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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, |
Murd'ring 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 th' 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' th' 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'd 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 |
T'allay 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 bar'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 through 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 can not 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. |
BOY. '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 receiv'd,' 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 wip'd it out, |
Destroy'd his country, and his name remains |
To th' ensuing age abhorr'd.' Speak to me, son. |
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