The Complete Works of William Shakespeare/The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.iso/shakespr/coriolan.txt

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    CORIOLANUS


    DRAMATIS PERSONAE


CAIUS MARCIUS    (MARCUS:)  Afterwards CAIUS MARCIUS CORIOLANUS.
    (CORIOLANUS:)


TITUS LARTIUS    (LARTIUS:)    |
        |  generals against the Volscians.
COMINIUS        |


MENENIUS AGRIPPA    friend to Coriolanus. (MENENIUS:)


SICINIUS VELUTUS    (SICINIUS:)    |
        |  tribunes of the people.
JUNIUS BRUTUS    (BRUTUS:)    |


Young MARCUS    son to Coriolanus.

    A Roman Herald. (Herald:)

TULLUS AUFIDIUS    general of the Volscians. (AUFIDIUS:)

    Lieutenant to Aufidius. (Lieutenant:)

    Conspirators with Aufidius.
    (First Conspirator:)
    (Second Conspirator:)
    (Third Conspirator:)

    A Citizen of Antium.

    Two Volscian Guards.

VOLUMNIA    mother to Coriolanus.

VIRGILIA    wife to Coriolanus.

VALERIA    friend to Virgilia.

    Gentlewoman, attending on Virgilia. (Gentlewoman:)

    Roman and Volscian Senators, Patricians,
    AEdiles, Lictors, Soldiers, Citizens, Messengers,
    Servants to Aufidius, and other Attendants.
    (First Senator:)
    (Second Senator:)
    (A Patrician:)
    (Second Patrician:)
    (AEdile:)
    (First Soldier:)
    (Second Soldier:)
    (First Citizen:)
    (Second Citizen:)
    (Third Citizen:)
    (Fourth Citizen:)
    (Fifth Citizen:)
    (Sixth Citizen:)
    (Seventh Citizen:)
    (Messenger:)
    (Second Messenger:)
    (First Serviceman:)
    (Second Serviceman:)
    (Third Serviceman:)
    (Officer:)
    (First Officer:)
    (Second Officer:)
    (Roman:)
    (First Roman:)
    (Second Roman:)
    (Third Roman:)
    (Volsce:)
    (First Lord:)
    (Second Lord:)
    (Third Lord:)


SCENE    Rome and the neighbourhood; Corioli
    and the neighbourhood; Antium.




    CORIOLANUS



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.

All    Speak, speak.

First Citizen    You are all resolved rather to die than to famish?

All    Resolved. resolved.

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!

All    Come, come.

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.

MARCIUS    Go, get you home, you fragments!

    [Enter a Messenger, hastily]

Messenger    Where's Caius Marcius?

MARCIUS    Here: what's the matter?

Messenger    The news is, sir, the Volsces are in arms.

MARCIUS    I am glad on 't: then we shall ha' means to vent
    Our musty superfluity. See, our best elders.

    [Enter COMINIUS, TITUS LARTIUS, and other Senators;
    JUNIUS BRUTUS and SICINIUS VELUTUS]

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.

MENENIUS    O, true-bred!

First Senator    Your company to the Capitol; where, I know,
    Our greatest friends attend us.

TITUS    [To COMINIUS]                Lead you on.

    [To MARCIUS]  Follow Cominius; we must follow you;
    Right worthy you priority.

COMINIUS    Noble Marcius!

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?

BRUTUS    He has no equal.

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]




    CORIOLANUS


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!

First Senator    Farewell.

Second Senator    Farewell.

All    Farewell.

    [Exeunt]




    CORIOLANUS


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!

VOLUMNIA    He'll beat Aufidius 'head below his knee
    And tread upon his neck.

    [Enter VALERIA, with an Usher and Gentlewoman]

VALERIA    My ladies both, good day to you.

VOLUMNIA    Sweet madam.

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.

VIRGILIA    Indeed, madam?

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]




    CORIOLANUS


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    'Tis done.

LARTIUS    Agreed.

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.

MARCIUS    Then shall we hear their 'larum, and they ours.
    Now, Mars, I prithee, make us quick in work,
    That we with smoking swords may march from hence,
    To help our fielded friends! Come, blow thy blast.

    [They sound a parley. Enter two Senators with others
    on the walls]

    Tutus Aufidius, is he within your walls?

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!

LARTIUS    Their noise be our instruction. Ladders, ho!

    [Enter the army of the Volsces]

MARCIUS    They fear us not, but issue forth their city.
    Now put your shields before your hearts, and fight
    With hearts more proof than shields. Advance,
    brave Titus:
    They do disdain us much beyond our thoughts,
    Which makes me sweat with wrath. Come on, my fellows:
    He that retires I'll take him for a Volsce,
    And he shall feel mine edge.

    [Alarum. The Romans are beat back to their
    trenches. Re-enter MARCIUS cursing]

MARCIUS    All the contagion of the south light on you,
    You shames of Rome! you herd of--Boils and plagues
    Plaster you o'er, that you may be abhorr'd
    Further than seen and one infect another
    Against the wind a mile! You souls of geese,
    That bear the shapes of men, how have you run
    From slaves that apes would beat! Pluto and hell!
    All hurt behind; backs red, and faces pale
    With flight and agued fear! Mend and charge home,
    Or, by the fires of heaven, I'll leave the foe
    And make my wars on you: look to't: come on;
    If you'll stand fast, we'll beat them to their wives,
    As they us to our trenches followed.

    [Another alarum. The Volsces fly, and MARCIUS
    follows them to the gates]

    So, now the gates are ope: now prove good seconds:
    'Tis for the followers fortune widens them,
    Not for the fliers: mark me, and do the like.

    [Enters the gates]

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.

LARTIUS    O noble fellow!
    Who sensibly outdares his senseless sword,
    And, when it bows, stands up. Thou art left, Marcius:
    A carbuncle entire, as big as thou art,
    Were not so rich a jewel. Thou wast a soldier
    Even to Cato's wish, not fierce and terrible
    Only in strokes; but, with thy grim looks and
    The thunder-like percussion of thy sounds,
    Thou madst thine enemies shake, as if the world
    Were feverous and did tremble.

    [Re-enter MARCIUS, bleeding, assaulted by the enemy]

First Soldier    Look, sir.

LARTIUS    O,'tis Marcius!
    Let's fetch him off, or make remain alike.

    [They fight, and all enter the city]




    CORIOLANUS


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.

Third Roman    A murrain on't! I took this for silver.

    [Alarum continues still afar off]

    [Enter MARCIUS and TITUS LARTIUS with a trumpet]

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]




    CORIOLANUS


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.

MARCIUS    Those are they
    That most are willing. If any such be here--
    As it were sin to doubt--that love this painting
    Wherein you see me smear'd; if any fear
    Lesser his person than an ill report;
    If any think brave death outweighs bad life
    And that his country's dearer than himself;
    Let him alone, or so many so minded,
    Wave thus, to express his disposition,
    And follow Marcius.

    [They all shout and wave their swords, take him up in
    their arms, and cast up their caps]

    O, me alone! make you a sword of me?
    If these shows be not outward, which of you
    But is four Volsces? none of you but is
    Able to bear against the great Aufidius
    A shield as hard as his. A certain number,
    Though thanks to all, must I select
    from all: the rest
    Shall bear the business in some other fight,
    As cause will be obey'd. Please you to march;
    And four shall quickly draw out my command,
    Which men are best inclined.

COMINIUS    March on, my fellows:
    Make good this ostentation, and you shall
    Divide in all with us.

    [Exeunt]




    CORIOLANUS


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]




    CORIOLANUS


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.

AUFIDIUS    Wert thou the Hector
    That was the whip of your bragg'd progeny,
    Thou shouldst not scape me here.

    [They fight, and certain Volsces come to the aid of
    AUFIDIUS. MARCIUS fights till they be driven in
    breathless]

    Officious, and not valiant, you have shamed me
    In your condemned seconds.

    [Exeunt]




    CORIOLANUS


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]

COMINIUS    If I should tell thee o'er this thy day's work,
    Thou'ldst not believe thy deeds: but I'll report it
    Where senators shall mingle tears with smiles,
    Where great patricians shall attend and shrug,
    I' the end admire, where ladies shall be frighted,
    And, gladly quaked, hear more; where the
    dull tribunes,
    That, with the fusty plebeians, hate thine honours,
    Shall say against their hearts 'We thank the gods
    Our Rome hath such a soldier.'
    Yet camest thou to a morsel of this feast,
    Having fully dined before.

    [Enter TITUS LARTIUS, with his power,
    from the pursuit]

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                      I thank you, general;
    But cannot make my heart consent to take
    A bribe to pay my sword: I do refuse it;
    And stand upon my common part with those
    That have beheld the doing.

    [A long flourish. They all cry 'Marcius! Marcius!'
    cast up their caps and lances: COMINIUS and LARTIUS
    stand bare]

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.

COMINIUS    Too modest are you;
    More cruel to your good report than grateful
    To us that give you truly: by your patience,
    If 'gainst yourself you be incensed, we'll put you,
    Like one that means his proper harm, in manacles,
    Then reason safely with you. Therefore, be it known,
    As to us, to all the world, that Caius Marcius
    Wears this war's garland: in token of the which,
    My noble steed, known to the camp, I give him,
    With all his trim belonging; and from this time,
    For what he did before Corioli, call him,
    With all the applause and clamour of the host,
    CAIUS MARCIUS CORIOLANUS! Bear
    The addition nobly ever!

    [Flourish. Trumpets sound, and drums]

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 within 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]




    CORIOLANUS


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]




    CORIOLANUS


ACT II



SCENE I    Rome. A public place.


    [Enter MENENIUS with the two Tribunes of the people,
    SICINIUS and BRUTUS.

MENENIUS    The augurer tells me we shall have news to-night.

BRUTUS    Good or bad?

MENENIUS    Not according to the prayer of the people, for they
    love not Marcius.

SICINIUS    Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.

MENENIUS    Pray you, who does the wolf love?

SICINIUS    The lamb.

MENENIUS    Ay, to devour him; as the hungry plebeians would the
    noble Marcius.

BRUTUS    He's a lamb indeed, that baes like a bear.

MENENIUS    He's a bear indeed, that lives like a lamb. You two
    are old men: tell me one thing that I shall ask you.

Both    Well, sir.

MENENIUS    In what enormity is Marcius poor in, that you two
    have not in abundance?

BRUTUS    He's poor in no one fault, but stored with all.

SICINIUS    Especially in pride.

BRUTUS    And topping all others in boasting.

MENENIUS    This is strange now: do you two know how you are
    censured here in the city, I mean of us o' the
    right-hand file? do you?

Both    Why, how are we censured?

MENENIUS    Because you talk of pride now,--will you not be angry?

Both    Well, well, sir, well.

MENENIUS    Why, 'tis no great matter; for a very little thief of
    occasion will rob you of a great deal of patience:
    give your dispositions the reins, and be angry at
    your pleasures; at the least if you take it as a
    pleasure to you in being so. You blame Marcius for
    being proud?

BRUTUS    We do it not alone, sir.

MENENIUS    I know you can do very little alone; for your helps
    are many, or else your actions would grow wondrous
    single: your abilities are too infant-like for
    doing much alone. You talk of pride: O that you
    could turn your eyes toward the napes of your necks,
    and make but an interior survey of your good selves!
    O that you could!

BRUTUS    What then, sir?

MENENIUS    Why, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting,
    proud, violent, testy magistrates, alias fools, as
    any in Rome.

SICINIUS    Menenius, you are known well enough too.

MENENIUS    I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that
    loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying
    Tiber in't; said to be something imperfect in
    favouring the first complaint; hasty and tinder-like
    upon too trivial motion; one that converses more
    with the buttock of the night than with the forehead
    of the morning: what I think I utter, and spend my
    malice in my breath. Meeting two such wealsmen as
    you are--I cannot call you Lycurguses--if the drink
    you give me touch my palate adversely, I make a
    crooked face at it. I can't say your worships have
    delivered the matter well, when I find the ass in
    compound with the major part of your syllables: and
    though I must be content to bear with those that say
    you are reverend grave men, yet they lie deadly that
    tell you you have good faces. If you see this in
    the map of my microcosm, follows it that I am known
    well enough too? what barm can your bisson
    conspectuities glean out of this character, if I be
    known well enough too?

BRUTUS    Come, sir, come, we know you well enough.

MENENIUS    You know neither me, yourselves nor any thing. You
    are ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs: you
    wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a
    cause between an orange wife and a fosset-seller;
    and then rejourn the controversy of three pence to a
    second day of audience. When you are hearing a
    matter between party and party, if you chance to be
    pinched with the colic, you make faces like
    mummers; set up the bloody flag against all
    patience; and, in roaring for a chamber-pot,
    dismiss the controversy bleeding the more entangled
    by your hearing: all the peace you make in their
    cause is, calling both the parties knaves. You are
    a pair of strange ones.

BRUTUS    Come, come, you are well understood to be a
    perfecter giber for the table than a necessary
    bencher in the Capitol.

MENENIUS    Our very priests must become mockers, if they shall
    encounter such ridiculous subjects as you are. When
    you speak best unto the purpose, it is not worth the
    wagging of your beards; and your beards deserve not
    so honourable a grave as to stuff a botcher's
    cushion, or to be entombed in an ass's pack-
    saddle. Yet you must be saying, Marcius is proud;
    who in a cheap estimation, is worth predecessors
    since Deucalion, though peradventure some of the
    best of 'em were hereditary hangmen. God-den to
    your worships: more of your conversation would
    infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly
    plebeians: I will be bold to take my leave of you.

    [BRUTUS and SICINIUS go aside]

    [Enter VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, and VALERIA]

    How now, my as fair as noble ladies,--and the moon,
    were she earthly, no nobler,--whither do you follow
    your eyes so fast?

VOLUMNIA    Honourable Menenius, my boy Marcius approaches; for
    the love of Juno, let's go.

MENENIUS    Ha! Marcius coming home!

VOLUMNIA    Ay, worthy Menenius; and with most prosperous
    approbation.

MENENIUS    Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee. Hoo!
    Marcius coming home!


VOLUMNIA    |
    |  Nay,'tis true.
VIRGILIA    |


VOLUMNIA    Look, here's a letter from him: the state hath
    another, his wife another; and, I think, there's one
    at home for you.

MENENIUS    I will make my very house reel tonight: a letter for
    me!

VIRGILIA    Yes, certain, there's a letter for you; I saw't.

MENENIUS    A letter for me! it gives me an estate of seven
    years' health; in which time I will make a lip at
    the physician: the most sovereign prescription in
    Galen is but empiricutic, and, to this preservative,
    of no better report than a horse-drench. Is he
    not wounded? he was wont to come home wounded.

VIRGILIA    O, no, no, no.

VOLUMNIA    O, he is wounded; I thank the gods for't.

MENENIUS    So do I too, if it be not too much: brings a'
    victory in his pocket? the wounds become him.

VOLUMNIA    On's brows: Menenius, he comes the third time home
    with the oaken garland.

MENENIUS    Has he disciplined Aufidius soundly?

VOLUMNIA    Titus Lartius writes, they fought together, but
    Aufidius got off.

MENENIUS    And 'twas time for him too, I'll warrant him that:
    an he had stayed by him, I would not have been so
    fidiused for all the chests in Corioli, and the gold
    that's in them. Is the senate possessed of this?

VOLUMNIA    Good ladies, let's go. Yes, yes, yes; the senate
    has letters from the general, wherein he gives my
    son the whole name of the war: he hath in this
    action outdone his former deeds doubly

VALERIA    In troth, there's wondrous things spoke of him.

MENENIUS    Wondrous! ay, I warrant you, and not without his
    true purchasing.

VIRGILIA    The gods grant them true!

VOLUMNIA    True! pow, wow.

MENENIUS    True! I'll be sworn they are true.
    Where is he wounded?

    [To the Tribunes]

    God save your good worships! Marcius is coming
    home: he has more cause to be proud. Where is he wounded?

VOLUMNIA    I' the shoulder and i' the left arm there will be
    large cicatrices to show the people, when he shall
    stand for his place. He received in the repulse of
    Tarquin seven hurts i' the body.

MENENIUS    One i' the neck, and two i' the thigh,--there's
    nine that I know.

VOLUMNIA    He had, before this last expedition, twenty-five
    wounds upon him.

MENENIUS    Now it's twenty-seven: every gash was an enemy's grave.

    [A shout and flourish]

    Hark! the trumpets.

VOLUMNIA    These are the ushers of Marcius: before him he
    carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears:
    Death, that dark spirit, in 's nervy arm doth lie;
    Which, being advanced, declines, and then men die.

    [A sennet. Trumpets sound. Enter COMINIUS the
    general, and TITUS LARTIUS; between them, CORIOLANUS,
    crowned with an oaken garland; with Captains and
    Soldiers, and a Herald]

Herald    Know, Rome, that all alone Marcius did fight
    Within Corioli gates: where he hath won,
    With fame, a name to Caius Marcius; these
    In honour follows Coriolanus.
    Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!

    [Flourish]

All    Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!

CORIOLANUS    No more of this; it does offend my heart:
    Pray now, no more.

COMINIUS                      Look, sir, your mother!

CORIOLANUS    O,
    You have, I know, petition'd all the gods
    For my prosperity!

    [Kneels]

VOLUMNIA                      Nay, my good soldier, up;
    My gentle Marcius, worthy Caius, and
    By deed-achieving honour newly named,--
    What is it?--Coriolanus must I call thee?--
    But O, thy wife!

CORIOLANUS                      My gracious silence, hail!
    Wouldst thou have laugh'd had I come coffin'd home,
    That weep'st to see me triumph? Ay, my dear,
    Such eyes the widows in Corioli wear,
    And mothers that lack sons.

MENENIUS    Now, the gods crown thee!

CORIOLANUS    And live you yet?

    [To VALERIA]
    O my sweet lady, pardon.

VOLUMNIA    I know not where to turn: O, welcome home:
    And welcome, general: and ye're welcome all.

MENENIUS    A hundred thousand welcomes. I could weep
    And I could laugh, I am light and heavy. Welcome.
    A curse begin at very root on's heart,
    That is not glad to see thee! You are three
    That Rome should dote on: yet, by the faith of men,
    We have some old crab-trees here
    at home that will not
    Be grafted to your relish. Yet welcome, warriors:
    We call a nettle but a nettle and
    The faults of fools but folly.

COMINIUS    Ever right.

CORIOLANUS    Menenius ever, ever.

Herald    Give way there, and go on!

CORIOLANUS    [To VOLUMNIA and VIRGILIA]  Your hand, and yours:
    Ere in our own house I do shade my head,
    The good patricians must be visited;
    From whom I have received not only greetings,
    But with them change of honours.

VOLUMNIA    I have lived
    To see inherited my very wishes
    And the buildings of my fancy: only
    There's one thing wanting, which I doubt not but
    Our Rome will cast upon thee.

CORIOLANUS    Know, good mother,
    I had rather be their servant in my way,
    Than sway with them in theirs.

COMINIUS    On, to the Capitol!

    [Flourish. Cornets. Exeunt in state, as before.
    BRUTUS and SICINIUS come forward]

BRUTUS    All tongues speak of him, and the bleared sights
    Are spectacled to see him: your prattling nurse
    Into a rapture lets her baby cry
    While she chats him: the kitchen malkin pins
    Her richest lockram 'bout her reechy neck,
    Clambering the walls to eye him: stalls, bulks, windows,
    Are smother'd up, leads fill'd, and ridges horsed
    With variable complexions, all agreeing
    In earnestness to see him: seld-shown flamens
    Do press among the popular throngs and puff
    To win a vulgar station: or veil'd dames
    Commit the war of white and damask in
    Their nicely-gawded cheeks to the wanton spoil
    Of Phoebus' burning kisses: such a pother
    As if that whatsoever god who leads him
    Were slily crept into his human powers
    And gave him graceful posture.

SICINIUS    On the sudden,
    I warrant him consul.

BRUTUS    Then our office may,
    During his power, go sleep.

SICINIUS    He cannot temperately transport his honours
    From where he should begin and end, but will
    Lose those he hath won.

BRUTUS    In that there's comfort.

SICINIUS    Doubt not
    The commoners, for whom we stand, but they
    Upon their ancient malice will forget
    With the least cause these his new honours, which
    That he will give them make I as little question
    As he is proud to do't.

BRUTUS    I heard him swear,
    Were he to stand for consul, never would he
    Appear i' the market-place nor on him put
    The napless vesture of humility;
    Nor showing, as the manner is, his wounds
    To the people, beg their stinking breaths.

SICINIUS    'Tis right.

BRUTUS    It was his word: O, he would miss it rather
    Than carry it but by the suit of the gentry to him,
    And the desire of the nobles.

SICINIUS    I wish no better
    Than have him hold that purpose and to put it
    In execution.

BRUTUS    'Tis most like he will.

SICINIUS    It shall be to him then as our good wills,
    A sure destruction.

BRUTUS    So it must fall out
    To him or our authorities. For an end,
    We must suggest the people in what hatred
    He still hath held them; that to's power he would
    Have made them mules, silenced their pleaders and
    Dispropertied their freedoms, holding them,
    In human action and capacity,
    Of no more soul nor fitness for the world
    Than camels in the war, who have their provand
    Only for bearing burdens, and sore blows
    For sinking under them.

SICINIUS    This, as you say, suggested
    At some time when his soaring insolence
    Shall touch the people--which time shall not want,
    If he be put upon 't; and that's as easy
    As to set dogs on sheep--will be his fire
    To kindle their dry stubble; and their blaze
    Shall darken him for ever.

    [Enter a Messenger]

BRUTUS    What's the matter?

Messenger    You are sent for to the Capitol. 'Tis thought
    That Marcius shall be consul:
    I have seen the dumb men throng to see him and
    The blind to bear him speak: matrons flung gloves,
    Ladies and maids their scarfs and handkerchers,
    Upon him as he pass'd: the nobles bended,
    As to Jove's statue, and the commons made
    A shower and thunder with their caps and shouts:
    I never saw the like.

BRUTUS    Let's to the Capitol;
    And carry with us ears and eyes for the time,
    But hearts for the event.

SICINIUS    Have with you.

    [Exeunt]




    CORIOLANUS


ACT II



SCENE  II    The same. The Capitol.


    [Enter two Officers, to lay cushions]

First Officer    Come, come, they are almost here. How many stand
    for consulships?

Second Officer    Three, they say: but 'tis thought of every one
    Coriolanus will carry it.

First Officer    That's a brave fellow; but he's vengeance proud, and
    loves not the common people.

Second Officer    Faith, there had been many great men that have
    flattered the people, who ne'er loved them; and there
    be many that they have loved, they know not
    wherefore: so that, if they love they know not why,
    they hate upon no better a ground: therefore, for
    Coriolanus neither to care whether they love or hate
    him manifests the true knowledge he has in their
    disposition; and out of his noble carelessness lets
    them plainly see't.

First Officer    If he did not care whether he had their love or no,
    he waved indifferently 'twixt doing them neither
    good nor harm: but he seeks their hate with greater
    devotion than can render it him; and leaves
    nothing undone that may fully discover him their
    opposite. Now, to seem to affect the malice and
    displeasure of the people is as bad as that which he
    dislikes, to flatter them for their love.

Second Officer    He hath deserved worthily of his country: and his
    ascent is not by such easy degrees as those who,
    having been supple and courteous to the people,
    bonneted, without any further deed to have them at
    an into their estimation and report: but he hath so
    planted his honours in their eyes, and his actions
    in their hearts, that for their tongues to be
    silent, and not confess so much, were a kind of
    ingrateful injury; to report otherwise, were a
    malice, that, giving itself the lie, would pluck
    reproof and rebuke from every ear that heard it.

First Officer    No more of him; he is a worthy man: make way, they
    are coming.

    [A sennet. Enter, with actors before them, COMINIUS
    the consul, MENENIUS, CORIOLANUS, Senators,
    SICINIUS and BRUTUS. The Senators take their
    places; the Tribunes take their Places by
    themselves. CORIOLANUS stands]

MENENIUS    Having determined of the Volsces and
    To send for Titus Lartius, it remains,
    As the main point of this our after-meeting,
    To gratify his noble service that
    Hath thus stood for his country: therefore,
    please you,
    Most reverend and grave elders, to desire
    The present consul, and last general
    In our well-found successes, to report
    A little of that worthy work perform'd
    By Caius Marcius Coriolanus, whom
    We met here both to thank and to remember
    With honours like himself.

First Senator    Speak, good Cominius:
    Leave nothing out for length, and make us think
    Rather our state's defective for requital
    Than we to stretch it out.

    [To the Tribunes]

             Masters o' the people,
    We do request your kindest ears, and after,
    Your loving motion toward the common body,
    To yield what passes here.

SICINIUS    We are convented
    Upon a pleasing treaty, and have hearts
    Inclinable to honour and advance
    The theme of our assembly.

BRUTUS    Which the rather
    We shall be blest to do, if he remember
    A kinder value of the people than
    He hath hereto prized them at.

MENENIUS    That's off, that's off;
    I would you rather had been silent. Please you
    To hear Cominius speak?

BRUTUS    Most willingly;
    But yet my caution was more pertinent
    Than the rebuke you give it.

MENENIUS    He loves your people
    But tie him not to be their bedfellow.
    Worthy Cominius, speak.

    [CORIOLANUS offers to go away]

          Nay, keep your place.

First Senator    Sit, Coriolanus; never shame to hear
    What you have nobly done.

CORIOLANUS    Your horror's pardon:
    I had rather have my wounds to heal again
    Than hear say how I got them.

BRUTUS    Sir, I hope
    My words disbench'd you not.

CORIOLANUS    No, sir: yet oft,
    When blows have made me stay, I fled from words.
    You soothed not, therefore hurt not: but
    your people,
    I love them as they weigh.

MENENIUS    Pray now, sit down.

CORIOLANUS    I had rather have one scratch my head i' the sun
    When the alarum were struck than idly sit
    To hear my nothings monster'd.

    [Exit]

MENENIUS    Masters of the people,
    Your multiplying spawn how can he flatter--
    That's thousand to one good one--when you now see
    He had rather venture all his limbs for honour
    Than one on's ears to hear it? Proceed, Cominius.

COMINIUS    I shall lack voice: the deeds of Coriolanus
    Should not be utter'd feebly. It is held
    That valour is the chiefest virtue, and
    Most dignifies the haver: if it be,
    The man I speak of cannot in the world
    Be singly counterpoised. At sixteen years,
    When Tarquin made a head for Rome, he fought
    Beyond the mark of others: our then dictator,
    Whom with all praise I point at, saw him fight,
    When with his Amazonian chin he drove
    The bristled lips before him: be bestrid
    An o'er-press'd Roman and i' the consul's view
    Slew three opposers: Tarquin's self he met,
    And struck him on his knee: in that day's feats,
    When he might act the woman in the scene,
    He proved best man i' the field, and for his meed
    Was brow-bound with the oak. His pupil age
    Man-enter'd thus, he waxed like a sea,
    And in the brunt of seventeen battles since
    He lurch'd all swords of the garland. For this last,
    Before and in Corioli, let me say,
    I cannot speak him home: he stopp'd the fliers;
    And by his rare example made the coward
    Turn terror into sport: as weeds before
    A vessel under sail, so men obey'd
    And fell below his stem: his sword, death's stamp,
    Where it did mark, it took; from face to foot
    He was a thing of blood, whose every motion
    Was timed with dying cries: alone he enter'd
    The mortal gate of the city, which he painted
    With shunless destiny; aidless came off,
    And with a sudden reinforcement struck
    Corioli like a planet: now all's his:
    When, by and by, the din of war gan pierce
    His ready sense; then straight his doubled spirit
    Re-quicken'd what in flesh was fatigate,
    And to the battle came he; where he did
    Run reeking o'er the lives of men, as if
    'Twere a perpetual spoil: and till we call'd
    Both field and city ours, he never stood
    To ease his breast with panting.

MENENIUS    Worthy man!

First Senator    He cannot but with measure fit the honours
    Which we devise him.

COMINIUS    Our spoils he kick'd at,
    And look'd upon things precious as they were
    The common muck of the world: he covets less
    Than misery itself would give; rewards
    His deeds with doing them, and is content
    To spend the time to end it.

MENENIUS    He's right noble:
    Let him be call'd for.

First Senator    Call Coriolanus.

Officer    He doth appear.

    [Re-enter CORIOLANUS]

MENENIUS    The senate, Coriolanus, are well pleased
    To make thee consul.

CORIOLANUS    I do owe them still
    My life and services.

MENENIUS    It then remains
    That you do speak to the people.

CORIOLANUS    I do beseech you,
    Let me o'erleap that custom, for I cannot
    Put on the gown, stand naked and entreat them,
    For my wounds' sake, to give their suffrage: please you
    That I may pass this doing.

SICINIUS    Sir, the people
    Must have their voices; neither will they bate
    One jot of ceremony.

MENENIUS    Put them not to't:
    Pray you, go fit you to the custom and
    Take to you, as your predecessors have,
    Your honour with your form.

CORIOLANUS    It is apart
    That I shall blush in acting, and might well
    Be taken from the people.

BRUTUS    Mark you that?

CORIOLANUS    To brag unto them, thus I did, and thus;
    Show them the unaching scars which I should hide,
    As if I had received them for the hire
    Of their breath only!

MENENIUS    Do not stand upon't.
    We recommend to you, tribunes of the people,
    Our purpose to them: and to our noble consul
    Wish we all joy and honour.

Senators    To Coriolanus come all joy and honour!

    [Flourish of cornets. Exeunt all but SICINIUS
    and BRUTUS]

BRUTUS    You see how he intends to use the people.

SICINIUS    May they perceive's intent! He will require them,
    As if he did contemn what he requested
    Should be in them to give.

BRUTUS    Come, we'll inform them
    Of our proceedings here: on the marketplace,
    I know, they do attend us.

    [Exeunt]




    CORIOLANUS


ACT II



SCENE III    The same. The Forum.


    [Enter seven or eight Citizens]

First Citizen    Once, if he do require our voices, we ought not to deny him.

Second Citizen    We may, sir, if we will.

Third Citizen    We have power in ourselves to do it, but it is a
    power that we have no power to do; for if he show us
    his wounds and tell us his deeds, we are to put our
    tongues into those wounds and speak for them; so, if
    he tell us his noble deeds, we must also tell him
    our noble acceptance of them. Ingratitude is
    monstrous, and for the multitude to be ingrateful,
    were to make a monster of the multitude: of the
    which we being members, should bring ourselves to be
    monstrous members.

First Citizen    And to make us no better thought of, a little help
    will serve; for once we stood up about the corn, he
    himself stuck not to call us the many-headed multitude.

Third Citizen    We have been called so of many; not that our heads
    are some brown, some black, some auburn, some bald,
    but that our wits are so diversely coloured: and
    truly I think if all our wits were to issue out of
    one skull, they would fly east, west, north, south,
    and their consent of one direct way should be at
    once to all the points o' the compass.

Second Citizen    Think you so? Which way do you judge my wit would
    fly?

Third Citizen    Nay, your wit will not so soon out as another man's
    will;'tis strongly wedged up in a block-head, but
    if it were at liberty, 'twould, sure, southward.

Second Citizen    Why that way?

Third Citizen    To lose itself in a fog, where being three parts
    melted away with rotten dews, the fourth would return
    for conscience sake, to help to get thee a wife.

Second Citizen    You are never without your tricks: you may, you may.

Third Citizen    Are you all resolved to give your voices? But
    that's no matter, the greater part carries it. I
    say, if he would incline to the people, there was
    never a worthier man.

    [Enter CORIOLANUS in a gown of humility,
    with MENENIUS]

    Here he comes, and in the gown of humility: mark his
    behavior. We are not to stay all together, but to
    come by him where he stands, by ones, by twos, and
    by threes. He's to make his requests by
    particulars; wherein every one of us has a single
    honour, in giving him our own voices with our own
    tongues: therefore follow me, and I direct you how
    you shall go by him.

All    Content, content.

    [Exeunt Citizens]

MENENIUS    O sir, you are not right: have you not known
    The worthiest men have done't?

CORIOLANUS    What must I say?
    'I Pray, sir'--Plague upon't! I cannot bring
    My tongue to such a pace:--'Look, sir, my wounds!
    I got them in my country's service, when
    Some certain of your brethren roar'd and ran
    From the noise of our own drums.'

MENENIUS    O me, the gods!
    You must not speak of that: you must desire them
    To think upon you.

CORIOLANUS                      Think upon me! hang 'em!
    I would they would forget me, like the virtues
    Which our divines lose by 'em.

MENENIUS    You'll mar all:
    I'll leave you: pray you, speak to 'em, I pray you,
    In wholesome manner.

    [Exit]

CORIOLANUS    Bid them wash their faces
    And keep their teeth clean.

    [Re-enter two of the Citizens]

              So, here comes a brace.

    [Re-enter a third Citizen]

    You know the cause, air, of my standing here.

Third Citizen    We do, sir; tell us what hath brought you to't.

CORIOLANUS    Mine own desert.

Second Citizen    Your own desert!

CORIOLANUS    Ay, but not mine own desire.

Third Citizen    How not your own desire?

CORIOLANUS    No, sir,'twas never my desire yet to trouble the
    poor with begging.

Third Citizen    You must think, if we give you any thing, we hope to
    gain by you.

CORIOLANUS    Well then, I pray, your price o' the consulship?

First Citizen    The price is to ask it kindly.

CORIOLANUS    Kindly! Sir, I pray, let me ha't: I have wounds to
    show you, which shall be yours in private. Your
    good voice, sir; what say you?

Second Citizen    You shall ha' it, worthy sir.

CORIOLANUS    A match, sir. There's in all two worthy voices
    begged. I have your alms: adieu.

Third Citizen    But this is something odd.

Second Citizen    An 'twere to give again,--but 'tis no matter.

    [Exeunt the three Citizens]

    [Re-enter two other Citizens]

CORIOLANUS    Pray you now, if it may stand with the tune of your
    voices that I may be consul, I have here the
    customary gown.

Fourth Citizen    You have deserved nobly of your country, and you
    have not deserved nobly.

CORIOLANUS    Your enigma?

Fourth Citizen    You have been a scourge to her enemies, you have
    been a rod to her friends; you have not indeed loved
    the common people.

CORIOLANUS    You should account me the more virtuous that I have
    not been common in my love. I will, sir, flatter my
    sworn brother, the people, to earn a dearer
    estimation of them; 'tis a condition they account
    gentle: and since the wisdom of their choice is
    rather to have my hat than my heart, I will practise
    the insinuating nod and be off to them most
    counterfeitly; that is, sir, I will counterfeit the
    bewitchment of some popular man and give it
    bountiful to the desirers. Therefore, beseech you,
    I may be consul.

Fifth Citizen    We hope to find you our friend; and therefore give
    you our voices heartily.

Fourth Citizen    You have received many wounds for your country.

CORIOLANUS    I will not seal your knowledge with showing them. I
    will make much of your voices, and so trouble you no further.

Both Citizens    The gods give you joy, sir, heartily!

    [Exeunt]

CORIOLANUS    Most sweet voices!
    Better it is to die, better to starve,
    Than crave the hire which first we do deserve.
    Why in this woolvish toge should I stand here,
    To beg of Hob and Dick, that do appear,
    Their needless vouches? Custom calls me to't:
    What custom wills, in all things should we do't,
    The dust on antique time would lie unswept,
    And mountainous error be too highly heapt
    For truth to o'er-peer. Rather than fool it so,
    Let the high office and the honour go
    To one that would do thus. I am half through;
    The one part suffer'd, the other will I do.

    [Re-enter three Citizens more]

    Here come more voices.
    Your voices: for your voices I have fought;
    Watch'd for your voices; for Your voices bear
    Of wounds two dozen odd; battles thrice six
    I have seen and heard of; for your voices have
    Done many things, some less, some more your voices:
    Indeed I would be consul.

Sixth Citizen    He has done nobly, and cannot go without any honest
    man's voice.

Seventh Citizen    Therefore let him be consul: the gods give him joy,
    and make him good friend to the people!

All Citizens    Amen, amen. God save thee, noble consul!

    [Exeunt]

CORIOLANUS    Worthy voices!

    [Re-enter MENENIUS, with BRUTUS and SICINIUS]

MENENIUS    You have stood your limitation; and the tribunes
    Endue you with the people's voice: remains
    That, in the official marks invested, you
    Anon do meet the senate.

CORIOLANUS    Is this done?

SICINIUS    The custom of request you have discharged:
    The people do admit you, and are summon'd
    To meet anon, upon your approbation.

CORIOLANUS    Where? at the senate-house?

SICINIUS    There, Coriolanus.

CORIOLANUS    May I change these garments?

SICINIUS    You may, sir.

CORIOLANUS    That I'll straight do; and, knowing myself again,
    Repair to the senate-house.

MENENIUS    I'll keep you company. Will you along?

BRUTUS    We stay here for the people.

SICINIUS    Fare you well.

    [Exeunt CORIOLANUS and MENENIUS]

    He has it now, and by his looks methink
    'Tis warm at 's heart.

BRUTUS    With a proud heart he wore his humble weeds.
    will you dismiss the people?

    [Re-enter Citizens]

SICINIUS    How now, my masters! have you chose this man?

First Citizen    He has our voices, sir.

BRUTUS    We pray the gods he may deserve your loves.

Second Citizen    Amen, sir: to my poor unworthy notice,
    He mock'd us when he begg'd our voices.

Third Citizen    Certainly
    He flouted us downright.

First Citizen    No,'tis his kind of speech: he did not mock us.

Second Citizen    Not one amongst us, save yourself, but says
    He used us scornfully: he should have show'd us
    His marks of merit, wounds received for's country.

SICINIUS    Why, so he did, I am sure.

Citizens    No, no; no man saw 'em.

Third Citizen    He said he had wounds, which he could show
    in private;
    And with his hat, thus waving it in scorn,
    'I would be consul,' says he: 'aged custom,
    But by your voices, will not so permit me;
    Your voices therefore.' When we granted that,
    Here was 'I thank you for your voices: thank you:
    Your most sweet voices: now you have left
    your voices,
    I have no further with you.' Was not this mockery?

SICINIUS    Why either were you ignorant to see't,
    Or, seeing it, of such childish friendliness
    To yield your voices?

BRUTUS    Could you not have told him
    As you were lesson'd, when he had no power,
    But was a petty servant to the state,
    He was your enemy, ever spake against
    Your liberties and the charters that you bear
    I' the body of the weal; and now, arriving
    A place of potency and sway o' the state,
    If he should still malignantly remain
    Fast foe to the plebeii, your voices might
    Be curses to yourselves? You should have said
    That as his worthy deeds did claim no less
    Than what he stood for, so his gracious nature
    Would think upon you for your voices and
    Translate his malice towards you into love,
    Standing your friendly lord.

SICINIUS    Thus to have said,
    As you were fore-advised, had touch'd his spirit
    And tried his inclination; from him pluck'd
    Either his gracious promise, which you might,
    As cause had call'd you up, have held him to
    Or else it would have gall'd his surly nature,
    Which easily endures not article
    Tying him to aught; so putting him to rage,
    You should have ta'en the advantage of his choler
    And pass'd him unelected.

BRUTUS    Did you perceive
    He did solicit you in free contempt
    When he did need your loves, and do you think
    That his contempt shall not be bruising to you,
    When he hath power to crush? Why, had your bodies
    No heart among you? or had you tongues to cry
    Against the rectorship of judgment?

SICINIUS    Have you
    Ere now denied the asker? and now again
    Of him that did not ask, but mock, bestow
    Your sued-for tongues?

Third Citizen    He's not confirm'd; we may deny him yet.

Second Citizen    And will deny him:
    I'll have five hundred voices of that sound.

First Citizen    I twice five hundred and their friends to piece 'em.

BRUTUS    Get you hence instantly, and tell those friends,
    They have chose a consul that will from them take
    Their liberties; make them of no more voice
    Than dogs that are as often beat for barking
    As therefore kept to do so.

SICINIUS    Let them assemble,
    And on a safer judgment all revoke
    Your ignorant election; enforce his pride,
    And his old hate unto you; besides, forget not
    With what contempt he wore the humble weed,
    How in his suit he scorn'd you; but your loves,
    Thinking upon his services, took from you
    The apprehension of his present portance,
    Which most gibingly, ungravely, he did fashion
    After the inveterate hate he bears you.

BRUTUS    Lay
    A fault on us, your tribunes; that we laboured,
    No impediment between, but that you must
    Cast your election on him.

SICINIUS    Say, you chose him
    More after our commandment than as guided
    By your own true affections, and that your minds,
    Preoccupied with what you rather must do
    Than what you should, made you against the grain
    To voice him consul: lay the fault on us.

BRUTUS    Ay, spare us not. Say we read lectures to you.
    How youngly he began to serve his country,
    How long continued, and what stock he springs of,
    The noble house o' the Marcians, from whence came
    That Ancus Marcius, Numa's daughter's son,
    Who, after great Hostilius, here was king;
    Of the same house Publius and Quintus were,
    That our beat water brought by conduits hither;
    And  [Censorinus,]  nobly named so,
    Twice being  [by the people chosen]  censor,
    Was his great ancestor.

SICINIUS    One thus descended,
    That hath beside well in his person wrought
    To be set high in place, we did commend
    To your remembrances: but you have found,
    Scaling his present bearing with his past,
    That he's your fixed enemy, and revoke
    Your sudden approbation.

BRUTUS    Say, you ne'er had done't--
    Harp on that still--but by our putting on;
    And presently, when you have drawn your number,
    Repair to the Capitol.

All    We will so: almost all
    Repent in their election.

    [Exeunt Citizens]

BRUTUS    Let them go on;
    This mutiny were better put in hazard,
    Than stay, past doubt, for greater:
    If, as his nature is, he fall in rage
    With their refusal, both observe and answer
    The vantage of his anger.

SICINIUS    To the Capitol, come:
    We will be there before the stream o' the people;
    And this shall seem, as partly 'tis, their own,
    Which we have goaded onward.

    [Exeunt]




    CORIOLANUS


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.

CORIOLANUS    How? what?

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?

LARTIUS    At Antium.

CORIOLANUS    I wish I had a cause to seek him there,
    To oppose his hatred fully. Welcome home.

    [Enter SICINIUS and BRUTUS]

    Behold, these are the tribunes of the people,
    The tongues o' the common mouth: I do despise them;
    For they do prank them in authority,
    Against all noble sufferance.

SICINIUS    Pass no further.

CORIOLANUS    Ha! what is that?

BRUTUS    It will be dangerous to go on: no further.

CORIOLANUS    What makes this change?

MENENIUS    The matter?

COMINIUS    Hath he not pass'd the noble and the common?

BRUTUS    Cominius, no.

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.

BRUTUS    Not to them all.

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.

MENENIUS    Let's be calm.

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.

MENENIUS    Well, no more.

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.

MENENIUS    Come, enough.

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.

BRUTUS    Has said enough.

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.

SICINIUS    Help, ye citizens!

    [Enter a rabble of Citizens (Plebeians), with
    the AEdiles]

MENENIUS    On both sides more respect.

SICINIUS    Here's he that would take from you all your power.

BRUTUS    Seize him, AEdiles!

Citizens    Down with him! down with him!

Senators, &C    Weapons, weapons, weapons!

    [They all bustle about CORIOLANUS, crying]

    'Tribunes!' 'Patricians!' 'Citizens!' 'What, ho!'
    'Sicinius!' 'Brutus!' 'Coriolanus!' 'Citizens!'
    'Peace, peace, peace!' 'Stay, hold, peace!'

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.

Citizens    You so remain.

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.

AEdile    Peace, peace!

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.

COMINIUS    Nay, come away.

    [Exeunt CORIOLANUS, COMINIUS, and others]

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!

MENENIUS    I would they were in Tiber! What the vengeance!
    Could he not speak 'em fair?

    [Re-enter BRUTUS and SICINIUS, with the rabble]

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    Sir, sir,--

SICINIUS    Peace!

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.

BRUTUS    He consul!

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.

BRUTUS    If it were so,--

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.

BRUTUS    Go not home.

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]




    CORIOLANUS


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.

CORIOLANUS    Let go.

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.

A Patrician    Ay, and burn too.

    [Enter MENENIUS and Senators]

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.

CORIOLANUS    Tush, tush!

MENENIUS    A good demand.

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]




    CORIOLANUS


ACT III



SCENE III    The same. 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    He's coming.

BRUTUS    How accompanied?

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?

AEdile    I have.

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.

AEdile    Very well.

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.

SICINIUS    Well, here he comes.

    [Enter CORIOLANUS, MENENIUS, and COMINIUS,
    with Senators and Patricians]

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.

MENENIUS    A noble wish.

    [Re-enter AEdile, with Citizens]

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?

SICINIUS    Answer to us.

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.

CORIOLANUS    You?

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!

Citizens    Our enemy is banish'd! he is gone! Hoo! hoo!

    [Shouting, and throwing up their caps]

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]




    CORIOLANUS


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.

CORIOLANUS    O the gods!

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]




    CORIOLANUS


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.

BRUTUS    Why?

SICINIUS    They say she's mad.

BRUTUS    They have ta'en note of us: keep on your way.

    [Enter VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, and MENENIUS]

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.

SICINIUS    What then?

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.

BRUTUS    I would he had.

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.

BRUTUS    Pray, let us go.

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]




    CORIOLANUS


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    Nicanor? no.

Roman    The same, sir.

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!

Roman    Banished, sir.

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]




    CORIOLANUS


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.

Citizen    And you.

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]




    CORIOLANUS


ACT IV



SCENE V    The same. A hall in Aufidius's house.


    [Music within. Enter a Servingman]

First Servingman    Wine, wine, wine! What service
    is here! I think our fellows are asleep.

    [Exit]

    [Enter a second Servingman]

Second Servingman    Where's Cotus? my master calls
    for him. Cotus!

    [Exit]

    [Enter CORIOLANUS]

CORIOLANUS    A goodly house: the feast smells well; but I
    Appear not like a guest.

    [Re-enter the first Servingman]

First Servingman    What would you have, friend? whence are you?
    Here's no place for you: pray, go to the door.

    [Exit]

CORIOLANUS    I have deserved no better entertainment,
    In being Coriolanus.

    [Re-enter second Servingman]

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.

CORIOLANUS    Away!

Second Servingman    Away! get you away.

CORIOLANUS    Now thou'rt troublesome.

Second Servingman    Are you so brave? I'll have you talked with anon.

    [Enter a third Servingman. The first meets him]

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?

CORIOLANUS    A gentleman.

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!

CORIOLANUS    Ay.

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?

CORIOLANUS    Ay; 'tis an honester service than to meddle with thy
    mistress. Thou pratest, and pratest; serve with thy
    trencher, hence!

    [Beats him away. Exit third Servingman]

    [Enter AUFIDIUS with the second Servingman]

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!

AUFIDIUS    Therefore, most absolute sir, if thou wilt have
    The leading of thine own revenges, take
    The one half of my commission; and set down--
    As best thou art experienced, since thou know'st
    Thy country's strength and weakness,--thine own ways;
    Whether to knock against the gates of Rome,
    Or rudely visit them in parts remote,
    To fright them, ere destroy. But come in:
    Let me commend thee first to those that shall
    Say yea to thy desires. A thousand welcomes!
    And more a friend than e'er an enemy;
    Yet, Marcius, that was much. Your hand: most welcome!

    [Exeunt CORIOLANUS and AUFIDIUS. The two
    Servingmen come forward]

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.

First Servingman    Ay, and for an assault too.

    [Re-enter third Servingman]

Third Servingman    O slaves, I can tell you news,-- news, you rascals!


First Servingman    |
    |  What, what, what? let's partake.
Second Servingman    |


Third Servingman    I would not be a Roman, of all nations; I had as
    lieve be a condemned man.


First Servingman    |
    |  Wherefore? wherefore?
Second Servingman    |


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]




    CORIOLANUS


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.

Both Tribunes    Hail sir!

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?

MENENIUS    Nay, I hear nothing: his mother and his wife
    Hear nothing from him.

    [Enter three or four Citizens]

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.

MENENIUS    This is unlikely:
    He and Aufidius can no more atone
    Than violentest contrariety.

    [Enter a second Messenger]

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.

COMINIUS    But I fear
    They'll roar him in again. Tullus Aufidius,
    The second name of men, obeys his points
    As if he were his officer: desperation
    Is all the policy, strength and defence,
    That Rome can make against them.

    [Enter a troop of Citizens]

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?

COMINIUS    O, ay, what else?

    [Exeunt COMINIUS and MENENIUS]

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.

SICINIUS    Nor I.

BRUTUS    Let's to the Capitol. Would half my wealth
    Would buy this for a lie!

SICINIUS    Pray, let us go.

    [Exeunt]




    CORIOLANUS


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]




    CORIOLANUS


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.

MENENIUS    Do you hear?

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.

SICINIUS    Not?

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]




    CORIOLANUS


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?

MENENIUS    From Rome.

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.

MENENIUS    Nay, but, fellow, fellow,--

    [Enter CORIOLANUS and AUFIDIUS]

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    Away!

MENENIUS    How! away!

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!

AUFIDIUS    You keep a constant temper.

    [Exeunt CORIOLANUS and AUFIDIUS]

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]




    CORIOLANUS


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]

VOLUMNIA    Nay, go not from us thus.
    If it were so that our request did tend
    To save the Romans, thereby to destroy
    The Volsces whom you serve, you might condemn us,
    As poisonous of your honour: no; our suit
    Is that you reconcile them: while the Volsces
    May say 'This mercy we have show'd;' the Romans,
    'This we received;' and each in either side
    Give the all-hail to thee and cry 'Be blest
    For making up this peace!' Thou know'st, great son,
    The end of war's uncertain, but this certain,
    That, if thou conquer Rome, the benefit
    Which thou shalt thereby reap is such a name,
    Whose repetition will be dogg'd with curses;
    Whose chronicle thus writ: 'The man was noble,
    But with his last attempt he wiped it out;
    Destroy'd his country, and his name remains
    To the ensuing age abhorr'd.' Speak to me, son:
    Thou hast affected the fine strains of honour,
    To imitate the graces of the gods;
    To tear with thunder the wide cheeks o' the air,
    And yet to charge thy sulphur with a bolt
    That should but rive an oak. Why dost not speak?
    Think'st thou it honourable for a noble man
    Still to remember wrongs? Daughter, speak you:
    He cares not for your weeping. Speak thou, boy:
    Perhaps thy childishness will move him more
    Than can our reasons. There's no man in the world
    More bound to 's mother; yet here he lets me prate
    Like one i' the stocks. Thou hast never in thy life
    Show'd thy dear mother any courtesy,
    When she, poor hen, fond of no second brood,
    Has cluck'd thee to the wars and safely home,
    Loaden with honour. Say my request's unjust,
    And spurn me back: but if it be not so,
    Thou art not honest; and the gods will plague thee,
    That thou restrain'st from me the duty which
    To a mother's part belongs. He turns away:
    Down, ladies; let us shame him with our knees.
    To his surname Coriolanus 'longs more pride
    Than pity to our prayers. Down: an end;
    This is the last: so we will home to Rome,
    And die among our neighbours. Nay, behold 's:
    This boy, that cannot tell what he would have
    But kneels and holds up bands for fellowship,
    Does reason our petition with more strength
    Than thou hast to deny 't. Come, let us go:
    This fellow had a Volscian to his mother;
    His wife is in Corioli and his child
    Like him by chance. Yet give us our dispatch:
    I am hush'd until our city be a-fire,
    And then I'll speak a little.

    [He holds her by the hand, silent]

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!

AUFIDIUS    [Aside]  I am glad thou hast set thy mercy and
    thy honour
    At difference in thee: out of that I'll work
    Myself a former fortune.

    [The Ladies make signs to CORIOLANUS]

CORIOLANUS    Ay, by and by;

    [To VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, &c]

    But we will drink together; and you shall bear
    A better witness back than words, which we,
    On like conditions, will have counter-seal'd.
    Come, enter with us. Ladies, you deserve
    To have a temple built you: all the swords
    In Italy, and her confederate arms,
    Could not have made this peace.

    [Exeunt]




    CORIOLANUS


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]

Messenger    Sir, if you'ld save your life, fly to your house:
    The plebeians have got your fellow-tribune
    And hale him up and down, all swearing, if
    The Roman ladies bring not comfort home,
    They'll give him death by inches.

    [Enter a second 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?

Second Messenger    As certain as I know the sun is fire:
    Where have you lurk'd, that you make doubt of it?
    Ne'er through an arch so hurried the blown tide,
    As the recomforted through the gates. Why, hark you!

    [Trumpets; hautboys; drums beat; all together]

    The trumpets, sackbuts, psalteries and fifes,
    Tabours and cymbals and the shouting Romans,
    Make the sun dance. Hark you!

    [A shout within]

MENENIUS    This is good news:
    I will go meet the ladies. This Volumnia
    Is worth of consuls, senators, patricians,
    A city full; of tribunes, such as you,
    A sea and land full. You have pray'd well to-day:
    This morning for ten thousand of your throats
    I'd not have given a doit. Hark, how they joy!

    [Music still, with shouts]

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]




    CORIOLANUS


ACT V



SCENE V    The same. 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!'

All    Welcome, ladies, Welcome!

    [A flourish with drums and trumpets. Exeunt]




    CORIOLANUS


ACT V



SCENE VI    Antium. A public place.


    [Enter TULLUS AUFIDIUS, with Attendants]

AUFIDIUS    Go tell the lords o' the city I am here:
    Deliver them this paper: having read it,
    Bid them repair to the market place; where I,
    Even in theirs and in the commons' ears,
    Will vouch the truth of it. Him I accuse
    The city ports by this hath enter'd and
    Intends to appear before the people, hoping
    To purge herself with words: dispatch.

    [Exeunt Attendants]

    [Enter three or four Conspirators of AUFIDIUS' faction]

    Most welcome!

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.

AUFIDIUS    Say no more:
    Here come the lords.

    [Enter the Lords of the city]

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?

Lords    We have.

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.

AUFIDIUS    He approaches: you shall hear him.

    [Enter CORIOLANUS, marching with drum and
    colours; commoners being with him]

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!

CORIOLANUS    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    Ha!

AUFIDIUS    No more.

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!

All Conspirators    Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill him!

    [The Conspirators draw, and kill CORIOLANUS:
    AUFIDIUS stands on his body]

Lords    Hold, hold, hold, hold!

AUFIDIUS    My noble masters, hear me speak.

First Lord    O Tullus,--

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.

AUFIDIUS    My rage is gone;
    And I am struck with sorrow. Take him up.
    Help, three o' the chiefest soldiers; I'll be one.
    Beat thou the drum, that it speak mournfully:
    Trail your steel pikes. Though in this city he
    Hath widow'd and unchilded many a one,
    Which to this hour bewail the injury,
    Yet he shall have a noble memory. Assist.

    [Exeunt, bearing the body of CORIOLANUS. A dead
    march sounded]