The Tragedy Of Coriolanus

1 Enter Menenius with the two Tribunes of the people, Sicinius and
2 Brutus.
3 MENENIUS.
4 The augurer tells me we shall have news tonight.
5 BRUTUS.
6 Good or bad?
7 MENENIUS.
8 Not according to the prayer of the people, for they love not Martius.
9 SICINIUS.
10 Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.
11 MENENIUS.
12 Pray you, who does the wolf love?
13 SICINIUS.
14 The lamb.
15 MENENIUS.
16 Ay, to devour him, as the hungry plebeians would the noble Martius.
17 BRUTUS.
18 He’s a lamb indeed, that baas like a bear.
19 MENENIUS.
20 He’s a bear indeed, that lives like a lamb. You two are old men; tell
21 me one thing that I shall ask you.
22 BOTH TRIBUNES.
23 Well, sir.
24 MENENIUS.
25 In what enormity is Martius poor in, that you two have not in
26 abundance?
27 BRUTUS.
28 He’s poor in no one fault, but stored with all.
29 SICINIUS.
30 Especially in pride.
31 BRUTUS.
32 And topping all others in boasting.
33 MENENIUS.
34 This is strange now. Do you two know how you are censured here in the
35 city, I mean of us o’ th’ right-hand file, do you?
36 BOTH TRIBUNES.
37 Why, how are we censured?
38 MENENIUS.
39 Because you talk of pride now, will you not be angry?
40 BOTH TRIBUNES.
41 Well, well, sir, well?
42 MENENIUS.
43 Why, ’tis no great matter; for a very little thief of occasion will rob
44 you of a great deal of patience. Give your dispositions the reins, and
45 be angry at your pleasures, at the least, if you take it as a pleasure
46 to you in being so. You blame Martius for being proud.
47 BRUTUS.
48 We do it not alone, sir.
49 MENENIUS.
50 I know you can do very little alone, for your helps are many, or else
51 your actions would grow wondrous single. Your abilities are too
52 infantlike for doing much alone. You talk of pride. O that you could
53 turn your eyes toward the napes of your necks and make but an interior
54 survey of your good selves! O, that you could!
55 BOTH TRIBUNES.
56 What then, sir?
57 MENENIUS.
58 Why, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting, proud, violent,
59 testy magistrates, alias fools, as any in Rome.
60 SICINIUS.
61 Menenius, you are known well enough, too.
62 MENENIUS.
63 I am known to be a humorous patrician and one that loves a cup of hot
64 wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in’t; said to be something
65 imperfect in favouring the first complaint, hasty and tinder-like upon
66 too trivial motion; one that converses more with the buttock of the
67 night than with the forehead of the morning. What I think I utter, and
68 spend my malice in my breath. Meeting two such wealsmen as you are—I
69 cannot call you Lycurguses—if the drink you give me touch my palate
70 adversely, I make a crooked face at it. I cannot say your Worships have
71 delivered the matter well when I find the ass in compound with the
72 major part of your syllables. And though I must be content to bear with
73 those that say you are reverend grave men, yet they lie deadly that
74 tell you have good faces. If you see this in the map of my microcosm,
75 follows it that I am known well enough too? What harm can your bisson
76 conspectuities glean out of this character, if I be known well enough,
77 too?
78 BRUTUS.
79 Come, sir, come; we know you well enough.
80 MENENIUS.
81 You know neither me, yourselves, nor anything. You are ambitious for
82 poor knaves’ caps and legs. You wear out a good wholesome forenoon in
83 hearing a cause between an orange-wife and a faucet-seller, and then
84 rejourn the controversy of threepence to a second day of audience. When
85 you are hearing a matter between party and party, if you chance to be
86 pinched with the colic, you make faces like mummers, set up the bloody
87 flag against all patience, and, in roaring for a chamber pot, dismiss
88 the controversy bleeding, the more entangled by your hearing. All the
89 peace you make in their cause is calling both the parties knaves. You
90 are a pair of strange ones.
91 BRUTUS.
92 Come, come. You are well understood to be a perfecter giber for the
93 table than a necessary bencher in the Capitol.
94 MENENIUS.
95 Our very priests must become mockers if they shall encounter such
96 ridiculous subjects as you are. When you speak best unto the purpose,
97 it is not worth the wagging of your beards, and your beards deserve not
98 so honourable a grave as to stuff a botcher’s cushion or to be entombed
99 in an ass’s packsaddle. Yet you must be saying Martius is proud, who,
100 in a cheap estimation, is worth all your predecessors since Deucalion,
101 though peradventure some of the best of ’em were hereditary hangmen.
102 Good e’en to your Worships. More of your conversation would infect my
103 brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly plebeians. I will be bold to
104 take my leave of you.
105 [_He begins to exit. Brutus and Sicinius stand aside._]
106 Enter Volumnia, Virgilia and Valeria
107 How now, my as fair as noble ladies—and the moon, were she earthly, no
108 nobler—whither do you follow your eyes so fast?
109 VOLUMNIA.
110 Honourable Menenius, my boy Martius approaches. For the love of Juno,
111 let’s go!
112 MENENIUS.
113 Ha? Martius coming home?
114 VOLUMNIA.
115 Ay, worthy Menenius, and with most prosperous approbation.
116 MENENIUS.
117 Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee! Hoo! Martius coming home?
118 VALERIA, VIRGILIA.
119 Nay, ’tis true.
120 VOLUMNIA.
121 Look, here’s a letter from him. The state hath another, his wife
122 another, and I think there’s one at home for you.
123 MENENIUS.
124 I will make my very house reel tonight. A letter for me?
125 VIRGILIA.
126 Yes, certain, there’s a letter for you; I saw it.
127 MENENIUS.
128 A letter for me? It gives me an estate of seven years’ health, in which
129 time I will make a lip at the physician. The most sovereign
130 prescription in Galen is but empiricutic and, to this preservative, of
131 no better report than a horse drench. Is he not wounded? He was wont to
132 come home wounded.
133 VIRGILIA.
134 O, no, no, no!
135 VOLUMNIA.
136 O, he is wounded, I thank the gods for’t.
137 MENENIUS.
138 So do I too, if it be not too much. Brings he victory in his pocket,
139 the wounds become him.
140 VOLUMNIA.
141 On’s brows, Menenius. He comes the third time home with the oaken
142 garland.
143 MENENIUS.
144 Has he disciplined Aufidius soundly?
145 VOLUMNIA.
146 Titus Lartius writes they fought together, but Aufidius got off.
147 MENENIUS.
148 And ’twas time for him too, I’ll warrant him that. An he had stayed by
149 him, I would not have been so ’fidiused for all the chests in Corioles
150 and the gold that’s in them. Is the Senate possessed of this?
151 VOLUMNIA.
152 Good ladies, let’s go.—Yes, yes, yes. The Senate has letters from the
153 General, wherein he gives my son the whole name of the war. He hath in
154 this action outdone his former deeds doubly.
155 VALERIA.
156 In troth, there’s wondrous things spoke of him.
157 MENENIUS.
158 Wondrous? Ay, I warrant you, and not without his true purchasing.
159 VIRGILIA.
160 The gods grant them true.
161 VOLUMNIA.
162 True? Pow, waw!
163 MENENIUS.
164 True? I’ll be sworn they are true. Where is he wounded? [_To the
165 Tribunes_.] God save your good Worships! Martius is coming home; he has
166 more cause to be proud.—Where is he wounded?
167 VOLUMNIA.
168 I’ th’ shoulder and i’ th’ left arm. There will be large cicatrices to
169 show the people when he shall stand for his place. He received in the
170 repulse of Tarquin seven hurts i’ th’ body.
171 MENENIUS.
172 One i’ th’ neck and two i’ th’ thigh—there’s nine that I know.
173 VOLUMNIA.
174 He had, before this last expedition, twenty-five wounds upon him.
175 MENENIUS.
176 Now it’s twenty-seven. Every gash was an enemy’s grave.
177 [_A shout and flourish_.]
178 Hark, the trumpets!
179 VOLUMNIA.
180 These are the ushers of Martius: before him he carries noise, and
181 behind him he leaves tears.
182 Death, that dark spirit, in’s nervy arm doth lie,
183 Which, being advanced, declines, and then men die.
184 [_A sennet_.]
185 Enter Cominius the General and Titus Lartius, between them Coriolanus
186 crowned with an oaken garland, with Captains and Soldiers and a Herald.
187 Trumpets sound.
188 HERALD.
189 Know, Rome, that all alone Martius did fight
190 Within Corioles’ gates, where he hath won,
191 With fame, a name to Caius Martius; these
192 In honour follows “Coriolanus.”
193 Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus.
194 [_Sound flourish._]
195 ALL.
196 Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!
197 CORIOLANUS.
198 No more of this, it does offend my heart.
199 Pray now, no more.
200 COMINIUS.
201 Look, sir, your mother.
202 CORIOLANUS.
203 O,
204 You have, I know, petitioned all the gods
205 For my prosperity.
206 [_Kneels._]
207 VOLUMNIA.
208 Nay, my good soldier, up.
209 [_He stands._]
210 My gentle Martius, worthy Caius, and
211 By deed-achieving honour newly named—
212 What is it? Coriolanus must I call thee?
213 But, O, thy wife—
214 CORIOLANUS.
215 My gracious silence, hail.
216 Wouldst thou have laughed had I come coffined home,
217 That weep’st to see me triumph? Ah, my dear,
218 Such eyes the widows in Corioles wear
219 And mothers that lack sons.
220 MENENIUS.
221 Now the gods crown thee!
222 CORIOLANUS.
223 And live you yet? [_To Valeria_] O my sweet lady, pardon.
224 VOLUMNIA.
225 I know not where to turn. O, welcome home!
226 And welcome, general.—And you’re welcome all.
227 MENENIUS.
228 A hundred thousand welcomes! I could weep,
229 And I could laugh; I am light and heavy. Welcome.
230 A curse begin at very root on’s heart
231 That is not glad to see thee! You are three
232 That Rome should dote on; yet, by the faith of men,
233 We have some old crab trees here at home that will not
234 Be grafted to your relish. Yet welcome, warriors!
235 We call a nettle but a nettle, and
236 The faults of fools but folly.
237 COMINIUS.
238 Ever right.
239 CORIOLANUS.
240 Menenius ever, ever.
241 HERALD.
242 Give way there, and go on!
243 CORIOLANUS.
244 [_To Volumnia and Virgilia_.] Your hand, and yours.
245 Ere in our own house I do shade my head,
246 The good patricians must be visited,
247 From whom I have received not only greetings,
248 But with them change of honours.
249 VOLUMNIA.
250 I have lived
251 To see inherited my very wishes
252 And the buildings of my fancy. Only
253 There’s one thing wanting, which I doubt not but
254 Our Rome will cast upon thee.
255 CORIOLANUS.
256 Know, good mother,
257 I had rather be their servant in my way
258 Than sway with them in theirs.
259 COMINIUS.
260 On, to the Capitol.
261 [_Flourish of cornets. Exeunt in state, as before._]
262 Brutus and Sicinius come forward.
263 BRUTUS.
264 All tongues speak of him, and the bleared sights
265 Are spectacled to see him. Your prattling nurse
266 Into a rapture lets her baby cry
267 While she chats him. The kitchen malkin pins
268 Her richest lockram ’bout her reechy neck,
269 Clamb’ring the walls to eye him. Stalls, bulks, windows
270 Are smothered up, leads filled, and ridges horsed
271 With variable complexions, all agreeing
272 In earnestness to see him. Seld-shown flamens
273 Do press among the popular throngs and puff
274 To win a vulgar station. Our veiled dames
275 Commit the war of white and damask in
276 Their nicely-gauded cheeks to th’ wanton spoil
277 Of Phoebus’ burning kisses. Such a pother,
278 As if that whatsoever god who leads him
279 Were slyly crept into his human powers
280 And gave him graceful posture.
281 SICINIUS.
282 On the sudden
283 I warrant him consul.
284 BRUTUS.
285 Then our office may,
286 During his power, go sleep.
287 SICINIUS.
288 He cannot temp’rately transport his honours
289 From where he should begin and end, but will
290 Lose those he hath won.
291 BRUTUS.
292 In that there’s comfort.
293 SICINIUS.
294 Doubt not the commoners, for whom we stand,
295 But they, upon their ancient malice will forget
296 With the least cause these his new honours—which
297 That he will give them make as little question
298 As he is proud to do’t.
299 BRUTUS.
300 I heard him swear,
301 Were he to stand for consul, never would he
302 Appear i’ th’ marketplace nor on him put
303 The napless vesture of humility,
304 Nor showing, as the manner is, his wounds
305 To th’ people, beg their stinking breaths.
306 SICINIUS.
307 ’Tis right.
308 BRUTUS.
309 It was his word. O, he would miss it rather
310 Than carry it but by the suit of the gentry to him
311 And the desire of the nobles.
312 SICINIUS.
313 I wish no better
314 Than have him hold that purpose and to put it
315 In execution.
316 BRUTUS.
317 ’Tis most like he will.
318 SICINIUS.
319 It shall be to him then, as our good wills,
320 A sure destruction.
321 BRUTUS.
322 So it must fall out
323 To him, or our authorities for an end.
324 We must suggest the people in what hatred
325 He still hath held them; that to’s power he would
326 Have made them mules, silenced their pleaders, and
327 Dispropertied their freedoms; holding them
328 In human action and capacity
329 Of no more soul nor fitness for the world
330 Than camels in their war, who have their provand
331 Only for bearing burdens, and sore blows
332 For sinking under them.
333 SICINIUS.
334 This, as you say, suggested
335 At some time when his soaring insolence
336 Shall touch the people—which time shall not want
337 If it be put upon’t, and that’s as easy
338 As to set dogs on sheep—will be his fire
339 To kindle their dry stubble, and their blaze
340 Shall darken him for ever.
341 Enter a Messenger.
342 BRUTUS.
343 What’s the matter?
344 MESSENGER.
345 You are sent for to the Capitol. ’Tis thought
346 That Martius shall be consul. I have seen
347 The dumb men throng to see him, and the blind
348 to hear him speak; matrons flung gloves,
349 Ladies and maids their scarves and handkerchiefs,
350 Upon him as he passed; the nobles bended
351 As to Jove’s statue, and the Commons made
352 A shower and thunder with their caps and shouts.
353 I never saw the like.
354 BRUTUS.
355 Let’s to the Capitol;
356 And carry with us ears and eyes for th’ time,
357 But hearts for the event.
358 SICINIUS.
359 Have with you.
360 [_Exeunt._]