The Tragedy Of Coriolanus

1 Cornets. Enter Coriolanus, Menenius, all the Gentry, Cominius, Titus
2 Lartius and other Senators.
3 CORIOLANUS.
4 Tullus Aufidius then had made new head?
5 LARTIUS.
6 He had, my lord, and that it was which caused
7 Our swifter composition.
8 CORIOLANUS.
9 So then the Volsces stand but as at first,
10 Ready, when time shall prompt them, to make road
11 Upon’s again.
12 COMINIUS.
13 They are worn, lord consul, so
14 That we shall hardly in our ages see
15 Their banners wave again.
16 CORIOLANUS.
17 Saw you Aufidius?
18 LARTIUS.
19 On safeguard he came to me, and did curse
20 Against the Volsces, for they had so vilely
21 Yielded the town. He is retired to Antium.
22 CORIOLANUS.
23 Spoke he of me?
24 LARTIUS.
25 He did, my lord.
26 CORIOLANUS.
27 How? What?
28 LARTIUS.
29 How often he had met you sword to sword;
30 That of all things upon the earth he hated
31 Your person most; that he would pawn his fortunes
32 To hopeless restitution, so he might
33 Be called your vanquisher.
34 CORIOLANUS.
35 At Antium lives he?
36 LARTIUS.
37 At Antium.
38 CORIOLANUS.
39 I wish I had a cause to seek him there,
40 To oppose his hatred fully. Welcome home.
41 Enter Sicinius and Brutus.
42 Behold, these are the tribunes of the people,
43 The tongues o’ th’ common mouth. I do despise them,
44 For they do prank them in authority
45 Against all noble sufferance.
46 SICINIUS.
47 Pass no further.
48 CORIOLANUS.
49 Ha? What is that?
50 BRUTUS.
51 It will be dangerous to go on. No further.
52 CORIOLANUS.
53 What makes this change?
54 MENENIUS.
55 The matter?
56 COMINIUS.
57 Hath he not passed the noble and the common?
58 BRUTUS.
59 Cominius, no.
60 CORIOLANUS.
61 Have I had children’s voices?
62 FIRST SENATOR.
63 Tribunes, give way. He shall to the marketplace.
64 BRUTUS.
65 The people are incensed against him.
66 SICINIUS.
67 Stop,
68 Or all will fall in broil.
69 CORIOLANUS.
70 Are these your herd?
71 Must these have voices, that can yield them now
72 And straight disclaim their tongues? What are your offices?
73 You being their mouths, why rule you not their teeth?
74 Have you not set them on?
75 MENENIUS.
76 Be calm, be calm.
77 CORIOLANUS.
78 It is a purposed thing, and grows by plot,
79 To curb the will of the nobility.
80 Suffer’t, and live with such as cannot rule
81 Nor ever will be ruled.
82 BRUTUS.
83 Call’t not a plot.
84 The people cry you mocked them; and, of late,
85 When corn was given them gratis, you repined,
86 Scandaled the suppliants for the people, called them
87 Timepleasers, flatterers, foes to nobleness.
88 CORIOLANUS.
89 Why, this was known before.
90 BRUTUS.
91 Not to them all.
92 CORIOLANUS.
93 Have you informed them sithence?
94 BRUTUS.
95 How? I inform them?
96 COMINIUS.
97 You are like to do such business.
98 BRUTUS.
99 Not unlike, each way, to better yours.
100 CORIOLANUS.
101 Why then should I be consul? By yond clouds,
102 Let me deserve so ill as you, and make me
103 Your fellow tribune.
104 SICINIUS.
105 You show too much of that
106 For which the people stir. If you will pass
107 To where you are bound, you must inquire your way,
108 Which you are out of, with a gentler spirit,
109 Or never be so noble as a consul,
110 Nor yoke with him for tribune.
111 MENENIUS.
112 Let’s be calm.
113 COMINIUS.
114 The people are abused, set on. This palt’ring
115 Becomes not Rome, nor has Coriolanus
116 Deserved this so dishonoured rub, laid falsely
117 I’ th’ plain way of his merit.
118 CORIOLANUS.
119 Tell me of corn?
120 This was my speech, and I will speak’t again.
121 MENENIUS.
122 Not now, not now.
123 FIRST SENATOR.
124 Not in this heat, sir, now.
125 CORIOLANUS.
126 Now, as I live, I will.
127 My nobler friends, I crave their pardons. For
128 The mutable, rank-scented many, let them
129 Regard me, as I do not flatter, and
130 Therein behold themselves. I say again,
131 In soothing them we nourish ’gainst our senate
132 The cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition,
133 Which we ourselves have ploughed for, sowed, and scattered
134 By mingling them with us, the honoured number,
135 Who lack not virtue, no, nor power, but that
136 Which they have given to beggars.
137 MENENIUS.
138 Well, no more.
139 FIRST SENATOR.
140 No more words, we beseech you.
141 CORIOLANUS.
142 How? No more?
143 As for my country I have shed my blood,
144 Not fearing outward force, so shall my lungs
145 Coin words till their decay against those measles
146 Which we disdain should tetter us, yet sought
147 The very way to catch them.
148 BRUTUS.
149 You speak o’ th’ people
150 As if you were a god to punish, not
151 A man of their infirmity.
152 SICINIUS.
153 ’Twere well
154 We let the people know’t.
155 MENENIUS.
156 What, what? His choler?
157 CORIOLANUS.
158 Choler?
159 Were I as patient as the midnight sleep,
160 By Jove, ’twould be my mind.
161 SICINIUS.
162 It is a mind
163 That shall remain a poison where it is,
164 Not poison any further.
165 CORIOLANUS.
166 “Shall remain”?
167 Hear you this Triton of the minnows? Mark you
168 His absolute “shall”?
169 COMINIUS.
170 ’Twas from the canon.
171 CORIOLANUS.
172 “Shall”?
173 O good but most unwise patricians, why,
174 You grave but reckless senators, have you thus
175 Given Hydra leave to choose an officer,
176 That with his peremptory “shall,” being but
177 The horn and noise o’ th’ monster’s, wants not spirit
178 To say he’ll turn your current in a ditch
179 And make your channel his? If he have power,
180 Then vail your ignorance; if none, awake
181 Your dangerous lenity. If you are learned,
182 Be not as common fools; if you are not,
183 Let them have cushions by you. You are plebeians,
184 If they be senators; and they are no less
185 When, both your voices blended, the great’st taste
186 Most palates theirs. They choose their magistrate,
187 And such a one as he, who puts his “shall,”
188 His popular “shall,” against a graver bench
189 Than ever frowned in Greece. By Jove himself,
190 It makes the consuls base! And my soul aches
191 To know, when two authorities are up,
192 Neither supreme, how soon confusion
193 May enter ’twixt the gap of both and take
194 The one by th’ other.
195 COMINIUS.
196 Well, on to th’ marketplace.
197 CORIOLANUS.
198 Whoever gave that counsel to give forth
199 The corn o’ th’ storehouse gratis, as ’twas used
200 Sometime in Greece—
201 MENENIUS.
202 Well, well, no more of that.
203 CORIOLANUS.
204 Though there the people had more absolute power,
205 I say they nourished disobedience, fed
206 The ruin of the state.
207 BRUTUS.
208 Why shall the people give
209 One that speaks thus their voice?
210 CORIOLANUS.
211 I’ll give my reasons,
212 More worthier than their voices. They know the corn
213 Was not our recompense, resting well assured
214 They ne’er did service for’t. Being pressed to th’ war,
215 Even when the navel of the state was touched,
216 They would not thread the gates. This kind of service
217 Did not deserve corn gratis. Being i’ th’ war,
218 Their mutinies and revolts, wherein they showed
219 Most valour, spoke not for them. Th’ accusation
220 Which they have often made against the Senate,
221 All cause unborn, could never be the native
222 Of our so frank donation. Well, what then?
223 How shall this bosom multitude digest
224 The senate’s courtesy? Let deeds express
225 What’s like to be their words: “We did request it;
226 We are the greater poll, and in true fear
227 They gave us our demands.” Thus we debase
228 The nature of our seats and make the rabble
229 Call our cares fears, which will in time
230 Break ope the locks o’ th’ Senate and bring in
231 The crows to peck the eagles.
232 MENENIUS.
233 Come, enough.
234 BRUTUS.
235 Enough, with over-measure.
236 CORIOLANUS.
237 No, take more!
238 What may be sworn by, both divine and human,
239 Seal what I end withal! This double worship—
240 Where one part does disdain with cause, the other
241 Insult without all reason, where gentry, title, wisdom
242 Cannot conclude but by the yea and no
243 Of general ignorance—it must omit
244 Real necessities and give way the while
245 To unstable slightness. Purpose so barred, it follows
246 Nothing is done to purpose. Therefore, beseech you—
247 You that will be less fearful than discreet,
248 That love the fundamental part of state
249 More than you doubt the change on’t, that prefer
250 A noble life before a long, and wish
251 To jump a body with a dangerous physic
252 That’s sure of death without it—at once pluck out
253 The multitudinous tongue; let them not lick
254 The sweet which is their poison. Your dishonour
255 Mangles true judgment and bereaves the state
256 Of that integrity which should become’t,
257 Not having the power to do the good it would
258 For th’ ill which doth control’t.
259 BRUTUS.
260 ’Has said enough.
261 SICINIUS.
262 ’Has spoken like a traitor, and shall answer
263 As traitors do.
264 CORIOLANUS.
265 Thou wretch, despite o’erwhelm thee!
266 What should the people do with these bald tribunes,
267 On whom depending, their obedience fails
268 To th’ greater bench. In a rebellion,
269 When what’s not meet but what must be was law,
270 Then were they chosen. In a better hour,
271 Let what is meet be said it must be meet,
272 And throw their power i’ th’ dust.
273 BRUTUS.
274 Manifest treason.
275 SICINIUS.
276 This a consul? No.
277 BRUTUS.
278 The aediles, ho! Let him be apprehended.
279 Enter an Aedile.
280 SICINIUS.
281 Go call the people;
282 [_Exit Aedile._]
283 in whose name myself
284 Attach thee as a traitorous innovator,
285 A foe to th’ public weal. Obey, I charge thee,
286 And follow to thine answer.
287 CORIOLANUS.
288 Hence, old goat.
289 ALL PATRICIANS.
290 We’ll surety him.
291 COMINIUS.
292 [_to Sicinius_.] Aged sir, hands off.
293 CORIOLANUS.
294 [_to Sicinius_.] Hence, rotten thing, or I shall shake thy bones
295 Out of thy garments.
296 SICINIUS.
297 Help, ye citizens!
298 Enter a rabble of Plebeians with the Aediles.
299 MENENIUS.
300 On both sides more respect!
301 SICINIUS.
302 Here’s he that would take from you all your power.
303 BRUTUS.
304 Seize him, aediles.
305 ALL PLEBEIANS.
306 Down with him, down with him!
307 SECOND SENATOR.
308 Weapons, weapons, weapons!
309 [_They all bustle about Coriolanus._]
310 Tribunes, patricians, citizens, what, ho!
311 Sicinius, Brutus, Coriolanus, citizens!
312 ALL.
313 Peace, peace, peace! Stay, hold, peace!
314 MENENIUS.
315 What is about to be? I am out of breath.
316 Confusion’s near. I cannot speak. You tribunes
317 To th’ people!—Coriolanus, patience!—
318 Speak, good Sicinius.
319 SICINIUS.
320 Hear me, people! Peace!
321 ALL PLEBEIANS.
322 Let’s hear our tribune. Peace! Speak, speak, speak.
323 SICINIUS.
324 You are at point to lose your liberties.
325 Martius would have all from you, Martius,
326 Whom late you have named for consul.
327 MENENIUS.
328 Fie, fie, fie!
329 This is the way to kindle, not to quench.
330 FIRST SENATOR.
331 To unbuild the city and to lay all flat.
332 SICINIUS.
333 What is the city but the people?
334 ALL PLEBEIANS.
335 True,
336 The people are the city.
337 BRUTUS.
338 By the consent of all, we were established
339 The people’s magistrates.
340 ALL PLEBEIANS.
341 You so remain.
342 MENENIUS.
343 And so are like to do.
344 COMINIUS.
345 That is the way to lay the city flat,
346 To bring the roof to the foundation
347 And bury all which yet distinctly ranges
348 In heaps and piles of ruin.
349 SICINIUS.
350 This deserves death.
351 BRUTUS.
352 Or let us stand to our authority
353 Or let us lose it. We do here pronounce,
354 Upon the part o’ th’ people, in whose power
355 We were elected theirs, Martius is worthy
356 Of present death.
357 SICINIUS.
358 Therefore lay hold of him,
359 Bear him to th’ rock Tarpeian, and from thence
360 Into destruction cast him.
361 BRUTUS.
362 Aediles, seize him!
363 ALL PLEBEIANS.
364 Yield, Martius, yield!
365 MENENIUS.
366 Hear me one word.
367 Beseech you, tribunes, hear me but a word.
368 AEDILES.
369 Peace, peace!
370 MENENIUS.
371 Be that you seem, truly your country’s friend,
372 And temp’rately proceed to what you would
373 Thus violently redress.
374 BRUTUS.
375 Sir, those cold ways,
376 That seem like prudent helps, are very poisonous
377 Where the disease is violent.—Lay hands upon him,
378 And bear him to the rock.
379 [_Coriolanus draws his sword._]
380 CORIOLANUS.
381 No; I’ll die here.
382 There’s some among you have beheld me fighting.
383 Come, try upon yourselves what you have seen me.
384 MENENIUS.
385 Down with that sword!—Tribunes, withdraw awhile.
386 BRUTUS.
387 Lay hands upon him!
388 MENENIUS.
389 Help Martius, help!
390 You that be noble, help him, young and old!
391 ALL PLEBEIANS.
392 Down with him, down with him!
393 [_In this mutiny the Tribunes, the Aediles and the People are beat
394 in._]
395 MENENIUS.
396 Go, get you to your house. Begone, away.
397 All will be naught else.
398 SECOND SENATOR.
399 Get you gone.
400 CORIOLANUS.
401 Stand fast!
402 We have as many friends as enemies.
403 MENENIUS.
404 Shall it be put to that?
405 FIRST SENATOR.
406 The gods forbid!
407 I prithee, noble friend, home to thy house;
408 Leave us to cure this cause.
409 MENENIUS.
410 For ’tis a sore upon us
411 You cannot tent yourself. Begone, beseech you.
412 COMINIUS.
413 Come, sir, along with us.
414 CORIOLANUS.
415 I would they were barbarians, as they are,
416 Though in Rome littered, not Romans, as they are not,
417 Though calved i’ th’ porch o’ th’ Capitol.
418 MENENIUS.
419 Begone!
420 Put not your worthy rage into your tongue.
421 One time will owe another.
422 CORIOLANUS.
423 On fair ground
424 I could beat forty of them.
425 MENENIUS.
426 I could myself
427 Take up a brace o’ th’ best of them, yea, the two tribunes.
428 COMINIUS.
429 But now ’tis odds beyond arithmetic,
430 And manhood is called foolery when it stands
431 Against a falling fabric. Will you hence,
432 Before the tag return, whose rage doth rend
433 Like interrupted waters, and o’erbear
434 What they are used to bear?
435 MENENIUS.
436 Pray you, begone.
437 I’ll try whether my old wit be in request
438 With those that have but little. This must be patched
439 With cloth of any colour.
440 COMINIUS.
441 Nay, come away.
442 [_Exeunt Coriolanus and Cominius._]
443 PATRICIAN.
444 This man has marred his fortune.
445 MENENIUS.
446 His nature is too noble for the world.
447 He would not flatter Neptune for his trident
448 Or Jove for’s power to thunder. His heart’s his mouth;
449 What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent,
450 And, being angry, does forget that ever
451 He heard the name of death.
452 [_A noise within._]
453 Here’s goodly work.
454 PATRICIAN.
455 I would they were abed!
456 MENENIUS.
457 I would they were in Tiber! What the vengeance,
458 Could he not speak ’em fair?
459 Enter Brutus and Sicinius with the rabble again.
460 SICINIUS.
461 Where is this viper
462 That would depopulate the city and
463 Be every man himself?
464 MENENIUS.
465 You worthy tribunes—
466 SICINIUS.
467 He shall be thrown down the Tarpeian rock
468 With rigorous hands. He hath resisted law,
469 And therefore law shall scorn him further trial
470 Than the severity of the public power
471 Which he so sets at naught.
472 FIRST CITIZEN.
473 He shall well know
474 The noble tribunes are the people’s mouths,
475 And we their hands.
476 ALL PLEBEIANS.
477 He shall, sure on’t.
478 MENENIUS.
479 Sir, sir—
480 SICINIUS.
481 Peace!
482 MENENIUS.
483 Do not cry havoc where you should but hunt
484 With modest warrant.
485 SICINIUS.
486 Sir, how comes’t that you
487 Have holp to make this rescue?
488 MENENIUS.
489 Hear me speak.
490 As I do know the Consul’s worthiness,
491 So can I name his faults.
492 SICINIUS.
493 Consul? What consul?
494 MENENIUS.
495 The consul Coriolanus.
496 BRUTUS.
497 He consul?
498 ALL PLEBEIANS.
499 No, no, no, no, no!
500 MENENIUS.
501 If, by the Tribunes’ leave, and yours, good people,
502 I may be heard, I would crave a word or two,
503 The which shall turn you to no further harm
504 Than so much loss of time.
505 SICINIUS.
506 Speak briefly then,
507 For we are peremptory to dispatch
508 This viperous traitor. To eject him hence
509 Were but one danger, and to keep him here
510 Our certain death. Therefore it is decreed
511 He dies tonight.
512 MENENIUS.
513 Now the good gods forbid
514 That our renowned Rome, whose gratitude
515 Towards her deserved children is enrolled
516 In Jove’s own book, like an unnatural dam
517 Should now eat up her own.
518 SICINIUS.
519 He’s a disease that must be cut away.
520 MENENIUS.
521 O, he’s a limb that has but a disease—
522 Mortal to cut it off; to cure it easy.
523 What has he done to Rome that’s worthy death?
524 Killing our enemies, the blood he hath lost—
525 Which I dare vouch is more than that he hath
526 By many an ounce—he dropt it for his country;
527 And what is left, to lose it by his country
528 Were to us all, that do’t and suffer it
529 A brand to th’ end o’ th’ world.
530 SICINIUS.
531 This is clean cam.
532 BRUTUS.
533 Merely awry. When he did love his country,
534 It honoured him.
535 MENENIUS.
536 The service of the foot,
537 Being once gangrened, is not then respected
538 For what before it was.
539 BRUTUS.
540 We’ll hear no more.
541 Pursue him to his house, and pluck him thence,
542 Lest his infection, being of catching nature,
543 Spread further.
544 MENENIUS.
545 One word more, one word!
546 This tiger-footed rage, when it shall find
547 The harm of unscanned swiftness, will too late,
548 Tie leaden pounds to’s heels. Proceed by process,
549 Lest parties—as he is beloved—break out
550 And sack great Rome with Romans.
551 BRUTUS.
552 If it were so—
553 SICINIUS.
554 What do ye talk?
555 Have we not had a taste of his obedience?
556 Our aediles smote! Ourselves resisted? Come.
557 MENENIUS.
558 Consider this: he has been bred i’ th’ wars
559 Since he could draw a sword, and is ill schooled
560 In bolted language; meal and bran together
561 He throws without distinction. Give me leave,
562 I’ll go to him and undertake to bring him
563 Where he shall answer by a lawful form,
564 In peace, to his utmost peril.
565 FIRST SENATOR.
566 Noble tribunes,
567 It is the humane way: the other course
568 Will prove too bloody, and the end of it
569 Unknown to the beginning.
570 SICINIUS.
571 Noble Menenius,
572 Be you then as the people’s officer.—
573 Masters, lay down your weapons.
574 BRUTUS.
575 Go not home.
576 SICINIUS.
577 Meet on the marketplace. We’ll attend you there,
578 Where if you bring not Martius, we’ll proceed
579 In our first way.
580 MENENIUS.
581 I’ll bring him to you.
582 [_To Senators_.] Let me desire your company. He must come,
583 Or what is worst will follow.
584 FIRST SENATOR.
585 Pray you, let’s to him.
586 [_Exeunt._]