The Tragedy Of Coriolanus

1 Enter Coriolanus and Aufidius.
2 CORIOLANUS.
3 We will before the walls of Rome tomorrow
4 Set down our host. My partner in this action,
5 You must report to th’ Volscian lords how plainly
6 I have borne this business.
7 AUFIDIUS.
8 Only their ends
9 You have respected, stopped your ears against
10 The general suit of Rome; never admitted
11 A private whisper, no, not with such friends
12 That thought them sure of you.
13 CORIOLANUS.
14 This last old man,
15 Whom with cracked heart I have sent to Rome,
16 Loved me above the measure of a father,
17 Nay, godded me indeed. Their latest refuge
18 Was to send him, for whose old love I have—
19 Though I showed sourly to him—once more offered
20 The first conditions, which they did refuse
21 And cannot now accept, to grace him only
22 That thought he could do more. A very little
23 I have yielded to. Fresh embassies and suits,
24 Nor from the state nor private friends, hereafter
25 Will I lend ear to.
26 [_Shout within._]
27 Ha? What shout is this?
28 Shall I be tempted to infringe my vow
29 In the same time ’tis made? I will not.
30 Enter Virgilia, Volumnia, Valeria, young Martius with attendants.
31 My wife comes foremost, then the honoured mold
32 Wherein this trunk was framed, and in her hand
33 The grandchild to her blood. But out, affection!
34 All bond and privilege of nature, break!
35 Let it be virtuous to be obstinate.
36 What is that curtsy worth? Or those doves’ eyes,
37 Which can make gods forsworn? I melt and am not
38 Of stronger earth than others. My mother bows,
39 As if Olympus to a molehill should
40 In supplication nod; and my young boy
41 Hath an aspect of intercession which
42 Great Nature cries “Deny not!” Let the Volsces
43 Plough Rome and harrow Italy, I’ll never
44 Be such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand
45 As if a man were author of himself,
46 And knew no other kin.
47 VIRGILIA.
48 My lord and husband.
49 CORIOLANUS.
50 These eyes are not the same I wore in Rome.
51 VIRGILIA.
52 The sorrow that delivers us thus changed
53 Makes you think so.
54 CORIOLANUS.
55 Like a dull actor now,
56 I have forgot my part, and I am out,
57 Even to a full disgrace. Best of my flesh,
58 Forgive my tyranny, but do not say
59 For that, “Forgive our Romans.”
60 [_They kiss._]
61 O, a kiss
62 Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge!
63 Now, by the jealous queen of heaven, that kiss
64 I carried from thee, dear, and my true lip
65 Hath virgined it e’er since. You gods! I prate
66 And the most noble mother of the world
67 Leave unsaluted. Sink, my knee, i’ th’ earth;
68 [_Kneels._]
69 Of thy deep duty more impression show
70 Than that of common sons.
71 VOLUMNIA.
72 O, stand up blest,
73 [_He rises_.]
74 Whilst with no softer cushion than the flint
75 I kneel before thee and unproperly
76 Show duty, as mistaken all this while
77 Between the child and parent.
78 [_She kneels._]
79 CORIOLANUS.
80 What is this?
81 Your knees to me? To your corrected son?
82 [_He raises her up._]
83 Then let the pebbles on the hungry beach
84 Fillip the stars! Then let the mutinous winds
85 Strike the proud cedars ’gainst the fiery sun,
86 Murdering impossibility to make
87 What cannot be slight work.
88 VOLUMNIA.
89 Thou art my warrior;
90 I holp to frame thee. Do you know this lady?
91 CORIOLANUS.
92 The noble sister of Publicola,
93 The moon of Rome, chaste as the icicle
94 That’s curdied by the frost from purest snow
95 And hangs on Dian’s temple!—Dear Valeria.
96 VOLUMNIA.
97 This is a poor epitome of yours,
98 Which by th’ interpretation of full time
99 May show like all yourself.
100 CORIOLANUS.
101 The god of soldiers,
102 With the consent of supreme Jove, inform
103 Thy thoughts with nobleness, that thou mayst prove
104 To shame unvulnerable, and stick i’ th’ wars
105 Like a great seamark standing every flaw
106 And saving those that eye thee.
107 VOLUMNIA.
108 [_To young Martius_.] Your knee, sirrah.
109 [_He kneels._]
110 CORIOLANUS.
111 That’s my brave boy!
112 VOLUMNIA.
113 Even he, your wife, this lady, and myself
114 Are suitors to you.
115 [_Young Martius rises._]
116 CORIOLANUS.
117 I beseech you, peace;
118 Or, if you’d ask, remember this before:
119 The thing I have forsworn to grant may never
120 Be held by you denials. Do not bid me
121 Dismiss my soldiers or capitulate
122 Again with Rome’s mechanics. Tell me not
123 Wherein I seem unnatural; desire not
124 T’ allay my rages and revenges with
125 Your colder reasons.
126 VOLUMNIA.
127 O, no more, no more!
128 You have said you will not grant us anything;
129 For we have nothing else to ask but that
130 Which you deny already. Yet we will ask,
131 That if you fail in our request, the blame
132 May hang upon your hardness. Therefore hear us.
133 CORIOLANUS.
134 Aufidius, and you Volsces, mark, for we’ll
135 Hear naught from Rome in private. Your request?
136 VOLUMNIA.
137 Should we be silent and not speak, our raiment
138 And state of bodies would bewray what life
139 We have led since thy exile. Think with thyself
140 How more unfortunate than all living women
141 Are we come hither; since that thy sight, which should
142 Make our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance with comforts,
143 Constrains them weep and shake with fear and sorrow,
144 Making the mother, wife, and child to see
145 The son, the husband, and the father tearing
146 His country’s bowels out. And to poor we
147 Thine enmity’s most capital. Thou barr’st us
148 Our prayers to the gods, which is a comfort
149 That all but we enjoy. For how can we—
150 Alas, how can we—for our country pray,
151 Whereto we are bound, together with thy victory,
152 Whereto we are bound? Alack, or we must lose
153 The country, our dear nurse, or else thy person,
154 Our comfort in the country. We must find
155 An evident calamity, though we had
156 Our wish, which side should win, for either thou
157 Must as a foreign recreant be led
158 With manacles through our streets, or else
159 Triumphantly tread on thy country’s ruin
160 And bear the palm for having bravely shed
161 Thy wife and children’s blood. For myself, son,
162 I purpose not to wait on fortune till
163 These wars determine. If I cannot persuade thee
164 Rather to show a noble grace to both parts
165 Than seek the end of one, thou shalt no sooner
166 March to assault thy country than to tread—
167 Trust to’t, thou shalt not—on thy mother’s womb
168 That brought thee to this world.
169 VIRGILIA.
170 Ay, and mine,
171 That brought you forth this boy to keep your name
172 Living to time.
173 YOUNG MARTIUS.
174 He shall not tread on me.
175 I’ll run away till I am bigger, but then I’ll fight.
176 CORIOLANUS.
177 Not of a woman’s tenderness to be
178 Requires nor child nor woman’s face to see.—
179 I have sat too long.
180 [_He rises._]
181 VOLUMNIA.
182 Nay, go not from us thus.
183 If it were so, that our request did tend
184 To save the Romans, thereby to destroy
185 The Volsces whom you serve, you might condemn us
186 As poisonous of your honour. No, our suit
187 Is that you reconcile them, while the Volsces
188 May say “This mercy we have showed,” the Romans
189 “This we received,” and each in either side
190 Give the all-hail to thee and cry, “Be blessed
191 For making up this peace!” Thou know’st, great son,
192 The end of war’s uncertain, but this certain,
193 That, if thou conquer Rome, the benefit
194 Which thou shalt thereby reap is such a name
195 Whose repetition will be dogged with curses,
196 Whose chronicle thus writ: “The man was noble,
197 But with his last attempt he wiped it out;
198 Destroyed his country, and his name remains
199 To th’ ensuing age abhorred.” Speak to me, son.
200 Thou hast affected the fine strains of honour
201 To imitate the graces of the gods,
202 To tear with thunder the wide cheeks o’ th’ air
203 And yet to charge thy sulphur with a bolt
204 That should but rive an oak. Why dost not speak?
205 Think’st thou it honourable for a noble man
206 Still to remember wrongs?—Daughter, speak you.
207 He cares not for your weeping.—Speak thou, boy.
208 Perhaps thy childishness will move him more
209 Than can our reasons.—There’s no man in the world
210 More bound to’s mother, yet here he lets me prate
211 Like one i’ th’ stocks. Thou hast never in thy life
212 Showed thy dear mother any courtesy
213 When she, poor hen, fond of no second brood,
214 Has clucked thee to the wars and safely home,
215 Loaden with honour. Say my request’s unjust
216 And spurn me back; but if it be not so,
217 Thou art not honest, and the gods will plague thee
218 That thou restrain’st from me the duty which
219 To a mother’s part belongs.—He turns away.—
220 Down, ladies! Let us shame him with our knees.
221 To his surname Coriolanus ’longs more pride
222 Than pity to our prayers. Down! An end.
223 [_They kneel._]
224 This is the last. So we will home to Rome
225 And die among our neighbours.—Nay, behold’s.
226 This boy that cannot tell what he would have,
227 But kneels and holds up hands for fellowship,
228 Does reason our petition with more strength
229 Than thou hast to deny’t.—Come, let us go.
230 [_They rise._]
231 This fellow had a Volscian to his mother,
232 His wife is in Corioles, and his child
233 Like him by chance.—Yet give us our dispatch.
234 I am hushed until our city be afire,
235 And then I’ll speak a little.
236 [_He holds her by the hand, silent._]
237 CORIOLANUS.
238 O mother, mother!
239 What have you done? Behold, the heavens do ope,
240 The gods look down, and this unnatural scene
241 They laugh at. O my mother, mother, O!
242 You have won a happy victory to Rome,
243 But, for your son—believe it, O, believe it!—
244 Most dangerously you have with him prevailed,
245 If not most mortal to him. But let it come.—
246 Aufidius, though I cannot make true wars,
247 I’ll frame convenient peace. Now, good Aufidius,
248 Were you in my stead, would you have heard
249 A mother less? Or granted less, Aufidius?
250 AUFIDIUS.
251 I was moved withal.
252 CORIOLANUS.
253 I dare be sworn you were.
254 And, sir, it is no little thing to make
255 Mine eyes to sweat compassion. But, good sir,
256 What peace you’ll make, advise me. For my part,
257 I’ll not to Rome, I’ll back with you; and pray you,
258 Stand to me in this cause.—O mother!—Wife!
259 [_He speaks with them aside._]
260 AUFIDIUS.
261 [_Aside_.] I am glad thou hast set thy mercy and thy honour
262 At difference in thee. Out of that I’ll work
263 Myself a former fortune.
264 CORIOLANUS.
265 [_To the Women_.] Ay, by and by;
266 But we’ll drink together, and you shall bear
267 A better witness back than words, which we,
268 On like conditions, will have countersealed.
269 Come, enter with us. Ladies, you deserve
270 To have a temple built you. All the swords
271 In Italy, and her confederate arms,
272 Could not have made this peace.
273 [_Exeunt._]