen:
- Would you proceed especially against Caius Marcius?
All:
- Against him first: he's a very dog to the commonalty.
Second Citizen:
- Consider you what services he has done for his country?
First Citizen:
- Very well; and could be content to give him good
- report fort, but that he pays himself with being proud.
Second Citizen:
- Nay, but speak not maliciously.
First Citizen:
- I say unto you, what he hath done famously, he did
- it to that end: though soft-conscienced men can be
- content to say it was for his country he did it to
- please his mother and to be partly proud; which he
- is, even till the altitude of his virtue.
Second Citizen:
- What he cannot help in his nature, you account a
- vice in him. You must in no way say he is covetous.
First Citizen:
- If I must not, I need not be barren of accusations;
- he hath faults, with surplus, to tire in repetition.
-
[Shouts within]
- What shouts are these? The other side o' the city
- is risen: why stay we prating here? to the Capitol!
First Citizen:
- Soft! who comes here?
-
[Enter MENENIUS AGRIPPA]
Second Citizen:
- Worthy Menenius Agrippa; one that hath always loved
- the people.
First Citizen:
- He's one honest enough: would all the rest were so!
MENENIUS:
- What work's, my countrymen, in hand? where go you
- With bats and clubs? The matter? speak, I pray you.
First Citizen:
- Our business is not unknown to the senate; they have
- had inkling this fortnight what we intend to do,
- which now we'll show 'em in deeds. They say poor
- suitors have strong breaths: they shall know we
- have strong arms too.
MENENIUS:
- Why, masters, my good friends, mine honest neighbours,
- Will you undo yourselves?
First Citizen:
- We cannot, sir, we are undone already.
MENENIUS:
- I tell you, friends, most charitable care
- Have the patricians of you. For your wants,
- Your suffering in this dearth, you may as well
- Strike at the heaven with your staves as lift them
- Against the Roman state, whose course will on
- The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs
- Of more strong link asunder than can ever
- Appear in your impediment. For the dearth,
- The gods, not the patricians, make it, and
- Your knees to them, not arms, must help. Alack,
- You are transported by calamity
- Thither where more attends you, and you slander
- The helms o' the state, who care for you like fathers,
- When you curse them as enemies.
First Citizen:
- Care for us! True, indeed! They ne'er cared for us
- yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
- crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
- support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
- established against the rich, and provide more
- piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
- the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
- there's all the love they bear us.
MENENIUS:
- Either you must
- Confess yourselves wondrous malicious,
- Or be accused of folly. I shall tell you
- A pretty tale: it may be you have heard it;
- But, since it serves my purpose, I will venture
- To stale 't a little more.
First Citizen:
- Well, I'll hear it, sir: yet you must not think to
- fob off our disgrace with a tale: but, an 't please
- you, deliver.
MENENIUS:
- There was a time when all the body's members
- Rebell'd against the belly, thus accused it:
- That only like a gulf it did remain
- I' the midst o' the body, idle and unactive,
- Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing
- Like labour with the rest, where the other instruments
- Did see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel,
- And, mutually participate, did minister
- Unto the appetite and affection common
- Of the whole body. The belly answer'd--
First Citizen:
- Well, sir, what answer made the belly?
MENENIUS:
- Sir, I shall tell you. With a kind of smile,
- Which ne'er came from the lungs, but even thus--
- For, look you, I may make the belly smile
- As well as speak--it tauntingly replied
- To the discontented members, the mutinous parts
- That envied his receipt; even so most fitly
- As you malign our senators for that
- They are not such as you.
First Citizen:
- Your belly's answer? What!
- The kingly-crowned head, the vigilant eye,
- The counsellor heart, the arm our soldier,
- Our steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter.
- With other muniments and petty helps
- In this our fabric, if that they--
MENENIUS:
- What then?
- 'Fore me, this fellow speaks! What then? what then?
First Citizen:
- Should by the cormorant belly be restrain'd,
- Who is the sink o' the body,--
MENENIUS:
- Well, what then?
First Citizen:
- The former agents, if they did complain,
- What could the belly answer?
MENENIUS:
- I will tell you
- If you'll bestow a small--of what you have little--
- Patience awhile, you'll hear the belly's answer.
First Citizen:
- Ye're long about it.
MENENIUS:
- Note me this, good friend;
- Your most grave belly was deliberate,
- Not rash like his accusers, and thus answer'd:
- 'True is it, my incorporate friends,' quoth he,
- 'That I receive the general food at first,
- Which you do live upon; and fit it is,
- Because I am the store-house and the shop
- Of the whole body: but, if you do remember,
- I send it through the rivers of your blood,
- Even to the court, the heart, to the seat o' the brain;
- And, through the cranks and offices of man,
- The strongest nerves and small inferior veins
- From me receive that natural competency
- Whereby they live: and though that all at once,
- You, my good friends,'--this says the belly, mark me,--
First Citizen:
- Ay, sir; well, well.
MENENIUS:
- 'Though all at once cannot
- See what I do deliver out to each,
- Yet I can make my audit up, that all
- From me do back receive the flour of all,
- And leave me but the bran.' What say you to't?
First Citizen:
- It was an answer: how apply you this?
MENENIUS:
- The senators of Rome are this good belly,
- And you the mutinous members; for examine
- Their counsels and their cares, digest things rightly
- Touching the weal o' the common, you shall find
- No public benefit which you receive
- But it proceeds or comes from them to you
- And no way from yourselves. What do you think,
- You, the great toe of this assembly?
First Citizen:
- I the great toe! why the great toe?
MENENIUS:
- For that, being one o' the lowest, basest, poorest,
- Of this most wise rebellion, thou go'st foremost:
- Thou rascal, that art worst in blood to run,
- Lead'st first to win some vantage.
- But make you ready your stiff bats and clubs:
- Rome and her rats are at the point of battle;
- The one side must have bale.
-
[Enter CAIUS MARCIUS]
- Hail, noble Marcius!
MARCIUS:
- Thanks. What's the matter, you dissentious rogues,
- That, rubbing the poor itch of your opinion,
- Make yourselves scabs?
First Citizen:
- We have ever your good word.
MARCIUS:
- He that will give good words to thee will flatter
- Beneath abhorring. What would you have, you curs,
- That like nor peace nor war? the one affrights you,
- The other makes you proud. He that trusts to you,
- Where he should find you lions, finds you hares;
- Where foxes, geese: you are no surer, no,
- Than is the coal of fire upon the ice,
- Or hailstone in the sun. Your virtue is
- To make him worthy whose offence subdues him
- And curse that justice did it.
- Who deserves greatness
- Deserves your hate; and your affections are
- A sick man's appetite, who desires most that
- Which would increase his evil. He that depends
- Upon your favours swims with fins of lead
- And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye! Trust Ye?
- With every minute you do change a mind,
- And call him noble that was now your hate,
- Him vile that was your garland. What's the matter,
- That in these several places of the city
- You cry against the noble senate, who,
- Under the gods, keep you in awe, which else
- Would feed on one another? What's their seeking?
MENENIUS:
- For corn at their own rates; whereof, they say,
- The city is well stored.
MARCIUS:
- Hang 'em! They say!
- They'll sit by the fire, and presume to know
- What's done i' the Capitol; who's like to rise,
- Who thrives and who declines; side factions
- and give out
- Conjectural marriages; making parties strong
- And feebling such as stand not in their liking
- Below their cobbled shoes. They say there's
- grain enough!
- Would the nobility lay aside their ruth,
- And let me use my sword, I'll make a quarry
- With thousands of these quarter'd slaves, as high
- As I could pick my lance.
MENENIUS:
- Nay, these are almost thoroughly persuaded;
- For though abundantly they lack discretion,
- Yet are they passing cowardly. But, I beseech you,
- What says the other troop?
MARCIUS:
- They are dissolved: hang 'em!
- They said they were an-hungry; sigh'd forth proverbs,
- That hunger broke stone walls, that dogs must eat,
- That meat was made for mouths, that the gods sent not
- Corn for the rich men only: with these shreds
- They vented their complainings; which being answer'd,
- And a petition granted them, a strange one--
- To break the heart of generosity,
- And make bold power look pale--they threw their caps
- As they would hang them on the horns o' the moon,
- Shouting their emulation.
MENENIUS:
- What is granted them?
MARCIUS:
- Five tribunes to defend their vulgar wisdoms,
- Of their own choice: one's Junius Brutus,
- Sicinius Velutus, and I know not--'Sdeath!
- The rabble should have first unroof'd the city,
- Ere so prevail'd with me: it will in time
- Win upon power and throw forth greater themes
- For insurrection's arguing.
MENENIUS:
- This is strange.
Messenger:
- Where's Caius Marcius?
MARCIUS:
- Here: what's the matter?
Messenger:
- The news is, sir, the Volsces are in arms.
First Senator:
- Marcius, 'tis true that you have lately told us;
- The Volsces are in arms.
MARCIUS:
- They have a leader,
- Tullus Aufidius, that will put you to 't.
- I sin in envying his nobility,
- And were I any thing but what I am,
- I would wish me only he.
COMINIUS:
- You have fought together.
MARCIUS:
- Were half to half the world by the ears and he.
- Upon my party, I'ld revolt to make
- Only my wars with him: he is a lion
- That I am proud to hunt.
First Senator:
- Then, worthy Marcius,
- Attend upon Cominius to these wars.
COMINIUS:
- It is your former promise.
MARCIUS:
- Sir, it is;
- And I am constant. Titus Lartius, thou
- Shalt see me once more strike at Tullus' face.
- What, art thou stiff? stand'st out?
TITUS:
- No, Caius Marcius;
- I'll lean upon one crutch and fight with t'other,
- Ere stay behind this business.
First Senator:
- Your company to the Capitol; where, I know,
- Our greatest friends attend us.
TITUS:
-
[To COMINIUS]
- Lead you on.
-
[To MARCIUS]
- Right worthy you priority.
First Senator:
-
[To the Citizens]
- Hence to your homes; be gone!
MARCIUS:
- Nay, let them follow:
- The Volsces have much corn; take these rats thither
- To gnaw their garners. Worshipful mutiners,
- Your valour puts well forth: pray, follow.
- Citizens steal away. Exeunt all but SICINIUS and BRUTUS
SICINIUS:
- Was ever man so proud as is this Marcius?
SICINIUS:
- When we were chosen tribunes for the people,--
BRUTUS:
- Mark'd you his lip and eyes?
SICINIUS:
- Nay. but his taunts.
BRUTUS:
- Being moved, he will not spare to gird the gods.
SICINIUS:
- Be-mock the modest moon.
BRUTUS:
- The present wars devour him: he is grown
- Too proud to be so valiant.
SICINIUS:
- Such a nature,
- Tickled with good success, disdains the shadow
- Which he treads on at noon: but I do wonder
- His insolence can brook to be commanded
- Under Cominius.
BRUTUS:
- Fame, at the which he aims,
- In whom already he's well graced, can not
- Better be held nor more attain'd than by
- A place below the first: for what miscarries
- Shall be the general's fault, though he perform
- To the utmost of a man, and giddy censure
- Will then cry out of Marcius 'O if he
- Had borne the business!'
SICINIUS:
- Besides, if things go well,
- Opinion that so sticks on Marcius shall
- Of his demerits rob Cominius.
BRUTUS:
- Come:
- Half all Cominius' honours are to Marcius.
- Though Marcius earned them not, and all his faults
- To Marcius shall be honours, though indeed
- In aught he merit not.
SICINIUS:
- Let's hence, and hear
- How the dispatch is made, and in what fashion,
- More than his singularity, he goes
- Upon this present action.
BRUTUS:
- Lets along.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT I, SCENE II. Corioli. The Senate-house.
[Enter TULLUS AUFIDIUS and certain Senators]
First Senator:
- So, your opinion is, Aufidius,
- That they of Rome are entered in our counsels
- And know how we proceed.
AUFIDIUS:
- Is it not yours?
- What ever have been thought on in this state,
- That could be brought to bodily act ere Rome
- Had circumvention? 'Tis not four days gone
- Since I heard thence; these are the words: I think
- I have the letter here; yes, here it is.
-
[Reads]
- 'They have press'd a power, but it is not known
- Whether for east or west: the dearth is great;
- The people mutinous; and it is rumour'd,
- Cominius, Marcius your old enemy,
- Who is of Rome worse hated than of you,
- And Titus Lartius, a most valiant Roman,
- These three lead on this preparation
- Whither 'tis bent: most likely 'tis for you:
- Consider of it.'
First Senator:
- Our army's in the field
- We never yet made doubt but Rome was ready
- To answer us.
AUFIDIUS:
- Nor did you think it folly
- To keep your great pretences veil'd till when
- They needs must show themselves; which
- in the hatching,
- It seem'd, appear'd to Rome. By the discovery.
- We shall be shorten'd in our aim, which was
- To take in many towns ere almost Rome
- Should know we were afoot.
Second Senator:
- Noble Aufidius,
- Take your commission; hie you to your bands:
- Let us alone to guard Corioli:
- If they set down before 's, for the remove
- Bring your army; but, I think, you'll find
- They've not prepared for us.
AUFIDIUS:
- O, doubt not that;
- I speak from certainties. Nay, more,
- Some parcels of their power are forth already,
- And only hitherward. I leave your honours.
- If we and Caius Marcius chance to meet,
- 'Tis sworn between us we shall ever strike
- Till one can do no more.
All:
- The gods assist you!
AUFIDIUS:
- And keep your honours safe!
Second Senator:
- Farewell.
ACT I, SCENE III. Rome. A room in Marcius' house.
[Enter VOLUMNIA and VIRGILIA they set them down on two low stools, and sew]
VOLUMNIA:
- I pray you, daughter, sing; or express yourself in a
- more comfortable sort: if my son were my husband, I
- should freelier rejoice in that absence wherein he
- won honour than in the embracements of his bed where
- he would show most love. When yet he was but
- tender-bodied and the only son of my womb, when
- youth with comeliness plucked all gaze his way, when
- for a day of kings' entreaties a mother should not
- sell him an hour from her beholding, I, considering
- how honour would become such a person. that it was
- no better than picture-like to hang by the wall, if
- renown made it not stir, was pleased to let him seek
- danger where he was like to find fame. To a cruel
- war I sent him; from whence he returned, his brows
- bound with oak. I tell thee, daughter, I sprang not
- more in joy at first hearing he was a man-child
- than now in first seeing he had proved himself a
- man.
VIRGILIA:
- But had he died in the business, madam; how then?
VOLUMNIA:
- Then his good report should have been my son; I
- therein would have found issue. Hear me profess
- sincerely: had I a dozen sons, each in my love
- alike and none less dear than thine and my good
- Marcius, I had rather had eleven die nobly for their
- country than one voluptuously surfeit out of action.
-
[Enter a Gentlewoman]
Gentlewoman:
- Madam, the Lady Valeria is come to visit you.
VIRGILIA:
- Beseech you, give me leave to retire myself.
VOLUMNIA:
- Indeed, you shall not.
- Methinks I hear hither your husband's drum,
- See him pluck Aufidius down by the hair,
- As children from a bear, the Volsces shunning him:
- Methinks I see him stamp thus, and call thus:
- 'Come on, you cowards! you were got in fear,
- Though you were born in Rome:' his bloody brow
- With his mail'd hand then wiping, forth he goes,
- Like to a harvest-man that's task'd to mow
- Or all or lose his hire.
VIRGILIA:
- His bloody brow! O Jupiter, no blood!
VOLUMNIA:
- Away, you fool! it more becomes a man
- Than gilt his trophy: the breasts of Hecuba,
- When she did suckle Hector, look'd not lovelier
- Than Hector's forehead when it spit forth blood
- At Grecian sword, contemning. Tell Valeria,
- We are fit to bid her welcome.
-
[Exit Gentlewoman]
VIRGILIA:
- Heavens bless my lord from fell Aufidius!
VALERIA:
- My ladies both, good day to you.
VIRGILIA:
- I am glad to see your ladyship.
VALERIA:
- How do you both? you are manifest house-keepers.
- What are you sewing here? A fine spot, in good
- faith. How does your little son?
VIRGILIA:
- I thank your ladyship; well, good madam.
VOLUMNIA:
- He had rather see the swords, and hear a drum, than
- look upon his school-master.
VALERIA:
- O' my word, the father's son: I'll swear,'tis a
- very pretty boy. O' my troth, I looked upon him o'
- Wednesday half an hour together: has such a
- confirmed countenance. I saw him run after a gilded
- butterfly: and when he caught it, he let it go
- again; and after it again; and over and over he
- comes, and again; catched it again; or whether his
- fall enraged him, or how 'twas, he did so set his
- teeth and tear it; O, I warrant it, how he mammocked
- it!
VOLUMNIA:
- One on 's father's moods.
VALERIA:
- Indeed, la, 'tis a noble child.
VIRGILIA:
- A crack, madam.
VALERIA:
- Come, lay aside your stitchery; I must have you play
- the idle husewife with me this afternoon.
VIRGILIA:
- No, good madam; I will not out of doors.
VALERIA:
- Not out of doors!
VOLUMNIA:
- She shall, she shall.
VIRGILIA:
- Indeed, no, by your patience; I'll not over the
- threshold till my lord return from the wars.
VALERIA:
- Fie, you confine yourself most unreasonably: come,
- you must go visit the good lady that lies in.
VIRGILIA:
- I will wish her speedy strength, and visit her with
- my prayers; but I cannot go thither.
VOLUMNIA:
- Why, I pray you?
VIRGILIA:
- 'Tis not to save labour, nor that I want love.
VALERIA:
- You would be another Penelope: yet, they say, all
- the yarn she spun in Ulysses' absence did but fill
- Ithaca full of moths. Come; I would your cambric
- were sensible as your finger, that you might leave
- pricking it for pity. Come, you shall go with us.
VIRGILIA:
- No, good madam, pardon me; indeed, I will not forth.
VALERIA:
- In truth, la, go with me; and I'll tell you
- excellent news of your husband.
VIRGILIA:
- O, good madam, there can be none yet.
VALERIA:
- Verily, I do not jest with you; there came news from
- him last night.
VALERIA:
- In earnest, it's true; I heard a senator speak it.
- Thus it is: the Volsces have an army forth; against
- whom Cominius the general is gone, with one part of
- our Roman power: your lord and Titus Lartius are set
- down before their city Corioli; they nothing doubt
- prevailing and to make it brief wars. This is true,
- on mine honour; and so, I pray, go with us.
VIRGILIA:
- Give me excuse, good madam; I will obey you in every
- thing hereafter.
VOLUMNIA:
- Let her alone, lady: as she is now, she will but
- disease our better mirth.
VALERIA:
- In troth, I think she would. Fare you well, then.
- Come, good sweet lady. Prithee, Virgilia, turn thy
- solemness out o' door. and go along with us.
VIRGILIA:
- No, at a word, madam; indeed, I must not. I wish
- you much mirth.
VALERIA:
- Well, then, farewell.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT I, SCENE IV. Before Corioli.
[Enter, with drum and colours, MARCIUS, TITUS LARTIUS,
Captains and Soldiers. To them a Messenger]
MARCIUS:
- Yonder comes news. A wager they have met.
LARTIUS:
- My horse to yours, no.
MARCIUS:
- Say, has our general met the enemy?
Messenger:
- They lie in view; but have not spoke as yet.
LARTIUS:
- So, the good horse is mine.
MARCIUS:
- I'll buy him of you.
LARTIUS:
- No, I'll nor sell nor give him: lend you him I will
- For half a hundred years. Summon the town.
MARCIUS:
- How far off lie these armies?
Messenger:
- Within this mile and half.
First Senator:
- No, nor a man that fears you less than he,
- That's lesser than a little.
-
[Drums afar off]
- Hark! our drums
- Are bringing forth our youth. We'll break our walls,
- Rather than they shall pound us up: our gates,
- Which yet seem shut, we, have but pinn'd with rushes;
- They'll open of themselves.
-
[Alarum afar off]
- Hark you. far off!
- There is Aufidius; list, what work he makes
- Amongst your cloven army.
MARCIUS:
- O, they are at it!
First Soldier:
- Fool-hardiness; not I.
Second Soldier:
- Nor I.
-
[MARCIUS is shut in]
First Soldier:
- See, they have shut him in.
All:
- To the pot, I warrant him.
-
[Alarum continues]
-
[Re-enter TITUS LARTIUS]
LARTIUS:
- What is become of Marcius?
All:
- Slain, sir, doubtless.
First Soldier:
- Following the fliers at the very heels,
- With them he enters; who, upon the sudden,
- Clapp'd to their gates: he is himself alone,
- To answer all the city.
First Soldier:
- Look, sir.
ACT I, SCENE V. Corioli. A street.
[Enter certain Romans, with spoils]
First Roman:
- This will I carry to Rome.
Second Roman:
- And I this.
MARCIUS:
- See here these movers that do prize their hours
- At a crack'd drachm! Cushions, leaden spoons,
- Irons of a doit, doublets that hangmen would
- Bury with those that wore them, these base slaves,
- Ere yet the fight be done, pack up: down with them!
- And hark, what noise the general makes! To him!
- There is the man of my soul's hate, Aufidius,
- Piercing our Romans: then, valiant Titus, take
- Convenient numbers to make good the city;
- Whilst I, with those that have the spirit, will haste
- To help Cominius.
LARTIUS:
- Worthy sir, thou bleed'st;
- Thy exercise hath been too violent for
- A second course of fight.
MARCIUS:
- Sir, praise me not;
- My work hath yet not warm'd me: fare you well:
- The blood I drop is rather physical
- Than dangerous to me: to Aufidius thus
- I will appear, and fight.
LARTIUS:
- Now the fair goddess, Fortune,
- Fall deep in love with thee; and her great charms
- Misguide thy opposers' swords! Bold gentleman,
- Prosperity be thy page!
MARCIUS:
- Thy friend no less
- Than those she placeth highest! So, farewell.
LARTIUS:
- Thou worthiest Marcius!
-
[Exit MARCIUS]
- Go, sound thy trumpet in the market-place;
- Call thither all the officers o' the town,
- Where they shall know our mind: away!
-
[Exeunt]
ACT I, SCENE VI. Near the camp of Cominius.
[Enter COMINIUS, as it were in retire, with soldiers]
COMINIUS:
- Breathe you, my friends: well fought;
- we are come off
- Like Romans, neither foolish in our stands,
- Nor cowardly in retire: believe me, sirs,
- We shall be charged again. Whiles we have struck,
- By interims and conveying gusts we have heard
- The charges of our friends. Ye Roman gods!
- Lead their successes as we wish our own,
- That both our powers, with smiling
- fronts encountering,
- May give you thankful sacrifice.
-
[Enter a Messenger]
- Thy news?
Messenger:
- The citizens of Corioli have issued,
- And given to Lartius and to Marcius battle:
- I saw our party to their trenches driven,
- And then I came away.
COMINIUS:
- Though thou speak'st truth,
- Methinks thou speak'st not well.
- How long is't since?
Messenger:
- Above an hour, my lord.
COMINIUS:
- 'Tis not a mile; briefly we heard their drums:
- How couldst thou in a mile confound an hour,
- And bring thy news so late?
Messenger:
- Spies of the Volsces
- Held me in chase, that I was forced to wheel
- Three or four miles about, else had I, sir,
- Half an hour since brought my report.
COMINIUS:
- Who's yonder,
- That does appear as he were flay'd? O gods
- He has the stamp of Marcius; and I have
- Before-time seen him thus.
MARCIUS:
-
[Within]
- Come I too late?
COMINIUS:
- The shepherd knows not thunder from a tabour
- More than I know the sound of Marcius' tongue
- From every meaner man.
-
[Enter MARCIUS]
MARCIUS:
- Come I too late?
COMINIUS:
- Ay, if you come not in the blood of others,
- But mantled in your own.
MARCIUS:
- O, let me clip ye
- In arms as sound as when I woo'd, in heart
- As merry as when our nuptial day was done,
- And tapers burn'd to bedward!
COMINIUS:
- Flower of warriors,
- How is it 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;
- Holding Corioli in the name of Rome,
- Even like a fawning greyhound in the leash,
- To let him slip at will.
COMINIUS:
- Where is that slave
- Which told me they had beat you to your trenches?
- Where is he? call him hither.
MARCIUS:
- Let him alone;
- He did inform the truth: but for our gentlemen,
- The common file--a plague! tribunes for them!--
- The mouse ne'er shunn'd the cat as they did budge
- From rascals worse than they.
COMINIUS:
- But how prevail'd you?
MARCIUS:
- Will the time serve to tell? I do not think.
- Where is the enemy? are you lords o' the field?
- If not, why cease you till you are so?
COMINIUS:
- Marcius,
- We have at disadvantage fought and did
- Retire to win our purpose.
MARCIUS:
- How lies their battle? know you on which side
- They have placed their men of trust?
COMINIUS:
- As I guess, Marcius,
- Their bands i' the vaward are the Antiates,
- Of their best trust; o'er them Aufidius,
- Their very heart of hope.
MARCIUS:
- I do beseech you,
- By all the battles wherein we have fought,
- By the blood we have shed together, by the vows
- We have made to endure friends, that you directly
- Set me against Aufidius and his Antiates;
- And that you not delay the present, but,
- Filling the air with swords advanced and darts,
- We prove this very hour.
COMINIUS:
- Though I could wish
- You were conducted to a gentle bath
- And balms applied to, you, yet dare I never
- Deny your asking: take your choice of those
- That best can aid your action.
COMINIUS:
- March on, my fellows:
- Make good this ostentation, and you shall
- Divide in all with us.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT I, SCENE VII. The gates of Corioli.
[TITUS LARTIUS, having set a guard upon Corioli,
going with drum and trumpet toward COMINIUS and CAIUS MARCIUS,
enters with Lieutenant, other Soldiers, and a Scout]
LARTIUS:
- So, let the ports be guarded: keep your duties,
- As I have set them down. If I do send, dispatch
- Those centuries to our aid: the rest will serve
- For a short holding: if we lose the field,
- We cannot keep the town.
Lieutenant:
- Fear not our care, sir.
LARTIUS:
- Hence, and shut your gates upon's.
- Our guider, come; to the Roman camp conduct us.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT I, SCENE VIII. A field of battle.
[Alarum as in battle. Enter, from opposite sides, MARCIUS and AUFIDIUS]
MARCIUS:
- I'll fight with none but thee; for I do hate thee
- Worse than a promise-breaker.
AUFIDIUS:
- We hate alike:
- Not Afric owns a serpent I abhor
- More than thy fame and envy. Fix thy foot.
MARCIUS:
- Let the first budger die the other's slave,
- And the gods doom him after!
AUFIDIUS:
- If I fly, Marcius,
- Holloa me like a hare.
MARCIUS:
- Within these three hours, Tullus,
- Alone I fought in your Corioli walls,
- And made what work I pleased: 'tis not my blood
- Wherein thou seest me mask'd; for thy revenge
- Wrench up thy power to the highest.
ACT I, SCENE IX. The Roman camp.
[Flourish. Alarum. A retreat is sounded. Flourish. Enter,
from one side, COMINIUS with the Romans;
from the other side, MARCIUS, with his arm in a scarf]
LARTIUS:
- O general,
- Here is the steed, we the caparison:
- Hadst thou beheld--
MARCIUS:
- Pray now, no more: my mother,
- Who has a charter to extol her blood,
- When she does praise me grieves me. I have done
- As you have done; that's what I can; induced
- As you have been; that's for my country:
- He that has but effected his good will
- Hath overta'en mine act.
COMINIUS:
- You shall not be
- The grave of your deserving; Rome must know
- The value of her own: 'twere a concealment
- Worse than a theft, no less than a traducement,
- To hide your doings; and to silence that,
- Which, to the spire and top of praises vouch'd,
- Would seem but modest: therefore, I beseech you
- In sign of what you are, not to reward
- What you have done--before our army hear me.
MARCIUS:
- I have some wounds upon me, and they smart
- To hear themselves remember'd.
COMINIUS:
- Should they not,
- Well might they fester 'gainst ingratitude,
- And tent themselves with death. Of all the horses,
- Whereof we have ta'en good and good store, of all
- The treasure in this field achieved and city,
- We render you the tenth, to be ta'en forth,
- Before the common distribution, at
- Your only choice.
MARCIUS:
- May these same instruments, which you profane,
- Never sound more! when drums and trumpets shall
- I' the field prove flatterers, let courts and cities be
- Made all of false-faced soothing!
- When steel grows soft as the parasite's silk,
- Let him be made a coverture for the wars!
- No more, I say! For that I have not wash'd
- My nose that bled, or foil'd some debile wretch.--
- Which, without note, here's many else have done,--
- You shout me forth
- In acclamations hyperbolical;
- As if I loved my little should be dieted
- In praises sauced with lies.
All:
- Caius Marcius Coriolanus!
CORIOLANUS:
- I will go wash;
- And when my face is fair, you shall perceive
- Whether I blush or no: howbeit, I thank you.
- I mean to stride your steed, and at all times
- To undercrest your good addition
- To the fairness of my power.
COMINIUS:
- So, to our tent;
- Where, ere we do repose us, we will write
- To Rome of our success. You, Titus Lartius,
- Must to Corioli back: send us to Rome
- The best, with whom we may articulate,
- For their own good and ours.
LARTIUS:
- I shall, my lord.
CORIOLANUS:
- The gods begin to mock me. I, that now
- Refused most princely gifts, am bound to beg
- Of my lord general.
COMINIUS:
- Take't; 'tis yours. What is't?
CORIOLANUS:
- I sometime lay here in Corioli
- At a poor man's house; he used me kindly:
- He cried to me; I saw him prisoner;
- But then Aufidius was with in my view,
- And wrath o'erwhelm'd my pity: I request you
- To give my poor host freedom.
COMINIUS:
- O, well begg'd!
- Were he the butcher of my son, he should
- Be free as is the wind. Deliver him, Titus.
LARTIUS:
- Marcius, his name?
CORIOLANUS:
- By Jupiter! forgot.
- I am weary; yea, my memory is tired.
- Have we no wine here?
COMINIUS:
- Go we to our tent:
- The blood upon your visage dries; 'tis time
- It should be look'd to: come.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT I, SCENE X. The camp of the Volsces.
[A flourish. Cornets. Enter TULLUS AUFIDIUS, bloody,
with two or three Soldiers]
AUFIDIUS:
- The town is ta'en!
First Soldier:
- 'Twill be deliver'd back on good condition.
AUFIDIUS:
- Condition!
- I would I were a Roman; for I cannot,
- Being a Volsce, be that I am. Condition!
- What good condition can a treaty find
- I' the part that is at mercy? Five times, Marcius,
- I have fought with thee: so often hast thou beat me,
- And wouldst do so, I think, should we encounter
- As often as we eat. By the elements,
- If e'er again I meet him beard to beard,
- He's mine, or I am his: mine emulation
- Hath not that honour in't it had; for where
- I thought to crush him in an equal force,
- True sword to sword, I'll potch at him some way
- Or wrath or craft may get him.
First Soldier:
- He's the devil.
AUFIDIUS:
- Bolder, though not so subtle. My valour's poison'd
- With only suffering stain by him; for him
- Shall fly out of itself: nor sleep nor sanctuary,
- Being naked, sick, nor fane nor Capitol,
- The prayers of priests nor times of sacrifice,
- Embarquements all of fury, shall lift up
- Their rotten privilege and custom 'gainst
- My hate to Marcius: where I find him, were it
- At home, upon my brother's guard, even there,
- Against the hospitable canon, would I
- Wash my fierce hand in's heart. Go you to the city;
- Learn how 'tis held; and what they are that must
- Be hostages for Rome.
First Soldier:
- Will not you go?
AUFIDIUS:
- I am attended at the cypress grove: I pray you--
- 'Tis south the city mills--bring me word thither
- How the world goes, that to the pace of it
- I may spur on my journey.
First Soldier:
- I shall, sir.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT III
ACT III, SCENE I. Rome. A street.
[Cornets. Enter CORIOLANUS, MENENIUS, all the Gentry,
COMINIUS, TITUS LARTIUS, and other Senators]
CORIOLANUS:
- Tullus Aufidius then had made new head?
LARTIUS:
- He had, my lord; and that it was which caused
- Our swifter composition.
CORIOLANUS:
- So then the Volsces stand but as at first,
- Ready, when time shall prompt them, to make road.
- Upon's again.
COMINIUS:
- They are worn, lord consul, so,
- That we shall hardly in our ages see
- Their banners wave again.
CORIOLANUS:
- Saw you Aufidius?
LARTIUS:
- On safe-guard he came to me; and did curse
- Against the Volsces, for they had so vilely
- Yielded the town: he is retired to Antium.
CORIOLANUS:
- Spoke he of me?
LARTIUS:
- He did, my lord.
LARTIUS:
- How often he had met you, sword to sword;
- That of all things upon the earth he hated
- Your person most, that he would pawn his fortunes
- To hopeless restitution, so he might
- Be call'd your vanquisher.
CORIOLANUS:
- At Antium lives he?
SICINIUS:
- Pass no further.
CORIOLANUS:
- Ha! what is that?
BRUTUS:
- It will be dangerous to go on: no further.
CORIOLANUS:
- What makes this change?
COMINIUS:
- Hath he not pass'd the noble and the common?
CORIOLANUS:
- Have I had children's voices?
First Senator:
- Tribunes, give way; he shall to the market-place.
BRUTUS:
- The people are incensed against him.
SICINIUS:
- Stop,
- Or all will fall in broil.
CORIOLANUS:
- Are these your herd?
- Must these have voices, that can yield them now
- And straight disclaim their tongues? What are
- your offices?
- You being their mouths, why rule you not their teeth?
- Have you not set them on?
MENENIUS:
- Be calm, be calm.
CORIOLANUS:
- It is a purposed thing, and grows by plot,
- To curb the will of the nobility:
- Suffer't, and live with such as cannot rule
- Nor ever will be ruled.
BRUTUS:
- Call't not a plot:
- The people cry you mock'd them, and of late,
- When corn was given them gratis, you repined;
- Scandal'd the suppliants for the people, call'd them
- Time-pleasers, flatterers, foes to nobleness.
CORIOLANUS:
- Why, this was known before.
CORIOLANUS:
- Have you inform'd them sithence?
BRUTUS:
- How! I inform them!
CORIOLANUS:
- You are like to do such business.
BRUTUS:
- Not unlike,
- Each way, to better yours.
CORIOLANUS:
- Why then should I be consul? By yond clouds,
- Let me deserve so ill as you, and make me
- Your fellow tribune.
SICINIUS:
- You show too much of that
- For which the people stir: if you will pass
- To where you are bound, you must inquire your way,
- Which you are out of, with a gentler spirit,
- Or never be so noble as a consul,
- Nor yoke with him for tribune.
COMINIUS:
- The people are abused; set on. This paltering
- Becomes not Rome, nor has Coriolanus
- Deserved this so dishonour'd rub, laid falsely
- I' the plain way of his merit.
CORIOLANUS:
- Tell me of corn!
- This was my speech, and I will speak't again--
MENENIUS:
- Not now, not now.
First Senator:
- Not in this heat, sir, now.
CORIOLANUS:
- Now, as I live, I will. My nobler friends,
- I crave their pardons:
- For the mutable, rank-scented many, let them
- Regard me as I do not flatter, and
- Therein behold themselves: I say again,
- In soothing them, we nourish 'gainst our senate
- The cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition,
- Which we ourselves have plough'd for, sow'd,
- and scatter'd,
- By mingling them with us, the honour'd number,
- Who lack not virtue, no, nor power, but that
- Which they have given to beggars.
First Senator:
- No more words, we beseech you.
CORIOLANUS:
- How! no more!
- As for my country I have shed my blood,
- Not fearing outward force, so shall my lungs
- Coin words till their decay against those measles,
- Which we disdain should tatter us, yet sought
- The very way to catch them.
BRUTUS:
- You speak o' the people,
- As if you were a god to punish, not
- A man of their infirmity.
SICINIUS:
- 'Twere well
- We let the people know't.
MENENIUS:
- What, what? his choler?
CORIOLANUS:
- Choler!
- Were I as patient as the midnight sleep,
- By Jove, 'twould be my mind!
SICINIUS:
- It is a mind
- That shall remain a poison where it is,
- Not poison any further.
CORIOLANUS:
- Shall remain!
- Hear you this Triton of the minnows? mark you
- His absolute 'shall'?
COMINIUS:
- 'Twas from the canon.
CORIOLANUS:
- 'Shall'!
- O good but most unwise patricians! why,
- You grave but reckless senators, have you thus
- Given Hydra here to choose an officer,
- That with his peremptory 'shall,' being but
- The horn and noise o' the monster's, wants not spirit
- To say he'll turn your current in a ditch,
- And make your channel his? If he have power
- Then vail your ignorance; if none, awake
- Your dangerous lenity. If you are learn'd,
- Be not as common fools; if you are not,
- Let them have cushions by you. You are plebeians,
- If they be senators: and they are no less,
- When, both your voices blended, the great'st taste
- Most palates theirs. They choose their magistrate,
- And such a one as he, who puts his 'shall,'
- His popular 'shall' against a graver bench
- Than ever frown in Greece. By Jove himself!
- It makes the consuls base: and my soul aches
- To know, when two authorities are up,
- Neither supreme, how soon confusion
- May enter 'twixt the gap of both and take
- The one by the other.
COMINIUS:
- Well, on to the market-place.
CORIOLANUS:
- Whoever gave that counsel, to give forth
- The corn o' the storehouse gratis, as 'twas used
- Sometime in Greece,--
MENENIUS:
- Well, well, no more of that.
CORIOLANUS:
- Though there the people had more absolute power,
- I say, they nourish'd disobedience, fed
- The ruin of the state.
BRUTUS:
- Why, shall the people give
- One that speaks thus their voice?
CORIOLANUS:
- I'll give my reasons,
- More worthier than their voices. They know the corn
- Was not our recompense, resting well assured
- That ne'er did service for't: being press'd to the war,
- Even when the navel of the state was touch'd,
- They would not thread the gates. This kind of service
- Did not deserve corn gratis. Being i' the war
- Their mutinies and revolts, wherein they show'd
- Most valour, spoke not for them: the accusation
- Which they have often made against the senate,
- All cause unborn, could never be the motive
- Of our so frank donation. Well, what then?
- How shall this bisson multitude digest
- The senate's courtesy? Let deeds express
- What's like to be their words: 'we did request it;
- We are the greater poll, and in true fear
- They gave us our demands.' Thus we debase
- The nature of our seats and make the rabble
- Call our cares fears; which will in time
- Break ope the locks o' the senate and bring in
- The crows to peck the eagles.
BRUTUS:
- Enough, with over-measure.
CORIOLANUS:
- No, take more:
- What may be sworn by, both divine and human,
- Seal what I end withal! This double worship,
- Where one part does disdain with cause, the other
- Insult without all reason, where gentry, title, wisdom,
- Cannot conclude but by the yea and no
- Of general ignorance,--it must omit
- Real necessities, and give way the while
- To unstable slightness: purpose so barr'd,
- it follows,
- Nothing is done to purpose. Therefore, beseech you,--
- You that will be less fearful than discreet,
- That love the fundamental part of state
- More than you doubt the change on't, that prefer
- A noble life before a long, and wish
- To jump a body with a dangerous physic
- That's sure of death without it, at once pluck out
- The multitudinous tongue; let them not lick
- The sweet which is their poison: your dishonour
- Mangles true judgment and bereaves the state
- Of that integrity which should become't,
- Not having the power to do the good it would,
- For the in which doth control't.
SICINIUS:
- Has spoken like a traitor, and shall answer
- As traitors do.
CORIOLANUS:
- Thou wretch, despite o'erwhelm thee!
- What should the people do with these bald tribunes?
- On whom depending, their obedience fails
- To the greater bench: in a rebellion,
- When what's not meet, but what must be, was law,
- Then were they chosen: in a better hour,
- Let what is meet be said it must be meet,
- And throw their power i' the dust.
BRUTUS:
- Manifest treason!
SICINIUS:
- This a consul? no.
BRUTUS:
- The aediles, ho!
-
[Enter an AEdile]
- Let him be apprehended.
SICINIUS:
- Go, call the people:
-
[Exit AEdile]
- in whose name myself
- Attach thee as a traitorous innovator,
- A foe to the public weal: obey, I charge thee,
- And follow to thine answer.
CORIOLANUS:
- Hence, old goat!
- Senators, & C We'll surety him.
COMINIUS:
- Aged sir, hands off.
CORIOLANUS:
- Hence, rotten thing! or I shall shake thy bones
- Out of thy garments.
MENENIUS:
- On both sides more respect.
SICINIUS:
- Here's he that would take from you all your power.
BRUTUS:
- Seize him, AEdiles!
MENENIUS:
- What is about to be? I am out of breath;
- Confusion's near; I cannot speak. You, tribunes
- To the people! Coriolanus, patience!
- Speak, good Sicinius.
SICINIUS:
- Hear me, people; peace!
Citizens:
- Let's hear our tribune: peace Speak, speak, speak.
SICINIUS:
- You are at point to lose your liberties:
- Marcius would have all from you; Marcius,
- Whom late you have named for consul.
MENENIUS:
- Fie, fie, fie!
- This is the way to kindle, not to quench.
First Senator:
- To unbuild the city and to lay all flat.
SICINIUS:
- What is the city but the people?
Citizens:
- True,
- The people are the city.
BRUTUS:
- By the consent of all, we were establish'd
- The people's magistrates.
MENENIUS:
- And so are like to do.
COMINIUS:
- That is the way to lay the city flat;
- To bring the roof to the foundation,
- And bury all, which yet distinctly ranges,
- In heaps and piles of ruin.
SICINIUS:
- This deserves death.
BRUTUS:
- Or let us stand to our authority,
- Or let us lose it. We do here pronounce,
- Upon the part o' the people, in whose power
- We were elected theirs, Marcius is worthy
- Of present death.
SICINIUS:
- Therefore lay hold of him;
- Bear him to the rock Tarpeian, and from thence
- Into destruction cast him.
BRUTUS:
- AEdiles, seize him!
Citizens:
- Yield, Marcius, yield!
MENENIUS:
- Hear me one word;
- Beseech you, tribunes, hear me but a word.
MENENIUS:
-
[To BRUTUS]
- Be that you seem, truly your
- country's friend,
- And temperately proceed to what you would
- Thus violently redress.
BRUTUS:
- Sir, those cold ways,
- That seem like prudent helps, are very poisonous
- Where the disease is violent. Lay hands upon him,
- And bear him to the rock.
CORIOLANUS:
- No, I'll die here.
-
[Drawing his sword]
- There's some among you have beheld me fighting:
- Come, try upon yourselves what you have seen me.
MENENIUS:
- Down with that sword! Tribunes, withdraw awhile.
BRUTUS:
- Lay hands upon him.
COMINIUS:
- Help Marcius, help,
- You that be noble; help him, young and old!
Citizens:
- Down with him, down with him!
-
[In this mutiny, the Tribunes, the AEdiles, and the People, are beat in]
MENENIUS:
- Go, get you to your house; be gone, away!
- All will be naught else.
Second Senator:
- Get you gone.
COMINIUS:
- Stand fast;
- We have as many friends as enemies.
MENENIUS:
- Sham it be put to that?
First Senator:
- The gods forbid!
- I prithee, noble friend, home to thy house;
- Leave us to cure this cause.
MENENIUS:
- For 'tis a sore upon us,
- You cannot tent yourself: be gone, beseech you.
COMINIUS:
- Come, sir, along with us.
CORIOLANUS:
- I would they were barbarians--as they are,
- Though in Rome litter'd--not Romans--as they are not,
- Though calved i' the porch o' the Capitol--
MENENIUS:
- Be gone;
- Put not your worthy rage into your tongue;
- One time will owe another.
CORIOLANUS:
- On fair ground
- I could beat forty of them.
COMINIUS:
- I could myself
- Take up a brace o' the best of them; yea, the
- two tribunes:
- But now 'tis odds beyond arithmetic;
- And manhood is call'd foolery, when it stands
- Against a falling fabric. Will you hence,
- Before the tag return? whose rage doth rend
- Like interrupted waters and o'erbear
- What they are used to bear.
MENENIUS:
- Pray you, be gone:
- I'll try whether my old wit be in request
- With those that have but little: this must be patch'd
- With cloth of any colour.
A Patrician:
- This man has marr'd his fortune.
MENENIUS:
- His nature is too noble for the world:
- He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,
- Or Jove for's power to thunder. His heart's his mouth:
- What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent;
- And, being angry, does forget that ever
- He heard the name of death.
-
[A noise within]
- Here's goodly work!
Second Patrician:
- I would they were abed!
SICINIUS:
- Where is this viper
- That would depopulate the city and
- Be every man himself?
MENENIUS:
- You worthy tribunes,--
SICINIUS:
- He shall be thrown down the Tarpeian rock
- With rigorous hands: he hath resisted law,
- And therefore law shall scorn him further trial
- Than the severity of the public power
- Which he so sets at nought.
First Citizen:
- He shall well know
- The noble tribunes are the people's mouths,
- And we their hands.
Citizens:
- He shall, sure on't.
MENENIUS:
- Do not cry havoc, where you should but hunt
- With modest warrant.
SICINIUS:
- Sir, how comes't that you
- Have holp to make this rescue?
MENENIUS:
- Hear me speak:
- As I do know the consul's worthiness,
- So can I name his faults,--
SICINIUS:
- Consul! what consul?
MENENIUS:
- The consul Coriolanus.
Citizens:
- No, no, no, no, no.
MENENIUS:
- If, by the tribunes' leave, and yours, good people,
- I may be heard, I would crave a word or two;
- The which shall turn you to no further harm
- Than so much loss of time.
SICINIUS:
- Speak briefly then;
- For we are peremptory to dispatch
- This viperous traitor: to eject him hence
- Were but one danger, and to keep him here
- Our certain death: therefore it is decreed
- He dies to-night.
MENENIUS:
- Now the good gods forbid
- That our renowned Rome, whose gratitude
- Towards her deserved children is enroll'd
- In Jove's own book, like an unnatural dam
- Should now eat up her own!
SICINIUS:
- He's a disease that must be cut away.
MENENIUS:
- O, he's a limb that has but a disease;
- Mortal, to cut it off; to cure it, easy.
- What has he done to Rome that's worthy death?
- Killing our enemies, the blood he hath lost--
- Which, I dare vouch, is more than that he hath,
- By many an ounce--he dropp'd it for his country;
- And what is left, to lose it by his country,
- Were to us all, that do't and suffer it,
- A brand to the end o' the world.
SICINIUS:
- This is clean kam.
BRUTUS:
- Merely awry: when he did love his country,
- It honour'd him.
MENENIUS:
- The service of the foot
- Being once gangrened, is not then respected
- For what before it was.
BRUTUS:
- We'll hear no more.
- Pursue him to his house, and pluck him thence:
- Lest his infection, being of catching nature,
- Spread further.
MENENIUS:
- One word more, one word.
- This tiger-footed rage, when it shall find
- The harm of unscann'd swiftness, will too late
- Tie leaden pounds to's heels. Proceed by process;
- Lest parties, as he is beloved, break out,
- And sack great Rome with Romans.
SICINIUS:
- What do ye talk?
- Have we not had a taste of his obedience?
- Our aediles smote? ourselves resisted? Come.
MENENIUS:
- Consider this: he has been bred i' the wars
- Since he could draw a sword, and is ill school'd
- In bolted language; meal and bran together
- He throws without distinction. Give me leave,
- I'll go to him, and undertake to bring him
- Where he shall answer, by a lawful form,
- In peace, to his utmost peril.
First Senator:
- Noble tribunes,
- It is the humane way: the other course
- Will prove too bloody, and the end of it
- Unknown to the beginning.
SICINIUS:
- Noble Menenius,
- Be you then as the people's officer.
- Masters, lay down your weapons.
SICINIUS:
- Meet on the market-place. We'll attend you there:
- Where, if you bring not Marcius, we'll proceed
- In our first way.
MENENIUS:
- I'll bring him to you.
- To the Senators
- Let me desire your company: he must come,
- Or what is worst will follow.
First Senator:
- Pray you, let's to him.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT III, SCENE II. A room in CORIOLANUS'S house.
[Enter CORIOLANUS with Patricians]
CORIOLANUS:
- Let them puff 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
- Below the beam of sight, yet will I still
- Be thus to them.
A Patrician:
- You do the nobler.
CORIOLANUS:
- I muse my mother
- Does not approve me further, who was wont
- To 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]
- I 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,
- I would have had you put your power well on,
- Before you had worn it out.
VOLUMNIA:
- You might have been enough the man you are,
- With striving less to be so; lesser had been
- The thwartings of your dispositions, if
- You had not show'd them how ye were disposed
- Ere they lack'd power to cross you.
CORIOLANUS:
- Let them hang.
MENENIUS:
- Come, 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:
- Pray, be counsell'd:
- 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?
- Before he should thus stoop to the herd, but that
- The violent fit o' the 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:
- Return to the 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:
- You are too absolute;
- Though therein you can never be too noble,
- But when extremities speak. I have heard you say,
- Honour and policy, like unsever'd friends,
- I' the war do grow together: grant that, and tell me,
- In peace what each of them by the other lose,
- That they combine not there.
VOLUMNIA:
- If it be honour in your wars to seem
- The 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:
- Why force you this?
VOLUMNIA:
- Because that now it lies you on to speak
- To the people; not by your own instruction,
- Nor by the matter which your heart prompts you,
- But with such words that are but rooted in
- Your 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
- The 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;
- And 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!
- Come, 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;
- And thus far having stretch'd it--here be with them--
- Thy knee bussing the stones--for in such business
- Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant
- More learned than the ears--waving thy head,
- Which often, thus, correcting thy stout heart,
- Now 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,
- In 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;
- For they have pardons, being ask'd, 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
- Than flatter him in a bower. Here is Cominius.
-
[Enter COMINIUS]
COMINIUS:
- I have been i' the market-place; and, sir,'tis fit
- You make strong party, or defend yourself
- By calmness or by absence: all's in anger.
MENENIUS:
- Only 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:
- Must I go show them my unbarbed sconce?
- Must I with base tongue give 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 Marcius, they to dust should grind it
- And throw't against the wind. To the market-place!
- You have put me now to such a part which never
- I shall discharge to the life.
COMINIUS:
- Come, come, we'll prompt you.
VOLUMNIA:
- I prithee now, sweet son, as thou hast said
- My 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
- Some harlot's spirit! my throat of war be turn'd,
- Which quired 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
- The glasses of my sight! a beggar's tongue
- Make motion through my lips, and my arm'd knees,
- Who bow'd 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
- And 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
- Thy 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:
- Pray, be content:
- Mother, I am going to the market-place;
- 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:
- Commend me to my wife. I'll return consul;
- Or never trust to what my tongue can do
- I' the way of flattery further.
VOLUMNIA:
- Do your will.
-
[Exit]
COMINIUS:
- Away! the tribunes do attend you: arm yourself
- To 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
- Will answer in mine honour.
MENENIUS:
- Ay, but mildly.
CORIOLANUS:
- Well, mildly be it then. Mildly!
-
[Exeunt]
ACT III, SCENE III. The Forum.
[Enter SICINIUS and BRUTUS]
BRUTUS:
- In this point charge him home, that he affects
- Tyrannical power: if he evade us there,
- Enforce him with his envy to the people,
- And that the spoil got on the Antiates
- Was ne'er distributed.
-
[Enter an AEdile]
- What, will he come?
AEdile:
- With old Menenius, and those senators
- That always favour'd him.
SICINIUS:
- Have you a catalogue
- Of all the voices that we have procured
- Set down by the poll?
AEdile:
- I have; 'tis ready.
SICINIUS:
- Have you collected them by tribes?
SICINIUS:
- Assemble presently the people hither;
- And when they bear me say 'It shall be so
- I' the right and strength o' the commons,' be it either
- For death, for fine, or banishment, then let them
- If I say fine, cry 'Fine;' if death, cry 'Death.'
- Insisting on the old prerogative
- And power i' the truth o' the cause.
AEdile:
- I shall inform them.
BRUTUS:
- And when such time they have begun to cry,
- Let them not cease, but with a din confused
- Enforce the present execution
- Of what we chance to sentence.
SICINIUS:
- Make them be strong and ready for this hint,
- When we shall hap to give 't them.
BRUTUS:
- Go about it.
-
[Exit AEdile]
- Put him to choler straight: he hath been used
- Ever to conquer, and to have his worth
- Of contradiction: being once chafed, he cannot
- Be rein'd again to temperance; then he speaks
- What's in his heart; and that is there which looks
- With us to break his neck.
MENENIUS:
- Calmly, I do beseech you.
CORIOLANUS:
- Ay, as an ostler, that for the poorest piece
- Will bear the knave by the volume. The honour'd gods
- Keep Rome in safety, and the chairs of justice
- Supplied with worthy men! plant love among 's!
- Throng our large temples with the shows of peace,
- And not our streets with war!
First Senator:
- Amen, amen.
SICINIUS:
- Draw near, ye people.
AEdile:
- List to your tribunes. Audience: peace, I say!
CORIOLANUS:
- First, hear me speak.
Both Tribunes:
- Well, say. Peace, ho!
CORIOLANUS:
- Shall I be charged no further than this present?
- Must all determine here?
SICINIUS:
- I do demand,
- If you submit you to the people's voices,
- Allow their officers and are content
- To suffer lawful censure for such faults
- As shall be proved upon you?
CORIOLANUS:
- I am content.
MENENIUS:
- Lo, citizens, he says he is content:
- The warlike service he has done, consider; think
- Upon the wounds his body bears, which show
- Like graves i' the holy churchyard.
CORIOLANUS:
- Scratches with briers,
- Scars to move laughter only.
MENENIUS:
- Consider further,
- That when he speaks not like a citizen,
- You find him like a soldier: do not take
- His rougher accents for malicious sounds,
- But, as I say, such as become a soldier,
- Rather than envy you.
COMINIUS:
- Well, well, no more.
CORIOLANUS:
- What is the matter
- That being pass'd for consul with full voice,
- I am so dishonour'd that the very hour
- You take it off again?
CORIOLANUS:
- Say, then: 'tis true, I ought so.
SICINIUS:
- We charge you, that you have contrived to take
- From Rome all season'd office and to wind
- Yourself into a power tyrannical;
- For which you are a traitor to the people.
CORIOLANUS:
- How! traitor!
MENENIUS:
- Nay, temperately; your promise.
CORIOLANUS:
- The fires i' the lowest hell fold-in the people!
- Call me their traitor! Thou injurious tribune!
- Within thine eyes sat twenty thousand deaths,
- In thy hand clutch'd as many millions, in
- Thy lying tongue both numbers, I would say
- 'Thou liest' unto thee with a voice as free
- As I do pray the gods.
SICINIUS:
- Mark you this, people?
Citizens:
- To the rock, to the rock with him!
SICINIUS:
- Peace!
- We need not put new matter to his charge:
- What you have seen him do and heard him speak,
- Beating your officers, cursing yourselves,
- Opposing laws with strokes and here defying
- Those whose great power must try him; even this,
- So criminal and in such capital kind,
- Deserves the extremest death.
BRUTUS:
- But since he hath
- Served well for Rome,--
CORIOLANUS:
- What do you prate of service?
BRUTUS:
- I talk of that, that know it.
MENENIUS:
- Is this the promise that you made your mother?
COMINIUS:
- Know, I pray you,--
CORIOLANUS:
- I know no further:
- Let them pronounce the steep Tarpeian death,
- Vagabond exile, raying, pent to linger
- But with a grain a day, I would not buy
- Their mercy at the price of one fair word;
- Nor cheque my courage for what they can give,
- To have't with saying 'Good morrow.'
SICINIUS:
- For that he has,
- As much as in him lies, from time to time
- Envied against the people, seeking means
- To pluck away their power, as now at last
- Given hostile strokes, and that not in the presence
- Of dreaded justice, but on the ministers
- That do distribute it; in the name o' the people
- And in the power of us the tribunes, we,
- Even from this instant, banish him our city,
- In peril of precipitation
- From off the rock Tarpeian never more
- To enter our Rome gates: i' the people's name,
- I say it shall be so.
Citizens:
- It shall be so, it shall be so; let him away:
- He's banish'd, and it shall be so.
COMINIUS:
- Hear me, my masters, and my common friends,--
SICINIUS:
- He's sentenced; no more hearing.
COMINIUS:
- Let me speak:
- I have been consul, and can show for Rome
- Her enemies' marks upon me. I do love
- My country's good with a respect more tender,
- More holy and profound, than mine own life,
- My dear wife's estimate, her womb's increase,
- And treasure of my loins; then if I would
- Speak that,--
SICINIUS:
- We know your drift: speak what?
BRUTUS:
- There's no more to be said, but he is banish'd,
- As enemy to the people and his country:
- It shall be so.
Citizens:
- It shall be so, it shall be so.
CORIOLANUS:
- You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate
- As reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize
- As the dead carcasses of unburied men
- That do corrupt my air, I banish you;
- And here remain with your uncertainty!
- Let every feeble rumour shake your hearts!
- Your enemies, with nodding of their plumes,
- Fan you into despair! Have the power still
- To banish your defenders; till at length
- Your ignorance, which finds not till it feels,
- Making not reservation of yourselves,
- Still your own foes, deliver you as most
- Abated captives to some nation
- That won you without blows! Despising,
- For you, the city, thus I turn my back:
- There is a world elsewhere.
-
[Exeunt CORIOLANUS, COMINIUS, MENENIUS, Senators, and Patricians]
AEdile:
- The people's enemy is gone, is gone!
SICINIUS:
- Go, see him out at gates, and follow him,
- As he hath followed you, with all despite;
- Give him deserved vexation. Let a guard
- Attend us through the city.
Citizens:
- Come, come; let's see him out at gates; come.
- The gods preserve our noble tribunes! Come.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT IV
ACT IV, SCENE I. Rome. Before a gate of the city.
[Enter CORIOLANUS, VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, MENENIUS,
COMINIUS, with the young Nobility of Rome]
CORIOLANUS:
- Come, leave your tears: a brief farewell: the beast
- With many heads butts me away. Nay, mother,
- Where is your ancient courage? you were used
- To say extremity was the trier of spirits;
- That common chances common men could bear;
- That when the sea was calm all boats alike
- Show'd mastership in floating; fortune's blows,
- When most struck home, being gentle wounded, craves
- A noble cunning: you were used to load me
- With precepts that would make invincible
- The heart that conn'd them.
VIRGILIA:
- O heavens! O heavens!
CORIOLANUS:
- Nay! prithee, woman,--
VOLUMNIA:
- Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome,
- And occupations perish!
CORIOLANUS:
- What, what, what!
- I shall be loved when I am lack'd. Nay, mother.
- Resume that spirit, when you were wont to say,
- If you had been the wife of Hercules,
- Six of his labours you'ld have done, and saved
- Your husband so much sweat. Cominius,
- Droop not; adieu. Farewell, my wife, my mother:
- I'll do well yet. Thou old and true Menenius,
- Thy tears are salter than a younger man's,
- And venomous to thine eyes. My sometime general,
- I have seen thee stem, and thou hast oft beheld
- Heart-hardening spectacles; tell these sad women
- 'Tis fond to wail inevitable strokes,
- As 'tis to laugh at 'em. My mother, you wot well
- My hazards still have been your solace: and
- Believe't not lightly--though I go alone,
- Like to a lonely dragon, that his fen
- Makes fear'd and talk'd of more than seen--your son
- Will or exceed the common or be caught
- With cautelous baits and practise.
VOLUMNIA:
- My first son.
- Whither wilt thou go? Take good Cominius
- With thee awhile: determine on some course,
- More than a wild exposture to each chance
- That starts i' the way before thee.
COMINIUS:
- I'll follow thee a month, devise with thee
- Where thou shalt rest, that thou mayst hear of us
- And we of thee: so if the time thrust forth
- A cause for thy repeal, we shall not send
- O'er the vast world to seek a single man,
- And lose advantage, which doth ever cool
- I' the absence of the needer.
CORIOLANUS:
- Fare ye well:
- Thou hast years upon thee; and thou art too full
- Of the wars' surfeits, to go rove with one
- That's yet unbruised: bring me but out at gate.
- Come, my sweet wife, my dearest mother, and
- My friends of noble touch, when I am forth,
- Bid me farewell, and smile. I pray you, come.
- While I remain above the ground, you shall
- Hear from me still, and never of me aught
- But what is like me formerly.
MENENIUS:
- That's worthily
- As any ear can hear. Come, let's not weep.
- If I could shake off but one seven years
- From these old arms and legs, by the good gods,
- I'ld with thee every foot.
CORIOLANUS:
- Give me thy hand: Come.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT IV, SCENE II. The same. A street near the gate.
[Enter SICINIUS, BRUTUS, and an AEdile]
SICINIUS:
- Bid them all home; he's gone, and we'll no further.
- The nobility are vex'd, whom we see have sided
- In his behalf.
BRUTUS:
- Now we have shown our power,
- Let us seem humbler after it is done
- Than when it was a-doing.
SICINIUS:
- Bid them home:
- Say their great enemy is gone, and they
- Stand in their ancient strength.
BRUTUS:
- Dismiss them home.
-
[Exit AEdile]
- Here comes his mother.
SICINIUS:
- Let's not meet her.
SICINIUS:
- They say she's mad.
VOLUMNIA:
- O, ye're well met: the hoarded plague o' the gods
- Requite your love!
MENENIUS:
- Peace, peace; be not so loud.
VOLUMNIA:
- If that I could for weeping, you should hear,--
- Nay, and you shall hear some.
-
[To BRUTUS]
- Will you be gone?
VIRGILIA:
-
[To SICINIUS]
- You shall stay too: I would I had the power
- To say so to my husband.
SICINIUS:
- Are you mankind?
VOLUMNIA:
- Ay, fool; is that a shame? Note but this fool.
- Was not a man my father? Hadst thou foxship
- To banish him that struck more blows for Rome
- Than thou hast spoken words?
SICINIUS:
- O blessed heavens!
VOLUMNIA:
- More noble blows than ever thou wise words;
- And for Rome's good. I'll tell thee what; yet go:
- Nay, but thou shalt stay too: I would my son
- Were in Arabia, and thy tribe before him,
- His good sword in his hand.
VIRGILIA:
- What then!
- He'ld make an end of thy posterity.
VOLUMNIA:
- Bastards and all.
- Good man, the wounds that he does bear for Rome!
MENENIUS:
- Come, come, peace.
SICINIUS:
- I would he had continued to his country
- As he began, and not unknit himself
- The noble knot he made.
VOLUMNIA:
- 'I would he had'! 'Twas you incensed the rabble:
- Cats, that can judge as fitly of his worth
- As I can of those mysteries which heaven
- Will not have earth to know.
VOLUMNIA:
- Now, pray, sir, get you gone:
- You have done a brave deed. Ere you go, hear this:--
- As far as doth the Capitol exceed
- The meanest house in Rome, so far my son--
- This lady's husband here, this, do you see--
- Whom you have banish'd, does exceed you all.
BRUTUS:
- Well, well, we'll leave you.
SICINIUS:
- Why stay we to be baited
- With one that wants her wits?
VOLUMNIA:
- Take my prayers with you.
-
[Exeunt Tribunes]
- I would the gods had nothing else to do
- But to confirm my curses! Could I meet 'em
- But once a-day, it would unclog my heart
- Of what lies heavy to't.
MENENIUS:
- You have told them home;
- And, by my troth, you have cause. You'll sup with me?
VOLUMNIA:
- Anger's my meat; I sup upon myself,
- And so shall starve with feeding. Come, let's go:
- Leave this faint puling and lament as I do,
- In anger, Juno-like. Come, come, come.
MENENIUS:
- Fie, fie, fie!
-
[Exeunt]
ACT IV, SCENE III. A highway between Rome and Antium.
[Enter a Roman and a Volsce, meeting]
Roman:
- I know you well, sir, and you know
- me: your name, I think, is Adrian.
Volsce:
- It is so, sir: truly, I have forgot you.
Roman:
- I am a Roman; and my services are,
- as you are, against 'em: know you me yet?
Volsce:
- You had more beard when I last saw you; but your
- favour is well approved by your tongue. What's the
- news in Rome? I have a note from the Volscian state,
- to find you out there: you have well saved me a
- day's journey.
Roman:
- There hath been in Rome strange insurrections; the
- people against the senators, patricians, and nobles.
Volsce:
- Hath been! is it ended, then? Our state thinks not
- so: they are in a most warlike preparation, and
- hope to come upon them in the heat of their division.
Roman:
- The main blaze of it is past, but a small thing
- would make it flame again: for the nobles receive
- so to heart the banishment of that worthy
- Coriolanus, that they are in a ripe aptness to take
- all power from the people and to pluck from them
- their tribunes for ever. This lies glowing, I can
- tell you, and is almost mature for the violent
- breaking out.
Volsce:
- Coriolanus banished!
Volsce:
- You will be welcome with this intelligence, Nicanor.
Roman:
- The day serves well for them now. I have heard it
- said, the fittest time to corrupt a man's wife is
- when she's fallen out with her husband. Your noble
- Tullus Aufidius will appear well in these wars, his
- great opposer, Coriolanus, being now in no request
- of his country.
Volsce:
- He cannot choose. I am most fortunate, thus
- accidentally to encounter you: you have ended my
- business, and I will merrily accompany you home.
Roman:
- I shall, between this and supper, tell you most
- strange things from Rome; all tending to the good of
- their adversaries. Have you an army ready, say you?
Volsce:
- A most royal one; the centurions and their charges,
- distinctly billeted, already in the entertainment,
- and to be on foot at an hour's warning.
Roman:
- I am joyful to hear of their readiness, and am the
- man, I think, that shall set them in present action.
- So, sir, heartily well met, and most glad of your company.
Volsce:
- You take my part from me, sir; I have the most cause
- to be glad of yours.
Roman:
- Well, let us go together.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT IV, SCENE IV. Antium. Before Aufidius's house.
[Enter CORIOLANUS in mean apparel, disguised and muffled]
CORIOLANUS:
- A goodly city is this Antium. City,
- 'Tis I that made thy widows: many an heir
- Of these fair edifices 'fore my wars
- Have I heard groan and drop: then know me not,
- Lest that thy wives with spits and boys with stones
- In puny battle slay me.
-
[Enter a Citizen]
- Save you, sir.
CORIOLANUS:
- Direct me, if it be your will,
- Where great Aufidius lies: is he in Antium?
Citizen:
- He is, and feasts the nobles of the state
- At his house this night.
CORIOLANUS:
- Which is his house, beseech you?
Citizen:
- This, here before you.
CORIOLANUS:
- Thank you, sir: farewell.
-
[Exit Citizen]
- O world, thy slippery turns! Friends now fast sworn,
- Whose double bosoms seem to wear one heart,
- Whose house, whose bed, whose meal, and exercise,
- Are still together, who twin, as 'twere, in love
- Unseparable, shall within this hour,
- On a dissension of a doit, break out
- To bitterest enmity: so, fellest foes,
- Whose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep,
- To take the one the other, by some chance,
- Some trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends
- And interjoin their issues. So with me:
- My birth-place hate I, and my love's upon
- This enemy town. I'll enter: if he slay me,
- He does fair justice; if he give me way,
- I'll do his country service.
-
[Exit]
ACT IV, SCENE V. A hall in Aufidius's house.
[Music within. Enter a Servingman]
Second Servingman:
- Where's Cotus? my master calls
- for him. Cotus!
-
[Exit]
-
[Enter CORIOLANUS]
First Servingman:
- What would you have, friend? whence are you?
- Here's no place for you: pray, go to the door.
-
[Exit]
Second Servingman:
- Whence are you, sir? Has the porter his eyes in his
- head; that he gives entrance to such companions?
- Pray, get you out.
Second Servingman:
- Away! get you away.
CORIOLANUS:
- Now thou'rt troublesome.
Third Servingman:
- What fellow's this?
First Servingman:
- A strange one as ever I looked on: I cannot get him
- out of the house: prithee, call my master to him.
-
[Retires]
Third Servingman:
- What have you to do here, fellow? Pray you, avoid
- the house.
CORIOLANUS:
- Let me but stand; I will not hurt your hearth.
Third Servingman:
- What are you?
Third Servingman:
- A marvellous poor one.
CORIOLANUS:
- True, so I am.
Third Servingman:
- Pray you, poor gentleman, take up some other
- station; here's no place for you; pray you, avoid: come.
CORIOLANUS:
- Follow your function, go, and batten on cold bits.
-
[Pushes him away]
Third Servingman:
- What, you will not? Prithee, tell my master what a
- strange guest he has here.
Second Servingman:
- And I shall.
-
[Exit]
Third Servingman:
- Where dwellest thou?
CORIOLANUS:
- Under the canopy.
Third Servingman:
- Under the canopy!
Third Servingman:
- Where's that?
CORIOLANUS:
- I' the city of kites and crows.
Third Servingman:
- I' the city of kites and crows! What an ass it is!
- Then thou dwellest with daws too?
CORIOLANUS:
- No, I serve not thy master.
Third Servingman:
- How, sir! do you meddle with my master?
AUFIDIUS:
- Where is this fellow?
Second Servingman:
- Here, sir: I'ld have beaten him like a dog, but for
- disturbing the lords within.
-
[Retires]
AUFIDIUS:
- Whence comest thou? what wouldst thou? thy name?
- Why speak'st not? speak, man: what's thy name?
CORIOLANUS:
- If, Tullus,
-
[Unmuffling]
- Not yet thou knowest me, and, seeing me, dost not
- Think me for the man I am, necessity
- Commands me name myself.
AUFIDIUS:
- What is thy name?
CORIOLANUS:
- A name unmusical to the Volscians' ears,
- And harsh in sound to thine.
AUFIDIUS:
- Say, what's thy name?
- Thou hast a grim appearance, and thy face
- Bears a command in't; though thy tackle's torn.
- Thou show'st a noble vessel: what's thy name?
CORIOLANUS:
- Prepare thy brow to frown: know'st
- thou me yet?
AUFIDIUS:
- I know thee not: thy name?
CORIOLANUS:
- My name is Caius Marcius, who hath done
- To thee particularly and to all the Volsces
- Great hurt and mischief; thereto witness may
- My surname, Coriolanus: the painful service,
- The extreme dangers and the drops of blood
- Shed for my thankless country are requited
- But with that surname; a good memory,
- And witness of the malice and displeasure
- Which thou shouldst bear me: only that name remains;
- The cruelty and envy of the people,
- Permitted by our dastard nobles, who
- Have all forsook me, hath devour'd the rest;
- And suffer'd me by the voice of slaves to be
- Whoop'd out of Rome. Now this extremity
- Hath brought me to thy hearth; not out of hope--
- Mistake me not--to save my life, for if
- I had fear'd death, of all the men i' the world
- I would have 'voided thee, but in mere spite,
- To be full quit of those my banishers,
- Stand I before thee here. Then if thou hast
- A heart of wreak in thee, that wilt revenge
- Thine own particular wrongs and stop those maims
- Of shame seen through thy country, speed
- thee straight,
- And make my misery serve thy turn: so use it
- That my revengeful services may prove
- As benefits to thee, for I will fight
- Against my canker'd country with the spleen
- Of all the under fiends. But if so be
- Thou darest not this and that to prove more fortunes
- Thou'rt tired, then, in a word, I also am
- Longer to live most weary, and present
- My throat to thee and to thy ancient malice;
- Which not to cut would show thee but a fool,
- Since I have ever follow'd thee with hate,
- Drawn tuns of blood out of thy country's breast,
- And cannot live but to thy shame, unless
- It be to do thee service.
AUFIDIUS:
- O Marcius, Marcius!
- Each word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heart
- A root of ancient envy. If Jupiter
- Should from yond cloud speak divine things,
- And say 'Tis true,' I'ld not believe them more
- Than thee, all noble Marcius. Let me twine
- Mine arms about that body, where against
- My grained ash an hundred times hath broke
- And scarr'd the moon with splinters: here I clip
- The anvil of my sword, and do contest
- As hotly and as nobly with thy love
- As ever in ambitious strength I did
- Contend against thy valour. Know thou first,
- I loved the maid I married; never man
- Sigh'd truer breath; but that I see thee here,
- Thou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart
- Than when I first my wedded mistress saw
- Bestride my threshold. Why, thou Mars! I tell thee,
- We have a power on foot; and I had purpose
- Once more to hew thy target from thy brawn,
- Or lose mine arm fort: thou hast beat me out
- Twelve several times, and I have nightly since
- Dreamt of encounters 'twixt thyself and me;
- We have been down together in my sleep,
- Unbuckling helms, fisting each other's throat,
- And waked half dead with nothing. Worthy Marcius,
- Had we no quarrel else to Rome, but that
- Thou art thence banish'd, we would muster all
- From twelve to seventy, and pouring war
- Into the bowels of ungrateful Rome,
- Like a bold flood o'er-bear. O, come, go in,
- And take our friendly senators by the hands;
- Who now are here, taking their leaves of me,
- Who am prepared against your territories,
- Though not for Rome itself.
CORIOLANUS:
- You bless me, gods!
First Servingman:
- Here's a strange alteration!
Second Servingman:
- By my hand, I had thought to have strucken him with
- a cudgel; and yet my mind gave me his clothes made a
- false report of him.
First Servingman:
- What an arm he has! he turned me about with his
- finger and his thumb, as one would set up a top.
Second Servingman:
- Nay, I knew by his face that there was something in
- him: he had, sir, a kind of face, methought,--I
- cannot tell how to term it.
First Servingman:
- He had so; looking as it were--would I were hanged,
- but I thought there was more in him than I could think.
Second Servingman:
- So did I, I'll be sworn: he is simply the rarest
- man i' the world.
First Servingman:
- I think he is: but a greater soldier than he you wot on.
Second Servingman:
- Who, my master?
First Servingman:
- Nay, it's no matter for that.
Second Servingman:
- Worth six on him.
First Servingman:
- Nay, not so neither: but I take him to be the
- greater soldier.
Second Servingman:
- Faith, look you, one cannot tell how to say that:
- for the defence of a town, our general is excellent.
Third Servingman:
- O slaves, I can tell you news,-- news, you rascals!
First Servingman Second Servingman:
- What, what, what? let's partake.
Third Servingman:
- I would not be a Roman, of all nations; I had as
- lieve be a condemned man.
First Servingman Second Servingman:
- Wherefore? wherefore?
Third Servingman:
- Why, here's he that was wont to thwack our general,
- Caius Marcius.
First Servingman:
- Why do you say 'thwack our general '?
Third Servingman:
- I do not say 'thwack our general;' but he was always
- good enough for him.
Second Servingman:
- Come, we are fellows and friends: he was ever too
- hard for him; I have heard him say so himself.
First Servingman:
- He was too hard for him directly, to say the troth
- on't: before Corioli he scotched him and notched
- him like a carbon ado.
Second Servingman:
- An he had been cannibally given, he might have
- broiled and eaten him too.
First Servingman:
- But, more of thy news?
Third Servingman:
- Why, he is so made on here within, as if he were son
- and heir to Mars; set at upper end o' the table; no
- question asked him by any of the senators, but they
- stand bald before him: our general himself makes a
- mistress of him: sanctifies himself with's hand and
- turns up the white o' the eye to his discourse. But
- the bottom of the news is that our general is cut i'
- the middle and but one half of what he was
- yesterday; for the other has half, by the entreaty
- and grant of the whole table. He'll go, he says,
- and sowl the porter of Rome gates by the ears: he
- will mow all down before him, and leave his passage polled.
Second Servingman:
- And he's as like to do't as any man I can imagine.
Third Servingman:
- Do't! he will do't; for, look you, sir, he has as
- many friends as enemies; which friends, sir, as it
- were, durst not, look you, sir, show themselves, as
- we term it, his friends whilst he's in directitude.
First Servingman:
- Directitude! what's that?
Third Servingman:
- But when they shall see, sir, his crest up again,
- and the man in blood, they will out of their
- burrows, like conies after rain, and revel all with
- him.
First Servingman:
- But when goes this forward?
Third Servingman:
- To-morrow; to-day; presently; you shall have the
- drum struck up this afternoon: 'tis, as it were, a
- parcel of their feast, and to be executed ere they
- wipe their lips.
Second Servingman:
- Why, then we shall have a stirring world again.
- This peace is nothing, but to rust iron, increase
- tailors, and breed ballad-makers.
First Servingman:
- Let me have war, say I; it exceeds peace as far as
- day does night; it's spritely, waking, audible, and
- full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy;
- mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more
- bastard children than war's a destroyer of men.
Second Servingman:
- 'Tis so: and as war, in some sort, may be said to
- be a ravisher, so it cannot be denied but peace is a
- great maker of cuckolds.
First Servingman:
- Ay, and it makes men hate one another.
Third Servingman:
- Reason; because they then less need one another.
- The wars for my money. I hope to see Romans as cheap
- as Volscians. They are rising, they are rising.
All:
- In, in, in, in!
-
[Exeunt]
ACT IV, SCENE VI. Rome. A public place.
[Enter SICINIUS and BRUTUS]
SICINIUS:
- We hear not of him, neither need we fear him;
- His remedies are tame i' the present peace
- And quietness of the people, which before
- Were in wild hurry. Here do we make his friends
- Blush that the world goes well, who rather had,
- Though they themselves did suffer by't, behold
- Dissentious numbers pestering streets than see
- Our tradesmen with in their shops and going
- About their functions friendly.
BRUTUS:
- We stood to't in good time.
-
[Enter MENENIUS]
- Is this Menenius?
SICINIUS:
- 'Tis he,'tis he: O, he is grown most kind of late.
MENENIUS:
- Hail to you both!
SICINIUS:
- Your Coriolanus
- Is not much miss'd, but with his friends:
- The commonwealth doth stand, and so would do,
- Were he more angry at it.
MENENIUS:
- All's well; and might have been much better, if
- He could have temporized.
SICINIUS:
- Where is he, hear you?
Citizens:
- The gods preserve you both!
SICINIUS:
- God-den, our neighbours.
BRUTUS:
- God-den to you all, god-den to you all.
First Citizen:
- Ourselves, our wives, and children, on our knees,
- Are bound to pray for you both.
SICINIUS:
- Live, and thrive!
BRUTUS:
- Farewell, kind neighbours: we wish'd Coriolanus
- Had loved you as we did.
Citizens:
- Now the gods keep you!
Both Tribunes:
- Farewell, farewell.
-
[Exeunt Citizens]
SICINIUS:
- This is a happier and more comely time
- Than when these fellows ran about the streets,
- Crying confusion.
BRUTUS:
- Caius Marcius was
- A worthy officer i' the war; but insolent,
- O'ercome with pride, ambitious past all thinking,
- Self-loving,--
SICINIUS:
- And affecting one sole throne,
- Without assistance.
MENENIUS:
- I think not so.
SICINIUS:
- We should by this, to all our lamentation,
- If he had gone forth consul, found it so.
BRUTUS:
- The gods have well prevented it, and Rome
- Sits safe and still without him.
-
[Enter an AEdile]
AEdile:
- Worthy tribunes,
- There is a slave, whom we have put in prison,
- Reports, the Volsces with two several powers
- Are enter'd in the Roman territories,
- And with the deepest malice of the war
- Destroy what lies before 'em.
MENENIUS:
- 'Tis Aufidius,
- Who, hearing of our Marcius' banishment,
- Thrusts forth his horns again into the world;
- Which were inshell'd when Marcius stood for Rome,
- And durst not once peep out.
SICINIUS:
- Come, what talk you
- Of Marcius?
BRUTUS:
- Go see this rumourer whipp'd. It cannot be
- The Volsces dare break with us.
MENENIUS:
- Cannot be!
- We have record that very well it can,
- And three examples of the like have been
- Within my age. But reason with the fellow,
- Before you punish him, where he heard this,
- Lest you shall chance to whip your information
- And beat the messenger who bids beware
- Of what is to be dreaded.
SICINIUS:
- Tell not me:
- I know this cannot be.
BRUTUS:
- Not possible.
-
[Enter a Messenger]
Messenger:
- The nobles in great earnestness are going
- All to the senate-house: some news is come
- That turns their countenances.
SICINIUS:
- 'Tis this slave;--
- Go whip him, 'fore the people's eyes:--his raising;
- Nothing but his report.
Messenger:
- Yes, worthy sir,
- The slave's report is seconded; and more,
- More fearful, is deliver'd.
SICINIUS:
- What more fearful?
Messenger:
- It is spoke freely out of many mouths--
- How probable I do not know--that Marcius,
- Join'd with Aufidius, leads a power 'gainst Rome,
- And vows revenge as spacious as between
- The young'st and oldest thing.
SICINIUS:
- This is most likely!
BRUTUS:
- Raised only, that the weaker sort may wish
- Good Marcius home again.
SICINIUS:
- The very trick on't.
Second Messenger:
- You are sent for to the senate:
- A fearful army, led by Caius Marcius
- Associated with Aufidius, rages
- Upon our territories; and have already
- O'erborne their way, consumed with fire, and took
- What lay before them.
-
[Enter COMINIUS]
COMINIUS:
- O, you have made good work!
MENENIUS:
- What news? what news?
COMINIUS:
- You have holp to ravish your own daughters and
- To melt the city leads upon your pates,
- To see your wives dishonour'd to your noses,--
MENENIUS:
- What's the news? what's the news?
COMINIUS:
- Your temples burned in their cement, and
- Your franchises, whereon you stood, confined
- Into an auger's bore.
MENENIUS:
- Pray now, your news?
- You have made fair work, I fear me.--Pray, your news?--
- If Marcius should be join'd with Volscians,--
COMINIUS:
- If!
- He is their god: he leads them like a thing
- Made by some other deity than nature,
- That shapes man better; and they follow him,
- Against us brats, with no less confidence
- Than boys pursuing summer butterflies,
- Or butchers killing flies.
MENENIUS:
- You have made good work,
- You and your apron-men; you that stood so up much
- on the voice of occupation and
- The breath of garlic-eaters!
COMINIUS:
- He will shake
- Your Rome about your ears.
MENENIUS:
- As Hercules
- Did shake down mellow fruit.
- You have made fair work!
BRUTUS:
- But is this true, sir?
COMINIUS:
- Ay; and you'll look pale
- Before you find it other. All the regions
- Do smilingly revolt; and who resist
- Are mock'd for valiant ignorance,
- And perish constant fools. Who is't can blame him?
- Your enemies and his find something in him.
MENENIUS:
- We are all undone, unless
- The noble man have mercy.
COMINIUS:
- Who shall ask it?
- The tribunes cannot do't for shame; the people
- Deserve such pity of him as the wolf
- Does of the shepherds: for his best friends, if they
- Should say 'Be good to Rome,' they charged him even
- As those should do that had deserved his hate,
- And therein show'd like enemies.
MENENIUS:
- 'Tis true:
- If he were putting to my house the brand
- That should consume it, I have not the face
- To say 'Beseech you, cease.' You have made fair hands,
- You and your crafts! you have crafted fair!
COMINIUS:
- You have brought
- A trembling upon Rome, such as was never
- So incapable of help.
Both Tribunes:
- Say not we brought it.
MENENIUS:
- How! Was it we? we loved him but, like beasts
- And cowardly nobles, gave way unto your clusters,
- Who did hoot him out o' the city.
MENENIUS:
- Here come the clusters.
- And is Aufidius with him? You are they
- That made the air unwholesome, when you cast
- Your stinking greasy caps in hooting at
- Coriolanus' exile. Now he's coming;
- And not a hair upon a soldier's head
- Which will not prove a whip: as many coxcombs
- As you threw caps up will he tumble down,
- And pay you for your voices. 'Tis no matter;
- if he could burn us all into one coal,
- We have deserved it.
Citizens:
- Faith, we hear fearful news.
First Citizen:
- For mine own part,
- When I said, banish him, I said 'twas pity.
Second Citizen:
- And so did I.
Third Citizen:
- And so did I; and, to say the truth, so did very
- many of us: that we did, we did for the best; and
- though we willingly consented to his banishment, yet
- it was against our will.
COMINIUS:
- Ye re goodly things, you voices!
MENENIUS:
- You have made
- Good work, you and your cry! Shall's to the Capitol?
SICINIUS:
- Go, masters, get you home; be not dismay'd:
- These are a side that would be glad to have
- This true which they so seem to fear. Go home,
- And show no sign of fear.
First Citizen:
- The gods be good to us! Come, masters, let's home.
- I ever said we were i' the wrong when we banished
- him.
Second Citizen:
- So did we all. But, come, let's home.
-
[Exeunt Citizens]
BRUTUS:
- I do not like this news.
BRUTUS:
- Let's to the Capitol. Would half my wealth
- Would buy this for a lie!
SICINIUS:
- Pray, let us go.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT IV, SCENE VII. A camp, at a small distance from Rome.
[Enter AUFIDIUS and his Lieutenant]
AUFIDIUS:
- Do they still fly to the Roman?
Lieutenant:
- I do not know what witchcraft's in him, but
- Your soldiers use him as the grace 'fore meat,
- Their talk at table, and their thanks at end;
- And you are darken'd in this action, sir,
- Even by your own.
AUFIDIUS:
- I cannot help it now,
- Unless, by using means, I lame the foot
- Of our design. He bears himself more proudlier,
- Even to my person, than I thought he would
- When first I did embrace him: yet his nature
- In that's no changeling; and I must excuse
- What cannot be amended.
Lieutenant:
- Yet I wish, sir,--
- I mean for your particular,--you had not
- Join'd in commission with him; but either
- Had borne the action of yourself, or else
- To him had left it solely.
AUFIDIUS:
- I understand thee well; and be thou sure,
- when he shall come to his account, he knows not
- What I can urge against him. Although it seems,
- And so he thinks, and is no less apparent
- To the vulgar eye, that he bears all things fairly.
- And shows good husbandry for the Volscian state,
- Fights dragon-like, and does achieve as soon
- As draw his sword; yet he hath left undone
- That which shall break his neck or hazard mine,
- Whene'er we come to our account.
Lieutenant:
- Sir, I beseech you, think you he'll carry Rome?
AUFIDIUS:
- All places yield to him ere he sits down;
- And the nobility of Rome are his:
- The senators and patricians love him too:
- The tribunes are no soldiers; and their people
- Will be as rash in the repeal, as hasty
- To expel him thence. I think he'll be to Rome
- As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it
- By sovereignty of nature. First he was
- A noble servant to them; but he could not
- Carry his honours even: whether 'twas pride,
- Which out of daily fortune ever taints
- The happy man; whether defect of judgment,
- To fail in the disposing of those chances
- Which he was lord of; or whether nature,
- Not to be other than one thing, not moving
- From the casque to the cushion, but commanding peace
- Even with the same austerity and garb
- As he controll'd the war; but one of these--
- As he hath spices of them all, not all,
- For I dare so far free him--made him fear'd,
- So hated, and so banish'd: but he has a merit,
- To choke it in the utterance. So our virtues
- Lie in the interpretation of the time:
- And power, unto itself most commendable,
- Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair
- To extol what it hath done.
- One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail;
- Rights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail.
- Come, let's away. When, Caius, Rome is thine,
- Thou art poor'st of all; then shortly art thou mine.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT V
ACT V, SCENE I. Rome. A public place.
[Enter MENENIUS, COMINIUS, SICINIUS, BRUTUS, and others]
MENENIUS:
- No, I'll not go: you hear what he hath said
- Which was sometime his general; who loved him
- In a most dear particular. He call'd me father:
- But what o' that? Go, you that banish'd him;
- A mile before his tent fall down, and knee
- The way into his mercy: nay, if he coy'd
- To hear Cominius speak, I'll keep at home.
COMINIUS:
- He would not seem to know me.
COMINIUS:
- Yet one time he did call me by my name:
- I urged our old acquaintance, and the drops
- That we have bled together. Coriolanus
- He would not answer to: forbad all names;
- He was a kind of nothing, titleless,
- Till he had forged himself a name o' the fire
- Of burning Rome.
MENENIUS:
- Why, so: you have made good work!
- A pair of tribunes that have rack'd for Rome,
- To make coals cheap,--a noble memory!
COMINIUS:
- I minded him how royal 'twas to pardon
- When it was less expected: he replied,
- It was a bare petition of a state
- To one whom they had punish'd.
MENENIUS:
- Very well:
- Could he say less?
COMINIUS:
- I offer'd to awaken his regard
- For's private friends: his answer to me was,
- He could not stay to pick them in a pile
- Of noisome musty chaff: he said 'twas folly,
- For one poor grain or two, to leave unburnt,
- And still to nose the offence.
MENENIUS:
- For one poor grain or two!
- I am one of those; his mother, wife, his child,
- And this brave fellow too, we are the grains:
- You are the musty chaff; and you are smelt
- Above the moon: we must be burnt for you.
SICINIUS:
- Nay, pray, be patient: if you refuse your aid
- In this so never-needed help, yet do not
- Upbraid's with our distress. But, sure, if you
- Would be your country's pleader, your good tongue,
- More than the instant army we can make,
- Might stop our countryman.
MENENIUS:
- No, I'll not meddle.
SICINIUS:
- Pray you, go to him.
MENENIUS:
- What should I do?
BRUTUS:
- Only make trial what your love can do
- For Rome, towards Marcius.
MENENIUS:
- Well, and say that Marcius
- Return me, as Cominius is return'd,
- Unheard; what then?
- But as a discontented friend, grief-shot
- With his unkindness? say't be so?
SICINIUS:
- Yet your good will
- must have that thanks from Rome, after the measure
- As you intended well.
MENENIUS:
- I'll undertake 't:
- I think he'll hear me. Yet, to bite his lip
- And hum at good Cominius, much unhearts me.
- He was not taken well; he had not dined:
- The veins unfill'd, our blood is cold, and then
- We pout upon the morning, are unapt
- To give or to forgive; but when we have stuff'd
- These and these conveyances of our blood
- With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls
- Than in our priest-like fasts: therefore I'll watch him
- Till he be dieted to my request,
- And then I'll set upon him.
BRUTUS:
- You know the very road into his kindness,
- And cannot lose your way.
MENENIUS:
- Good faith, I'll prove him,
- Speed how it will. I shall ere long have knowledge
- Of my success.
-
[Exit]
COMINIUS:
- He'll never hear him.
COMINIUS:
- I tell you, he does sit in gold, his eye
- Red as 'twould burn Rome; and his injury
- The gaoler to his pity. I kneel'd before him;
- 'Twas very faintly he said 'Rise;' dismiss'd me
- Thus, with his speechless hand: what he would do,
- He sent in writing after me; what he would not,
- Bound with an oath to yield to his conditions:
- So that all hope is vain.
- Unless his noble mother, and his wife;
- Who, as I hear, mean to solicit him
- For mercy to his country. Therefore, let's hence,
- And with our fair entreaties haste them on.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT V, SCENE II. Entrance of the Volscian camp before Rome.
[Two Sentinels on guard.]
[Enter to them, MENENIUS]
First Senator:
- Stay: whence are you?
Second Senator:
- Stand, and go back.
MENENIUS:
- You guard like men; 'tis well: but, by your leave,
- I am an officer of state, and come
- To speak with Coriolanus.
First Senator:
- From whence?
First Senator:
- You may not pass, you must return: our general
- Will no more hear from thence.
Second Senator:
- You'll see your Rome embraced with fire before
- You'll speak with Coriolanus.
MENENIUS:
- Good my friends,
- If you have heard your general talk of Rome,
- And of his friends there, it is lots to blanks,
- My name hath touch'd your ears it is Menenius.
First Senator:
- Be it so; go back: the virtue of your name
- Is not here passable.
MENENIUS:
- I tell thee, fellow,
- The general is my lover: I have been
- The book of his good acts, whence men have read
- His name unparallel'd, haply amplified;
- For I have ever verified my friends,
- Of whom he's chief, with all the size that verity
- Would without lapsing suffer: nay, sometimes,
- Like to a bowl upon a subtle ground,
- I have tumbled past the throw; and in his praise
- Have almost stamp'd the leasing: therefore, fellow,
- I must have leave to pass.
First Senator:
- Faith, sir, if you had told as many lies in his
- behalf as you have uttered words in your own, you
- should not pass here; no, though it were as virtuous
- to lie as to live chastely. Therefore, go back.
MENENIUS:
- Prithee, fellow, remember my name is Menenius,
- always factionary on the party of your general.
Second Senator:
- Howsoever you have been his liar, as you say you
- have, I am one that, telling true under him, must
- say, you cannot pass. Therefore, go back.
MENENIUS:
- Has he dined, canst thou tell? for I would not
- speak with him till after dinner.
First Senator:
- You are a Roman, are you?
MENENIUS:
- I am, as thy general is.
First Senator:
- Then you should hate Rome, as he does. Can you,
- when you have pushed out your gates the very
- defender of them, and, in a violent popular
- ignorance, given your enemy your shield, think to
- front his revenges with the easy groans of old
- women, the virginal palms of your daughters, or with
- the palsied intercession of such a decayed dotant as
- you seem to be? Can you think to blow out the
- intended fire your city is ready to flame in, with
- such weak breath as this? No, you are deceived;
- therefore, back to Rome, and prepare for your
- execution: you are condemned, our general has sworn
- you out of reprieve and pardon.
MENENIUS:
- Sirrah, if thy captain knew I were here, he would
- use me with estimation.
Second Senator:
- Come, my captain knows you not.
MENENIUS:
- I mean, thy general.
First Senator:
- My general cares not for you. Back, I say, go; lest
- I let forth your half-pint of blood; back,--that's
- the utmost of your having: back.
CORIOLANUS:
- What's the matter?
MENENIUS:
- Now, you companion, I'll say an errand for you:
- You shall know now that I am in estimation; you shall
- perceive that a Jack guardant cannot office me from
- my son Coriolanus: guess, but by my entertainment
- with him, if thou standest not i' the state of
- hanging, or of some death more long in
- spectatorship, and crueller in suffering; behold now
- presently, and swoon for what's to come upon thee.
-
[To CORIOLANUS]
- The glorious gods sit in hourly synod about thy
- particular prosperity, and love thee no worse than
- thy old father Menenius does! O my son, my son!
- thou art preparing fire for us; look thee, here's
- water to quench it. I was hardly moved to come to
- thee; but being assured none but myself could move
- thee, I have been blown out of your gates with
- sighs; and conjure thee to pardon Rome, and thy
- petitionary countrymen. The good gods assuage thy
- wrath, and turn the dregs of it upon this varlet
- here,--this, who, like a block, hath denied my
- access to thee.
CORIOLANUS:
- Wife, mother, child, I know not. My affairs
- Are servanted to others: though I owe
- My revenge properly, my remission lies
- In Volscian breasts. That we have been familiar,
- Ingrate forgetfulness shall poison, rather
- Than pity note how much. Therefore, be gone.
- Mine ears against your suits are stronger than
- Your gates against my force. Yet, for I loved thee,
- Take this along; I writ it for thy sake
-
[Gives a letter]
- And would have rent it. Another word, Menenius,
- I will not hear thee speak. This man, Aufidius,
- Was my beloved in Rome: yet thou behold'st!
First Senator:
- Now, sir, is your name Menenius?
Second Senator:
- 'Tis a spell, you see, of much power: you know the
- way home again.
First Senator:
- Do you hear how we are shent for keeping your
- greatness back?
Second Senator:
- What cause, do you think, I have to swoon?
MENENIUS:
- I neither care for the world nor your general: for
- such things as you, I can scarce think there's any,
- ye're so slight. He that hath a will to die by
- himself fears it not from another: let your general
- do his worst. For you, be that you are, long; and
- your misery increase with your age! I say to you,
- as I was said to, Away!
-
[Exit]
First Senator:
- A noble fellow, I warrant him.
Second Senator:
- The worthy fellow is our general: he's the rock, the
- oak not to be wind-shaken.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT V, SCENE III. The tent of Coriolanus.
[Enter CORIOLANUS, AUFIDIUS, and others]
CORIOLANUS:
- We will before the walls of Rome tomorrow
- Set down our host. My partner in this action,
- You must report to the Volscian lords, how plainly
- I have borne this business.
AUFIDIUS:
- Only their ends
- You have respected; stopp'd your ears against
- The general suit of Rome; never admitted
- A private whisper, no, not with such friends
- That thought them sure of you.
CORIOLANUS:
- This last old man,
- Whom with a crack'd heart I have sent to Rome,
- Loved me above the measure of a father;
- Nay, godded me, indeed. Their latest refuge
- Was to send him; for whose old love I have,
- Though I show'd sourly to him, once more offer'd
- The first conditions, which they did refuse
- And cannot now accept; to grace him only
- That thought he could do more, a very little
- I have yielded to: fresh embassies and suits,
- Nor from the state nor private friends, hereafter
- Will I lend ear to. Ha! what shout is this?
-
[Shout within]
- Shall I be tempted to infringe my vow
- In the same time 'tis made? I will not.
-
[Enter in mourning habits, VIRGILIA, VOLUMNIA, leading young MARCIUS, VALERIA, and Attendants]
- My wife comes foremost; then the honour'd mould
- Wherein this trunk was framed, and in her hand
- The grandchild to her blood. But, out, affection!
- All bond and privilege of nature, break!
- Let it be virtuous to be obstinate.
- What is that curt'sy worth? or those doves' eyes,
- Which can make gods forsworn? I melt, and am not
- Of stronger earth than others. My mother bows;
- As if Olympus to a molehill should
- In supplication nod: and my young boy
- Hath an aspect of intercession, which
- Great nature cries 'Deny not.' let the Volsces
- Plough Rome and harrow Italy: I'll never
- Be such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand,
- As if a man were author of himself
- And knew no other kin.
VIRGILIA:
- My lord and husband!
CORIOLANUS:
- These eyes are not the same I wore in Rome.
VIRGILIA:
- The sorrow that delivers us thus changed
- Makes you think so.
CORIOLANUS:
- Like a dull actor now,
- I have forgot my part, and I am out,
- Even to a full disgrace. Best of my flesh,
- Forgive my tyranny; but do not say
- For that 'Forgive our Romans.' O, a kiss
- Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge!
- Now, by the jealous queen of heaven, that kiss
- I carried from thee, dear; and my true lip
- Hath virgin'd it e'er since. You gods! I prate,
- And the most noble mother of the world
- Leave unsaluted: sink, my knee, i' the earth;
-
[Kneels]
- Of thy deep duty more impression show
- Than that of common sons.
VOLUMNIA:
- O, stand up blest!
- Whilst, with no softer cushion than the flint,
- I kneel before thee; and unproperly
- Show duty, as mistaken all this while
- Between the child and parent.
- Kneels
CORIOLANUS:
- What is this?
- Your knees to me? to your corrected son?
- Then let the pebbles on the hungry beach
- Fillip the stars; then let the mutinous winds
- Strike the proud cedars 'gainst the fiery sun;
- Murdering impossibility, to make
- What cannot be, slight work.
VOLUMNIA:
- Thou art my warrior;
- I holp to frame thee. Do you know this lady?
CORIOLANUS:
- The noble sister of Publicola,
- The moon of Rome, chaste as the icicle
- That's curdied by the frost from purest snow
- And hangs on Dian's temple: dear Valeria!
VOLUMNIA:
- This is a poor epitome of yours,
- Which by the interpretation of full time
- May show like all yourself.
CORIOLANUS:
- The god of soldiers,
- With the consent of supreme Jove, inform
- Thy thoughts with nobleness; that thou mayst prove
- To shame unvulnerable, and stick i' the wars
- Like a great sea-mark, standing every flaw,
- And saving those that eye thee!
VOLUMNIA:
- Your knee, sirrah.
CORIOLANUS:
- That's my brave boy!
VOLUMNIA:
- Even he, your wife, this lady, and myself,
- Are suitors to you.
CORIOLANUS:
- I beseech you, peace:
- Or, if you'ld ask, remember this before:
- The thing I have forsworn to grant may never
- Be held by you denials. Do not bid me
- Dismiss my soldiers, or capitulate
- Again with Rome's mechanics: tell me not
- Wherein I seem unnatural: desire not
- To ally my rages and revenges with
- Your colder reasons.
VOLUMNIA:
- O, no more, no more!
- You have said you will not grant us any thing;
- For we have nothing else to ask, but that
- Which you deny already: yet we will ask;
- That, if you fail in our request, the blame
- May hang upon your hardness: therefore hear us.
CORIOLANUS:
- Aufidius, and you Volsces, mark; for we'll
- Hear nought from Rome in private. Your request?
VOLUMNIA:
- Should we be silent and not speak, our raiment
- And state of bodies would bewray what life
- We have led since thy exile. Think with thyself
- How more unfortunate than all living women
- Are we come hither: since that thy sight,
- which should
- Make our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance
- with comforts,
- Constrains them weep and shake with fear and sorrow;
- Making the mother, wife and child to see
- The son, the husband and the father tearing
- His country's bowels out. And to poor we
- Thine enmity's most capital: thou barr'st us
- Our prayers to the gods, which is a comfort
- That all but we enjoy; for how can we,
- Alas, how can we for our country pray.
- Whereto we are bound, together with thy victory,
- Whereto we are bound? alack, or we must lose
- The country, our dear nurse, or else thy person,
- Our comfort in the country. We must find
- An evident calamity, though we had
- Our wish, which side should win: for either thou
- Must, as a foreign recreant, be led
- With manacles thorough our streets, or else
- triumphantly tread on thy country's ruin,
- And bear the palm for having bravely shed
- Thy wife and children's blood. For myself, son,
- I purpose not to wait on fortune till
- These wars determine: if I cannot persuade thee
- Rather to show a noble grace to both parts
- Than seek the end of one, thou shalt no sooner
- March to assault thy country than to tread--
- Trust to't, thou shalt not--on thy mother's womb,
- That brought thee to this world.
VIRGILIA:
- Ay, and mine,
- That brought you forth this boy, to keep your name
- Living to time.
Young MARCIUS:
- A' shall not tread on me;
- I'll run away till I am bigger, but then I'll fight.
CORIOLANUS:
- Not of a woman's tenderness to be,
- Requires nor child nor woman's face to see.
- I have sat too long.
-
[Rising]
CORIOLANUS:
- O mother, mother!
- What have you done? Behold, the heavens do ope,
- The gods look down, and this unnatural scene
- They laugh at. O my mother, mother! O!
- You have won a happy victory to Rome;
- But, for your son,--believe it, O, believe it,
- Most dangerously you have with him prevail'd,
- If not most mortal to him. But, let it come.
- Aufidius, though I cannot make true wars,
- I'll frame convenient peace. Now, good Aufidius,
- Were you in my stead, would you have heard
- A mother less? or granted less, Aufidius?
AUFIDIUS:
- I was moved withal.
CORIOLANUS:
- I dare be sworn you were:
- And, sir, it is no little thing to make
- Mine eyes to sweat compassion. But, good sir,
- What peace you'll make, advise me: for my part,
- I'll not to Rome, I'll back with you; and pray you,
- Stand to me in this cause. O mother! wife!
ACT V, SCENE IV. Rome. A public place.
[Enter MENENIUS and SICINIUS]
MENENIUS:
- See you yond coign o' the Capitol, yond
- corner-stone?
SICINIUS:
- Why, what of that?
MENENIUS:
- If it be possible for you to displace it with your
- little finger, there is some hope the ladies of
- Rome, especially his mother, may prevail with him.
- But I say there is no hope in't: our throats are
- sentenced and stay upon execution.
SICINIUS:
- Is't possible that so short a time can alter the
- condition of a man!
MENENIUS:
- There is differency between a grub and a butterfly;
- yet your butterfly was a grub. This Marcius is grown
- from man to dragon: he has wings; he's more than a
- creeping thing.
SICINIUS:
- He loved his mother dearly.
MENENIUS:
- So did he me: and he no more remembers his mother
- now than an eight-year-old horse. The tartness
- of his face sours ripe grapes: when he walks, he
- moves like an engine, and the ground shrinks before
- his treading: he is able to pierce a corslet with
- his eye; talks like a knell, and his hum is a
- battery. He sits in his state, as a thing made for
- Alexander. What he bids be done is finished with
- his bidding. He wants nothing of a god but eternity
- and a heaven to throne in.
SICINIUS:
- Yes, mercy, if you report him truly.
MENENIUS:
- I paint him in the character. Mark what mercy his
- mother shall bring from him: there is no more mercy
- in him than there is milk in a male tiger; that
- shall our poor city find: and all this is long of
- you.
SICINIUS:
- The gods be good unto us!
MENENIUS:
- No, in such a case the gods will not be good unto
- us. When we banished him, we respected not them;
- and, he returning to break our necks, they respect not us.
-
[Enter a Messenger]
SICINIUS:
- What's the news?
Second Messenger:
- Good news, good news; the ladies have prevail'd,
- The Volscians are dislodged, and Marcius gone:
- A merrier day did never yet greet Rome,
- No, not the expulsion of the Tarquins.
SICINIUS:
- Friend,
- Art thou certain this is true? is it most certain?
SICINIUS:
- First, the gods bless you for your tidings; next,
- Accept my thankfulness.
Second Messenger:
- Sir, we have all
- Great cause to give great thanks.
SICINIUS:
- They are near the city?
Second Messenger:
- Almost at point to enter.
SICINIUS:
- We will meet them,
- And help the joy.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT V, SCENE V. A street near the gate.
[Enter two Senators with VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, VALERIA, & c.
passing over the stage, followed by Patricians and others]
First Senator:
- Behold our patroness, the life of Rome!
- Call all your tribes together, praise the gods,
- And make triumphant fires; strew flowers before them:
- Unshout the noise that banish'd Marcius,
- Repeal him with the welcome of his mother;
- Cry 'Welcome, ladies, welcome!'
ACT V, SCENE VI. Antium. A public place.
[Enter TULLUS AUFIDIUS, with Attendants]
First Conspirator:
- How is it with our general?
AUFIDIUS:
- Even so
- As with a man by his own alms empoison'd,
- And with his charity slain.
Second Conspirator:
- Most noble sir,
- If you do hold the same intent wherein
- You wish'd us parties, we'll deliver you
- Of your great danger.
AUFIDIUS:
- Sir, I cannot tell:
- We must proceed as we do find the people.
Third Conspirator:
- The people will remain uncertain whilst
- 'Twixt you there's difference; but the fall of either
- Makes the survivor heir of all.
AUFIDIUS:
- I know it;
- And my pretext to strike at him admits
- A good construction. I raised him, and I pawn'd
- Mine honour for his truth: who being so heighten'd,
- He water'd his new plants with dews of flattery,
- Seducing so my friends; and, to this end,
- He bow'd his nature, never known before
- But to be rough, unswayable and free.
Third Conspirator:
- Sir, his stoutness
- When he did stand for consul, which he lost
- By lack of stooping,--
AUFIDIUS:
- That I would have spoke of:
- Being banish'd for't, he came unto my hearth;
- Presented to my knife his throat: I took him;
- Made him joint-servant with me; gave him way
- In all his own desires; nay, let him choose
- Out of my files, his projects to accomplish,
- My best and freshest men; served his designments
- In mine own person; holp to reap the fame
- Which he did end all his; and took some pride
- To do myself this wrong: till, at the last,
- I seem'd his follower, not partner, and
- He waged me with his countenance, as if
- I had been mercenary.
First Conspirator:
- So he did, my lord:
- The army marvell'd at it, and, in the last,
- When he had carried Rome and that we look'd
- For no less spoil than glory,--
AUFIDIUS:
- There was it:
- For which my sinews shall be stretch'd upon him.
- At a few drops of women's rheum, which are
- As cheap as lies, he sold the blood and labour
- Of our great action: therefore shall he die,
- And I'll renew me in his fall. But, hark!
- Drums and trumpets sound, with great shouts of the People
First Conspirator:
- Your native town you enter'd like a post,
- And had no welcomes home: but he returns,
- Splitting the air with noise.
Second Conspirator:
- And patient fools,
- Whose children he hath slain, their base throats tear
- With giving him glory.
Third Conspirator:
- Therefore, at your vantage,
- Ere he express himself, or move the people
- With what he would say, let him feel your sword,
- Which we will second. When he lies along,
- After your way his tale pronounced shall bury
- His reasons with his body.
All The Lords:
- You are most welcome home.
AUFIDIUS:
- I have not deserved it.
- But, worthy lords, have you with heed perused
- What I have written to you?
First Lord:
- And grieve to hear't.
- What faults he made before the last, I think
- Might have found easy fines: but there to end
- Where he was to begin and give away
- The benefit of our levies, answering us
- With our own charge, making a treaty where
- There was a yielding,--this admits no excuse.
CORIOLANUS:
- Hail, lords! I am return'd your soldier,
- No more infected with my country's love
- Than when I parted hence, but still subsisting
- Under your great command. You are to know
- That prosperously I have attempted and
- With bloody passage led your wars even to
- The gates of Rome. Our spoils we have brought home
- Do more than counterpoise a full third part
- The charges of the action. We have made peace
- With no less honour to the Antiates
- Than shame to the Romans: and we here deliver,
- Subscribed by the consuls and patricians,
- Together with the seal o' the senate, what
- We have compounded on.
AUFIDIUS:
- Read it not, noble lords;
- But tell the traitor, in the high'st degree
- He hath abused your powers.
CORIOLANUS:
- Traitor! how now!
AUFIDIUS:
- Ay, traitor, Marcius!
AUFIDIUS:
- Ay, Marcius, Caius Marcius: dost thou think
- I'll grace thee with that robbery, thy stol'n name
- Coriolanus in Corioli?
- You lords and heads o' the state, perfidiously
- He has betray'd your business, and given up,
- For certain drops of salt, your city Rome,
- I say 'your city,' to his wife and mother;
- Breaking his oath and resolution like
- A twist of rotten silk, never admitting
- Counsel o' the war, but at his nurse's tears
- He whined and roar'd away your victory,
- That pages blush'd at him and men of heart
- Look'd wondering each at other.
CORIOLANUS:
- Hear'st thou, Mars?
AUFIDIUS:
- Name not the god, thou boy of tears!
CORIOLANUS:
- Measureless liar, thou hast made my heart
- Too great for what contains it. Boy! O slave!
- Pardon me, lords, 'tis the first time that ever
- I was forced to scold. Your judgments, my grave lords,
- Must give this cur the lie: and his own notion--
- Who wears my stripes impress'd upon him; that
- Must bear my beating to his grave--shall join
- To thrust the lie unto him.
First Lord:
- Peace, both, and hear me speak.
CORIOLANUS:
- Cut me to pieces, Volsces; men and lads,
- Stain all your edges on me. Boy! false hound!
- If you have writ your annals true, 'tis there,
- That, like an eagle in a dove-cote, I
- Flutter'd your Volscians in Corioli:
- Alone I did it. Boy!
AUFIDIUS:
- Why, noble lords,
- Will you be put in mind of his blind fortune,
- Which was your shame, by this unholy braggart,
- 'Fore your own eyes and ears?
All Conspirators:
- Let him die for't.
All The People:
- 'Tear him to pieces.' 'Do it presently.' 'He kill'd
- my son.' 'My daughter.' 'He killed my cousin
- Marcus.' 'He killed my father.'
Second Lord:
- Peace, ho! no outrage: peace!
- The man is noble and his fame folds-in
- This orb o' the earth. His last offences to us
- Shall have judicious hearing. Stand, Aufidius,
- And trouble not the peace.
CORIOLANUS:
- O that I had him,
- With six Aufidiuses, or more, his tribe,
- To use my lawful sword!
AUFIDIUS:
- Insolent villain!
Lords:
- Hold, hold, hold, hold!
AUFIDIUS:
- My noble masters, hear me speak.
Second Lord:
- Thou hast done a deed whereat valour will weep.
Third Lord:
- Tread not upon him. Masters all, be quiet;
- Put up your swords.
AUFIDIUS:
- My lords, when you shall know--as in this rage,
- Provoked by him, you cannot--the great danger
- Which this man's life did owe you, you'll rejoice
- That he is thus cut off. Please it your honours
- To call me to your senate, I'll deliver
- Myself your loyal servant, or endure
- Your heaviest censure.
First Lord:
- Bear from hence his body;
- And mourn you for him: let him be regarded
- As the most noble corse that ever herald
- Did follow to his urn.
Second Lord:
- His own impatience
- Takes from Aufidius a great part of blame.
- Let's make the best of it.