APDL Eductation Resources/APDL Eductation Resources.iso/text/shakespear/coriolanus/CORIOLANUS

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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]