The Tragedy Of Coriolanus

1 Enter Coriolanus with Nobles.
2 CORIOLANUS.
3 Let them pull all about mine ears, present me
4 Death on the wheel or at wild horses’ heels,
5 Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock,
6 That the precipitation might down stretch
7 Below the beam of sight, yet will I still
8 Be thus to them.
9 FIRST PATRICIAN.
10 You do the nobler.
11 CORIOLANUS.
12 I muse my mother
13 Does not approve me further, who was wont
14 To call them woollen vassals, things created
15 To buy and sell with groats, to show bare heads
16 In congregations, to yawn, be still, and wonder
17 When one but of my ordinance stood up
18 To speak of peace or war.
19 Enter Volumnia.
20 I talk of you.
21 Why did you wish me milder? Would you have me
22 False to my nature? Rather say I play
23 The man I am.
24 VOLUMNIA.
25 O, sir, sir, sir,
26 I would have had you put your power well on
27 Before you had worn it out.
28 CORIOLANUS.
29 Let go.
30 VOLUMNIA.
31 You might have been enough the man you are
32 With striving less to be so. Lesser had been
33 The thwartings of your dispositions if
34 You had not showed them how ye were disposed
35 Ere they lacked power to cross you.
36 CORIOLANUS.
37 Let them hang!
38 VOLUMNIA.
39 Ay, and burn too.
40 Enter Menenius with the Senators.
41 MENENIUS.
42 Come, come, you have been too rough, something too rough.
43 You must return and mend it.
44 FIRST SENATOR.
45 There’s no remedy,
46 Unless, by not so doing, our good city
47 Cleave in the midst and perish.
48 VOLUMNIA.
49 Pray be counselled.
50 I have a heart as little apt as yours,
51 But yet a brain that leads my use of anger
52 To better vantage.
53 MENENIUS.
54 Well said, noble woman.
55 Before he should thus stoop to th’ herd—but that
56 The violent fit o’ th’ time craves it as physic
57 For the whole state—I would put mine armour on,
58 Which I can scarcely bear.
59 CORIOLANUS.
60 What must I do?
61 MENENIUS.
62 Return to th’ Tribunes.
63 CORIOLANUS.
64 Well, what then? What then?
65 MENENIUS.
66 Repent what you have spoke.
67 CORIOLANUS.
68 For them? I cannot do it to the gods.
69 Must I then do’t to them?
70 VOLUMNIA.
71 You are too absolute,
72 Though therein you can never be too noble
73 But when extremities speak. I have heard you say
74 Honour and policy, like unsevered friends,
75 I’ th’ war do grow together. Grant that, and tell me
76 In peace what each of them by th’ other lose
77 That they combine not there.
78 CORIOLANUS.
79 Tush, tush!
80 MENENIUS.
81 A good demand.
82 VOLUMNIA.
83 If it be honour in your wars to seem
84 The same you are not, which for your best ends
85 You adopt your policy, how is it less or worse
86 That it shall hold companionship in peace
87 With honour as in war, since that to both
88 It stands in like request?
89 CORIOLANUS.
90 Why force you this?
91 VOLUMNIA.
92 Because that now it lies you on to speak
93 To th’ people, not by your own instruction,
94 Nor by th’ matter which your heart prompts you,
95 But with such words that are but rooted in
96 Your tongue, though but bastards and syllables
97 Of no allowance to your bosom’s truth.
98 Now, this no more dishonours you at all
99 Than to take in a town with gentle words,
100 Which else would put you to your fortune and
101 The hazard of much blood.
102 I would dissemble with my nature where
103 My fortunes and my friends at stake required
104 I should do so in honour. I am in this
105 Your wife, your son, these senators, the nobles;
106 And you will rather show our general louts
107 How you can frown than spend a fawn upon ’em
108 For the inheritance of their loves and safeguard
109 Of what that want might ruin.
110 MENENIUS.
111 Noble lady!—
112 Come, go with us; speak fair. You may salve so,
113 Not what is dangerous present, but the loss
114 Of what is past.
115 VOLUMNIA.
116 I prithee now, my son,
117 Go to them with this bonnet in thy hand,
118 And thus far having stretched it—here be with them—
119 Thy knee bussing the stones—for in such busines
120 Action is eloquence, and the eyes of th’ ignorant
121 More learned than the ears—waving thy head,
122 Which often thus correcting thy stout heart,
123 Now humble as the ripest mulberry
124 That will not hold the handling. Or say to them
125 Thou art their soldier and, being bred in broils,
126 Hast not the soft way, which thou dost confess
127 Were fit for thee to use, as they to claim,
128 In asking their good loves; but thou wilt frame
129 Thyself, forsooth, hereafter theirs, so far
130 As thou hast power and person.
131 MENENIUS.
132 This but done
133 Even as she speaks, why, their hearts were yours;
134 For they have pardons, being asked, as free
135 As words to little purpose.
136 VOLUMNIA.
137 Prithee now,
138 Go, and be ruled; although I know thou hadst rather
139 Follow thine enemy in a fiery gulf
140 Than flatter him in a bower.
141 Enter Cominius.
142 Here is Cominius.
143 COMINIUS.
144 I have been i’ th’ marketplace; and, sir, ’tis fit
145 You make strong party or defend yourself
146 By calmness or by absence. All’s in anger.
147 MENENIUS.
148 Only fair speech.
149 COMINIUS.
150 I think ’twill serve, if he
151 Can thereto frame his spirit.
152 VOLUMNIA.
153 He must, and will.—
154 Prithee, now, say you will, and go about it.
155 CORIOLANUS.
156 Must I go show them my unbarbed sconce? Must I
157 With my base tongue give to my noble heart
158 A lie that it must bear? Well, I will do’t.
159 Yet, were there but this single plot to lose,
160 This mould of Martius, they to dust should grind it
161 And throw’t against the wind. To th’ marketplace!
162 You have put me now to such a part which never
163 I shall discharge to th’ life.
164 COMINIUS.
165 Come, come, we’ll prompt you.
166 VOLUMNIA.
167 I prithee now, sweet son, as thou hast said
168 My praises made thee first a soldier, so,
169 To have my praise for this, perform a part
170 Thou hast not done before.
171 CORIOLANUS.
172 Well, I must do’t.
173 Away, my disposition, and possess me
174 Some harlot’s spirit! My throat of war be turned,
175 Which choired with my drum, into a pipe
176 Small as an eunuch or the virgin voice
177 That babies lulls asleep! The smiles of knaves
178 Tent in my cheeks, and schoolboys’ tears take up
179 The glasses of my sight! A beggar’s tongue
180 Make motion through my lips, and my armed knees,
181 Who bowed but in my stirrup, bend like his
182 That hath received an alms! I will not do’t,
183 Lest I surcease to honour mine own truth
184 And, by my body’s action, teach my mind
185 A most inherent baseness.
186 VOLUMNIA.
187 At thy choice, then.
188 To beg of thee, it is my more dishonour
189 Than thou of them. Come all to ruin. Let
190 Thy mother rather feel thy pride than fear
191 Thy dangerous stoutness, for I mock at death
192 With as big heart as thou. Do as thou list.
193 Thy valiantness was mine; thou suck’dst it from me,
194 But owe thy pride thyself.
195 CORIOLANUS.
196 Pray, be content.
197 Mother, I am going to the marketplace.
198 Chide me no more. I’ll mountebank their loves,
199 Cog their hearts from them, and come home beloved
200 Of all the trades in Rome. Look, I am going.
201 Commend me to my wife. I’ll return consul,
202 Or never trust to what my tongue can do
203 I’ th’ way of flattery further.
204 VOLUMNIA.
205 Do your will.
206 [_Exit Volumnia._]
207 COMINIUS.
208 Away! The Tribunes do attend you. Arm yourself
209 To answer mildly, for they are prepared
210 With accusations, as I hear, more strong
211 Than are upon you yet.
212 CORIOLANUS.
213 The word is “mildly.” Pray you, let us go.
214 Let them accuse me by invention, I
215 Will answer in mine honour.
216 MENENIUS.
217 Ay, but mildly.
218 CORIOLANUS.
219 Well, mildly be it, then. Mildly.
220 [_Exeunt._]