res/coriolanus.txt

Coriolanus
by William Shakespeare


Characters in the Play
======================
Caius MARTIUS, later Caius Martius CORIOLANUS
VOLUMNIA, his mother
VIRGILIA, his wife
YOUNG MARTIUS, their son
VALERIA, friend to Volumnia and Virgilia
A GENTLEWOMAN, Volumnia's attendant
MENENIUS Agrippa, patrician
COMINIUS, patrician and general
Titus LARTIUS, patrician and military officer
SICINIUS Velutus, tribune
Junius BRUTUS, tribune
Roman SENATORS, PATRICIANS, NOBLES
Roman LIEUTENANT
Roman OFFICERS
Roman AEDILES
Roman HERALD
Roman SOLDIERS
Roman CITIZENS or PLEBEIANS
Roman MESSENGERS
A ROMAN defector, Nicanor
Tullus AUFIDIUS, general of the Volscians
Volscian CONSPIRATORS of his faction
Three of his SERVINGMEN
Volscian SENATORS, LORDS
Volscian LIEUTENANT
Volscian SOLDIERS
Two of the Volscian WATCH
Volscian PEOPLE
A VOLSCIAN spy, Adrian
CITIZEN of Antium
Roman Lords, Gentry, Captains, Lictors, Trumpeters, Drummers, Musicians, Attendants, and Usher


ACT 1
=====

Scene 1
=======
[Enter a company of mutinous Citizens with staves,
clubs, and other weapons.]


FIRST CITIZEN  Before we proceed any further, hear me
speak.

ALL  Speak, speak!

FIRST CITIZEN  You are all resolved rather to die than to
famish?

ALL  Resolved, resolved!

FIRST CITIZEN  First, you know Caius Martius is chief
enemy to the people.

ALL  We know 't, we know 't!

FIRST CITIZEN  Let us kill him, and we'll have corn at
our own price. Is 't a verdict?

ALL  No more talking on 't; let it be done. Away, away!

SECOND CITIZEN  One word, good citizens.

FIRST CITIZEN  We are accounted poor citizens, the patricians
good. What authority surfeits on would
relieve us. If they would yield us but the superfluity
while it were wholesome, we might guess they
relieved us humanely. But they think we are too
dear. The leanness that afflicts us, the object of our
misery, is as an inventory to particularize their
abundance; our sufferance is a gain to them. Let
us revenge this with our pikes ere we become
rakes; for the gods know I speak this in hunger for
bread, not in thirst for revenge.

SECOND CITIZEN  Would you proceed especially against
Caius Martius?

ALL  Against him first. He's a very dog to the
commonalty.

SECOND CITIZEN  Consider you what services he has
done for his country?

FIRST CITIZEN  Very well, and could be content to give
him good report for 't, but that he pays himself
with being proud.

SECOND CITIZEN  Nay, but speak not maliciously.

FIRST CITIZEN  I say unto you, what he hath done
famously he did it to that end. Though soft-conscienced
men can be content to say it was for
his country, he did it to please his mother and to be
partly proud, which he is, even to the altitude of
his virtue.

SECOND CITIZEN  What he cannot help in his nature you
account a vice in him. You must in no way say he
is covetous.

FIRST CITIZEN  If I must not, I need not be barren of accusations.
He hath faults, with surplus, to tire in
repetition. [(Shouts within.)] What shouts are these?
The other side o' th' city is risen. Why stay we prating
here? To th' Capitol!

ALL  Come, come!

[Enter Menenius Agrippa.]


FIRST CITIZEN  Soft, who comes here?

SECOND CITIZEN  Worthy Menenius Agrippa, one that
hath always loved the people.

FIRST CITIZEN  He's one honest enough. Would all the
rest were so!

MENENIUS
What work 's, my countrymen, in hand? Where go
you
With bats and clubs? The matter? Speak, I pray you.

SECOND CITIZEN  Our business is not unknown to th'
Senate. They have had inkling this fortnight what
we intend to do, which now we'll show 'em in
deeds. They say poor suitors have strong breaths;
they shall know we have strong arms too.

MENENIUS
Why, masters, my good friends, mine honest
neighbors,
Will you undo yourselves?

SECOND CITIZEN
We cannot, sir; we are undone already.

MENENIUS
I tell you, friends, most charitable care
Have the patricians of you. For your wants,
Your suffering in this dearth, you may as well
Strike at the heaven with your staves as lift them
Against the Roman state, whose course will on
The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs
Of more strong link asunder than can ever
Appear in your impediment. For the dearth,
The gods, not the patricians, make it, and
Your knees to them, not arms, must help. Alack,
You are transported by calamity
Thither where more attends you, and you slander
The helms o' th' state, who care for you like fathers,
When you curse them as enemies.

SECOND CITIZEN  Care for us? True, indeed! They ne'er
cared for us yet. Suffer us to famish, and their
storehouses crammed with grain; make edicts for
usury to support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome
act established against the rich, and provide
more piercing statutes daily to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will;
and there's all the love they bear us.

MENENIUS
Either you must confess yourselves wondrous
malicious
Or be accused of folly. I shall tell you
A pretty tale. It may be you have heard it,
But since it serves my purpose, I will venture
To stale 't a little more.

SECOND CITIZEN  Well, I'll hear it, sir; yet you must not
think to fob off our disgrace with a tale. But, an 't
please you, deliver.

MENENIUS
There was a time when all the body's members
Rebelled against the belly, thus accused it:
That only like a gulf it did remain
I' th' midst o' th' body, idle and unactive,
Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing
Like labor with the rest, where th' other instruments
Did see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel,
And, mutually participate, did minister
Unto the appetite and affection common
Of the whole body. The belly answered--

SECOND CITIZEN  Well, sir, what answer made the belly?

MENENIUS
Sir, I shall tell you. With a kind of smile,
Which ne'er came from the lungs, but even thus--
For, look you, I may make the belly smile
As well as speak--it tauntingly replied
To th' discontented members, the mutinous parts
That envied his receipt; even so most fitly
As you malign our senators for that
They are not such as you.

SECOND CITIZEN  Your belly's answer--what?
The kingly crowned head, the vigilant eye,
The counselor heart, the arm our soldier,
Our steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter,
With other muniments and petty helps
In this our fabric, if that they--

MENENIUS  What then?
'Fore me, this fellow speaks. What then? What then?

SECOND CITIZEN
Should by the cormorant belly be restrained,
Who is the sink o' th' body--

MENENIUS  Well, what then?

SECOND CITIZEN
The former agents, if they did complain,
What could the belly answer?

MENENIUS  I will tell you,
If you'll bestow a small--of what you have little--
Patience awhile, you'st hear the belly's answer.

SECOND CITIZEN
You're long about it.

MENENIUS  Note me this, good friend;
Your most grave belly was deliberate,
Not rash like his accusers, and thus answered:
"True is it, my incorporate friends," quoth he,
"That I receive the general food at first
Which you do live upon; and fit it is,
Because I am the storehouse and the shop
Of the whole body. But, if you do remember,
I send it through the rivers of your blood
Even to the court, the heart, to th' seat o' th' brain;
And, through the cranks and offices of man,
The strongest nerves and small inferior veins
From me receive that natural competency
Whereby they live. And though that all at once,
You, my good friends"--this says the belly, mark
me--

SECOND CITIZEN
Ay, sir, well, well.

MENENIUS  "Though all at once cannot
See what I do deliver out to each,
Yet I can make my audit up, that all
From me do back receive the flour of all,
And leave me but the bran." What say you to 't?

SECOND CITIZEN
It was an answer. How apply you this?

MENENIUS
The senators of Rome are this good belly,
And you the mutinous members. For examine
Their counsels and their cares, digest things rightly
Touching the weal o' th' common, you shall find
No public benefit which you receive
But it proceeds or comes from them to you
And no way from yourselves. What do you think,
You, the great toe of this assembly?

SECOND CITIZEN  I the great toe? Why the great toe?

MENENIUS
For that, being one o' th' lowest, basest, poorest,
Of this most wise rebellion, thou goest foremost.
Thou rascal, that art worst in blood to run,
Lead'st first to win some vantage.
But make you ready your stiff bats and clubs.
Rome and her rats are at the point of battle;
The one side must have bale.

[Enter Caius Martius.]

Hail, noble Martius.

MARTIUS
Thanks.--What's the matter, you dissentious rogues,
That, rubbing the poor itch of your opinion,
Make yourselves scabs?

SECOND CITIZEN  We have ever your good word.

MARTIUS
He that will give good words to thee will flatter
Beneath abhorring. What would you have, you curs,
That like nor peace nor war? The one affrights you;
The other makes you proud. He that trusts to you,
Where he should find you lions, finds you hares;
Where foxes, geese. You are no surer, no,
Than is the coal of fire upon the ice
Or hailstone in the sun. Your virtue is
To make him worthy whose offense subdues him,
And curse that justice did it. Who deserves greatness
Deserves your hate; and your affections are
A sick man's appetite, who desires most that
Which would increase his evil. He that depends
Upon your favors swims with fins of lead,
And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang you! Trust
you?
With every minute you do change a mind
And call him noble that was now your hate,
Him vile that was your garland. What's the matter,
That in these several places of the city
You cry against the noble senate, who,
Under the gods, keep you in awe, which else
Would feed on one another?--What's their seeking?

MENENIUS
For corn at their own rates, whereof they say
The city is well stored.

MARTIUS  Hang 'em! They say?
They'll sit by th' fire and presume to know
What's done i' th' Capitol, who's like to rise,
Who thrives, and who declines; side factions and
give out
Conjectural marriages, making parties strong
And feebling such as stand not in their liking
Below their cobbled shoes. They say there's grain
enough?
Would the nobility lay aside their ruth
And let me use my sword, I'd make a quarry
With thousands of these quartered slaves as high
As I could pick my lance.

MENENIUS
Nay, these are almost thoroughly persuaded;
For though abundantly they lack discretion,
Yet are they passing cowardly. But I beseech you,
What says the other troop?

MARTIUS  They are dissolved. Hang
'em!
They said they were an-hungry, sighed forth
proverbs
That hunger broke stone walls, that dogs must eat,
That meat was made for mouths, that the gods sent
not
Corn for the rich men only. With these shreds
They vented their complainings, which being
answered
And a petition granted them--a strange one,
To break the heart of generosity
And make bold power look pale--they threw their
caps
As they would hang them on the horns o' th' moon,
Shouting their emulation.

MENENIUS  What is granted them?

MARTIUS
Five tribunes to defend their vulgar wisdoms,
Of their own choice. One's Junius Brutus,
Sicinius Velutus, and I know not. 'Sdeath!
The rabble should have first unroofed the city
Ere so prevailed with me. It will in time
Win upon power and throw forth greater themes
For insurrection's arguing.

MENENIUS  This is strange.

MARTIUS  Go get you home, you fragments.

[Enter a Messenger hastily.]


MESSENGER
Where's Caius Martius?

MARTIUS  Here. What's the matter?

MESSENGER
The news is, sir, the Volsces are in arms.

MARTIUS
I am glad on 't. Then we shall ha' means to vent
Our musty superfluity.

[Enter Sicinius Velutus, Junius Brutus, (two Tribunes);
Cominius, Titus Lartius, with other Senators.]

See our best elders.

FIRST SENATOR
Martius, 'tis true that you have lately told us:
The Volsces are in arms.

MARTIUS  They have a leader,
Tullus Aufidius, that will put you to 't.
I sin in envying his nobility,
And, were I anything but what I am,
I would wish me only he.

COMINIUS  You have fought together?

MARTIUS
Were half to half the world by th' ears and he
Upon my party, I'd revolt, to make
Only my wars with him. He is a lion
That I am proud to hunt.

FIRST SENATOR  Then, worthy Martius,
Attend upon Cominius to these wars.

COMINIUS
It is your former promise.

MARTIUS  Sir, it is,
And I am constant.--Titus Lartius, thou
Shalt see me once more strike at Tullus' face.
What, art thou stiff? Stand'st out?

LARTIUS  No, Caius Martius,
I'll lean upon one crutch and fight with t' other
Ere stay behind this business.

MENENIUS  O, true bred!

FIRST SENATOR
Your company to th' Capitol, where I know
Our greatest friends attend us.

LARTIUS, [to Cominius]  Lead you on.--
[To Martius.] Follow Cominius. We must follow you;
Right worthy you priority.

COMINIUS  Noble Martius.

FIRST SENATOR, [to the Citizens]
Hence to your homes, begone.

MARTIUS  Nay, let them follow.
The Volsces have much corn; take these rats thither
To gnaw their garners.
[Citizens steal away.]
Worshipful mutineers,
Your valor puts well forth.--Pray follow.
[They exit. Sicinius and Brutus remain.]

SICINIUS
Was ever man so proud as is this Martius?

BRUTUS  He has no equal.

SICINIUS
When we were chosen tribunes for the people--

BRUTUS
Marked you his lip and eyes?

SICINIUS  Nay, but his taunts.

BRUTUS
Being moved, he will not spare to gird the gods--

SICINIUS  Bemock the modest moon.

BRUTUS
The present wars devour him! He is grown
Too proud to be so valiant.

SICINIUS  Such a nature,
Tickled with good success, disdains the shadow
Which he treads on at noon. But I do wonder
His insolence can brook to be commanded
Under Cominius.

BRUTUS  Fame, at the which he aims,
In whom already he's well graced, cannot
Better be held nor more attained than by
A place below the first; for what miscarries
Shall be the General's fault, though he perform
To th' utmost of a man, and giddy censure
Will then cry out of Martius "O, if he
Had borne the business!"

SICINIUS  Besides, if things go well,
Opinion that so sticks on Martius shall
Of his demerits rob Cominius.

BRUTUS  Come.
Half all Cominius' honors are to Martius,
Though Martius earned them not, and all his faults
To Martius shall be honors, though indeed
In aught he merit not.

SICINIUS  Let's hence and hear
How the dispatch is made, and in what fashion,
More than his singularity, he goes
Upon this present action.

BRUTUS  Let's along.
[They exit.]

Scene 2
=======
[Enter Tullus Aufidius with Senators of Corioles.]


FIRST SENATOR
So, your opinion is, Aufidius,
That they of Rome are entered in our counsels
And know how we proceed.

AUFIDIUS  Is it not yours?
Whatever have been thought on in this state
That could be brought to bodily act ere Rome
Had circumvention? 'Tis not four days gone
Since I heard thence. These are the words--I think
I have the letter here. Yes, here it is.
[(He reads.)] They have pressed a power, but it is not
known
Whether for east or west. The dearth is great.
The people mutinous; and, it is rumored,
Cominius, Martius your old enemy,
Who is of Rome worse hated than of you,
And Titus Lartius, a most valiant Roman,
These three lead on this preparation
Whither 'tis bent. Most likely 'tis for you.
Consider of it.

FIRST SENATOR  Our army's in the field.
We never yet made doubt but Rome was ready
To answer us.

AUFIDIUS  Nor did you think it folly
To keep your great pretenses veiled till when
They needs must show themselves, which, in the
hatching,
It seemed, appeared to Rome. By the discovery
We shall be shortened in our aim, which was
To take in many towns ere almost Rome
Should know we were afoot.

SECOND SENATOR  Noble Aufidius,
Take your commission; hie you to your bands.
Let us alone to guard Corioles.
If they set down before 's, for the remove
Bring up your army. But I think you'll find
They've not prepared for us.

AUFIDIUS  O, doubt not that;
I speak from certainties. Nay, more,
Some parcels of their power are forth already,
And only hitherward. I leave your Honors.
If we and Caius Martius chance to meet,
'Tis sworn between us we shall ever strike
Till one can do no more.

ALL  The gods assist you!

AUFIDIUS  And keep your Honors safe!

FIRST SENATOR  Farewell.

SECOND SENATOR  Farewell.

ALL  Farewell.
[All exit.]

Scene 3
=======
[Enter Volumnia and Virgilia, mother and wife
to Martius. They set them down on two low stools
and sew.]


VOLUMNIA  I pray you, daughter, sing, or express yourself
in a more comfortable sort. If my son were my
husband, I should freelier rejoice in that absence
wherein he won honor than in the embracements
of his bed where he would show most love. When
yet he was but tender-bodied and the only son of
my womb, when youth with comeliness plucked
all gaze his way, when for a day of kings' entreaties
a mother should not sell him an hour from her beholding,
I, considering how honor would become
such a person--that it was no better than picture-like
to hang by th' wall, if renown made it not
stir--was pleased to let him seek danger where he
was like to find fame. To a cruel war I sent him,
from whence he returned, his brows bound with
oak. I tell thee, daughter, I sprang not more in joy
at first hearing he was a man-child than now in
first seeing he had proved himself a man.

VIRGILIA  But had he died in the business, madam, how
then?

VOLUMNIA  Then his good report should have been my
son; I therein would have found issue. Hear me
profess sincerely: had I a dozen sons, each in my
love alike and none less dear than thine and my
good Martius, I had rather had eleven die nobly
for their country than one voluptuously surfeit out
of action.

[Enter a Gentlewoman.]


GENTLEWOMAN  Madam, the Lady Valeria is come to
visit you.

VIRGILIA
Beseech you, give me leave to retire myself.

VOLUMNIA  Indeed you shall not.
Methinks I hear hither your husband's drum,
See him pluck Aufidius down by th' hair;
As children from a bear, the Volsces shunning him.
Methinks I see him stamp thus and call thus:
"Come on, you cowards! You were got in fear,
Though you were born in Rome." His bloody brow
With his mailed hand then wiping, forth he goes
Like to a harvestman that's tasked to mow
Or all or lose his hire.

VIRGILIA
His bloody brow? O Jupiter, no blood!

VOLUMNIA
Away, you fool! It more becomes a man
Than gilt his trophy. The breasts of Hecuba,
When she did suckle Hector, looked not lovelier
Than Hector's forehead when it spit forth blood
At Grecian sword, contemning.--Tell Valeria
We are fit to bid her welcome.	[Gentlewoman exits.]

VIRGILIA
Heavens bless my lord from fell Aufidius!

VOLUMNIA
He'll beat Aufidius' head below his knee
And tread upon his neck.

[Enter Valeria with an Usher and a Gentlewoman.]


VALERIA  My ladies both, good day to you.

VOLUMNIA  Sweet madam.

VIRGILIA  I am glad to see your Ladyship.

VALERIA  How do you both? You are manifest housekeepers.
What are you sewing here? A fine spot, in
good faith. How does your little son?

VIRGILIA  I thank your Ladyship; well, good madam.

VOLUMNIA  He had rather see the swords and hear a
drum than look upon his schoolmaster.

VALERIA  O' my word, the father's son! I'll swear 'tis a
very pretty boy. O' my troth, I looked upon him o'
Wednesday half an hour together. H'as such a confirmed
countenance. I saw him run after a gilded
butterfly, and when he caught it, he let it go again,
and after it again, and over and over he comes,
and up again, catched it again. Or whether his fall
enraged him or how 'twas, he did so set his teeth
and tear it. O, I warrant how he mammocked it!

VOLUMNIA  One on 's father's moods.

VALERIA  Indeed, la, 'tis a noble child.

VIRGILIA  A crack, madam.

VALERIA  Come, lay aside your stitchery. I must have
you play the idle huswife with me this afternoon.

VIRGILIA  No, good madam, I will not out of doors.

VALERIA  Not out of doors?

VOLUMNIA  She shall, she shall.

VIRGILIA  Indeed, no, by your patience. I'll not over the
threshold till my lord return from the wars.

VALERIA  Fie, you confine yourself most unreasonably.
Come, you must go visit the good lady that lies in.

VIRGILIA  I will wish her speedy strength and visit her
with my prayers, but I cannot go thither.

VOLUMNIA  Why, I pray you?

VIRGILIA  'Tis not to save labor, nor that I want love.

VALERIA  You would be another Penelope. Yet they say
all the yarn she spun in Ulysses' absence did but fill
Ithaca full of moths. Come, I would your cambric
were sensible as your finger, that you might leave
pricking it for pity. Come, you shall go with us.

VIRGILIA  No, good madam, pardon me; indeed, I will
not forth.

VALERIA  In truth, la, go with me, and I'll tell you excellent
news of your husband.

VIRGILIA  O, good madam, there can be none yet.

VALERIA  Verily, I do not jest with you. There came
news from him last night.

VIRGILIA  Indeed, madam!

VALERIA  In earnest, it's true. I heard a senator speak it.
Thus it is: the Volsces have an army forth, against
whom Cominius the General is gone with one
part of our Roman power. Your lord and Titus Lartius
are set down before their city Corioles. They
nothing doubt prevailing, and to make it brief
wars. This is true, on mine honor, and so, I pray, go
with us.

VIRGILIA  Give me excuse, good madam. I will obey you
in everything hereafter.

VOLUMNIA  Let her alone, lady. As she is now, she will
but disease our better mirth.

VALERIA  In troth, I think she would.--Fare you well,
then.--Come, good sweet lady.--Prithee, Virgilia,
turn thy solemness out o' door, and go along with
us.

VIRGILIA  No, at a word, madam. Indeed, I must not. I
wish you much mirth.

VALERIA  Well, then, farewell.
[Ladies exit.]

Scene 4
=======
[Enter Martius, Titus Lartius, with Trumpet, Drum,
and Colors, with Captains and Soldiers, as before
the city of Corioles. To them a Messenger.]


MARTIUS
Yonder comes news. A wager they have met.

LARTIUS
My horse to yours, no.

MARTIUS  'Tis done.

LARTIUS  Agreed.

MARTIUS, [to Messenger]
Say, has our general met the enemy?

MESSENGER
They lie in view but have not spoke as yet.

LARTIUS
So the good horse is mine.

MARTIUS  I'll buy him of you.

LARTIUS
No, I'll nor sell nor give him. Lend you him I will
For half a hundred years.--Summon the town.

MARTIUS  How far off lie these armies?

MESSENGER  Within this mile and half.

MARTIUS
Then shall we hear their 'larum and they ours.
Now, Mars, I prithee, make us quick in work,
That we with smoking swords may march from
hence
To help our fielded friends!--Come, blow thy blast.
[They sound a parley.]

[Enter two Senators with others on the walls of Corioles.]

Tullus Aufidius, is he within your walls?

FIRST SENATOR
No, nor a man that fears you less than he:
That's lesser than a little.	[Drum afar off.]
Hark, our drums
Are bringing forth our youth. We'll break our walls
Rather than they shall pound us up. Our gates,
Which yet seem shut, we have but pinned with
rushes.
They'll open of themselves.	[Alarum far off.]
Hark you, far off!
There is Aufidius. List what work he makes
Amongst your cloven army.
[They exit from the walls.]

MARTIUS  O, they are at it!

LARTIUS
Their noise be our instruction.--Ladders, ho!

[Enter the Army of the Volsces as through the city gates.]


MARTIUS
They fear us not but issue forth their city.--
Now put your shields before your hearts, and fight
With hearts more proof than shields.--Advance,
brave Titus.
They do disdain us much beyond our thoughts,
Which makes me sweat with wrath.--Come on, my
fellows!
He that retires, I'll take him for a Volsce,
And he shall feel mine edge.
[Alarum. The Romans are beat back to their trenches.]
[They exit, with the Volsces following.]

[Enter Martius cursing, with Roman soldiers.]


MARTIUS
All the contagion of the south light on you,
You shames of Rome! You herd of--Boils and
plagues
Plaster you o'er, that you may be abhorred
Farther than seen, and one infect another
Against the wind a mile! You souls of geese,
That bear the shapes of men, how have you run
From slaves that apes would beat! Pluto and hell!
All hurt behind. Backs red, and faces pale
With flight and agued fear! Mend, and charge home,
Or, by the fires of heaven, I'll leave the foe
And make my wars on you. Look to 't. Come on!
If you'll stand fast, we'll beat them to their wives,
As they us to our trenches. Follow 's!

[Another alarum. The Volsces re-enter and are driven
back to the gates of Corioles, which open to admit
them.]

So, now the gates are ope. Now prove good
seconds!
'Tis for the followers fortune widens them,
Not for the fliers. Mark me, and do the like.
[Martius follows the fleeing Volsces through
the gates, and is shut in.]

FIRST SOLDIER  Foolhardiness, not I.

SECOND SOLDIER  Nor I.

FIRST SOLDIER  See they have shut him in.
[Alarum continues.]

ALL  To th' pot, I warrant him.

[Enter Titus Lartius.]


LARTIUS
What is become of Martius?

ALL  Slain, sir, doubtless.

FIRST SOLDIER
Following the fliers at the very heels,
With them he enters, who upon the sudden
Clapped to their gates. He is himself alone,
To answer all the city.

LARTIUS  O, noble fellow,
Who sensibly outdares his senseless sword,
And when it bows, stand'st up! Thou art left,
Martius.
A carbuncle entire, as big as thou art,
Were not so rich a jewel. Thou wast a soldier
Even to Cato's wish, not fierce and terrible
Only in strokes, but with thy grim looks and
The thunderlike percussion of thy sounds
Thou mad'st thine enemies shake, as if the world
Were feverous and did tremble.

[Enter Martius, bleeding, as if from Corioles, assaulted
by the enemy.]


FIRST SOLDIER  Look, sir.

LARTIUS  O, 'tis Martius!
Let's fetch him off or make remain alike.
[They fight, and all enter the city, exiting the stage.]

Scene 5
=======
[Enter certain Romans, with spoils.]


FIRST ROMAN  This will I carry to Rome.

SECOND ROMAN  And I this.

THIRD ROMAN  A murrain on 't! I took this for silver.

[Enter Martius, and Titus Lartius with a Trumpet.]


MARTIUS
See here these movers that do prize their hours
At a cracked drachma. Cushions, leaden spoons,
Irons of a doit, doublets that hangmen would
Bury with those that wore them, these base slaves,
Ere yet the fight be done, pack up. Down with them!
[The Romans with spoils exit.]
[Alarum continues still afar off.]
And hark, what noise the General makes! To him!
There is the man of my soul's hate, Aufidius,
Piercing our Romans. Then, valiant Titus, take
Convenient numbers to make good the city,
Whilst I, with those that have the spirit, will haste
To help Cominius.

LARTIUS  Worthy sir, thou bleed'st.
Thy exercise hath been too violent
For a second course of fight.

MARTIUS  Sir, praise me not.
My work hath yet not warmed me. Fare you well.
The blood I drop is rather physical
Than dangerous to me. To Aufidius thus
I will appear and fight.

LARTIUS  Now the fair goddess Fortune
Fall deep in love with thee, and her great charms
Misguide thy opposers' swords! Bold gentleman,
Prosperity be thy page!

MARTIUS  Thy friend no less
Than those she placeth highest! So farewell.

LARTIUS  Thou worthiest Martius!	[Martius exits.]
Go sound thy trumpet in the marketplace.
Call thither all the officers o' th' town,
Where they shall know our mind. Away!
[They exit.]

Scene 6
=======
[Enter Cominius as it were in retire, with Soldiers.]


COMINIUS
Breathe you, my friends. Well fought! We are come
off
Like Romans, neither foolish in our stands
Nor cowardly in retire. Believe me, sirs,
We shall be charged again. Whiles we have struck,
By interims and conveying gusts we have heard
The charges of our friends. The Roman gods
Lead their successes as we wish our own,
That both our powers, with smiling fronts
encount'ring,
May give you thankful sacrifice!

[Enter a Messenger.]

Thy news?

MESSENGER
The citizens of Corioles have issued
And given to Lartius and to Martius battle.
I saw our party to their trenches driven,
And then I came away.

COMINIUS  Though thou speakest truth,
Methinks thou speak'st not well. How long is 't
since?

MESSENGER  Above an hour, my lord.

COMINIUS
'Tis not a mile; briefly we heard their drums.
How couldst thou in a mile confound an hour
And bring thy news so late?

MESSENGER  Spies of the Volsces
Held me in chase, that I was forced to wheel
Three or four miles about; else had I, sir,
Half an hour since brought my report.	[He exits.]

[Enter Martius, bloody.]


COMINIUS  Who's yonder,
That does appear as he were flayed? O gods,
He has the stamp of Martius, and I have
Before-time seen him thus.

MARTIUS  Come I too late?

COMINIUS
The shepherd knows not thunder from a tabor
More than I know the sound of Martius' tongue
From every meaner man.

MARTIUS  Come I too late?

COMINIUS
Ay, if you come not in the blood of others,
But mantled in your own.

MARTIUS  O, let me clip you
In arms as sound as when I wooed, in heart
As merry as when our nuptial day was done
And tapers burnt to bedward!	[They embrace.]

COMINIUS
Flower of warriors, how is 't with Titus Lartius?

MARTIUS
As with a man busied about decrees,
Condemning some to death and some to exile;
Ransoming him or pitying, threat'ning th' other;
Holding Corioles in the name of Rome
Even like a fawning greyhound in the leash,
To let him slip at will.

COMINIUS  Where is that slave
Which told me they had beat you to your trenches?
Where is he? Call him hither.

MARTIUS  Let him alone.
He did inform the truth. But for our gentlemen,
The common file--a plague! Tribunes for them!--
The mouse ne'er shunned the cat as they did budge
From rascals worse than they.

COMINIUS  But how prevailed you?

MARTIUS
Will the time serve to tell? I do not think.
Where is the enemy? Are you lords o' th' field?
If not, why cease you till you are so?

COMINIUS
Martius, we have at disadvantage fought
And did retire to win our purpose.

MARTIUS
How lies their battle? Know you on which side
They have placed their men of trust?

COMINIUS  As I guess,
Martius,
Their bands i' th' vaward are the Antiates,
Of their best trust; o'er them Aufidius,
Their very heart of hope.

MARTIUS  I do beseech you,
By all the battles wherein we have fought,
By th' blood we have shed together, by th' vows we
have made
To endure friends, that you directly set me
Against Aufidius and his Antiates,
And that you not delay the present, but,
Filling the air with swords advanced and darts,
We prove this very hour.

COMINIUS  Though I could wish
You were conducted to a gentle bath
And balms applied to you, yet dare I never
Deny your asking. Take your choice of those
That best can aid your action.

MARTIUS  Those are they
That most are willing. If any such be here--
As it were sin to doubt--that love this painting
Wherein you see me smeared; if any fear
Lesser his person than an ill report;
If any think brave death outweighs bad life,
And that his country's dearer than himself;
Let him alone, or so many so minded,
Wave thus to express his disposition
And follow Martius.	[He waves his sword.]
[They all shout and wave their swords,
take him up in their arms, and cast up their caps.]
O, me alone! Make you a sword of me?
If these shows be not outward, which of you
But is four Volsces? None of you but is
Able to bear against the great Aufidius
A shield as hard as his. A certain number,
Though thanks to all, must I select from all.
The rest shall bear the business in some other fight,
As cause will be obeyed. Please you to march,
And I shall quickly draw out my command,
Which men are best inclined.

COMINIUS  March on, my fellows.
Make good this ostentation, and you shall
Divide in all with us.
[They exit.]

Scene 7
=======
[Titus Lartius, having set a guard upon Corioles, going
with Drum and Trumpet toward Cominius and Caius
Martius, enters with a Lieutenant, other Soldiers,
and a Scout.]


LARTIUS
So, let the ports be guarded. Keep your duties
As I have set them down. If I do send, dispatch
Those centuries to our aid; the rest will serve
For a short holding. If we lose the field,
We cannot keep the town.

LIEUTENANT  Fear not our care, sir.

LARTIUS  Hence, and shut your gates upon 's.
[(To the Scout.)] Our guider, come. To th' Roman
camp conduct us.
[They exit, the Lieutenant one way, Lartius another.]

Scene 8
=======
[Alarum, as in battle.
Enter Martius and Aufidius at several doors.]


MARTIUS
I'll fight with none but thee, for I do hate thee
Worse than a promise-breaker.

AUFIDIUS  We hate alike.
Not Afric owns a serpent I abhor
More than thy fame and envy. Fix thy foot.

MARTIUS
Let the first budger die the other's slave,
And the gods doom him after!

AUFIDIUS  If I fly, Martius,
Hollo me like a hare.

MARTIUS  Within these three hours,
Tullus,
Alone I fought in your Corioles' walls
And made what work I pleased. 'Tis not my blood
Wherein thou seest me masked. For thy revenge,
Wrench up thy power to th' highest.

AUFIDIUS  Wert thou the
Hector
That was the whip of your bragged progeny,
Thou shouldst not scape me here.

[Here they fight, and certain Volsces come in
the aid of Aufidius.]
[(To the Volsces.)] Officious and not valiant, you have
shamed me
In your condemned seconds.
[Martius fights till they be driven in breathless.
Aufidius and Martius exit, separately.]

Scene 9
=======
[Alarum. A retreat is sounded. Flourish. Enter, at one
door, Cominius with the Romans; at another door
Martius, with his arm in a scarf.]


COMINIUS, [to Martius]
If I should tell thee o'er this thy day's work,
Thou 't not believe thy deeds. But I'll report it
Where senators shall mingle tears with smiles;
Where great patricians shall attend and shrug,
I' th' end admire; where ladies shall be frighted
And, gladly quaked, hear more; where the dull
tribunes,
That with the fusty plebeians hate thine honors,
Shall say against their hearts "We thank the gods
Our Rome hath such a soldier."
Yet cam'st thou to a morsel of this feast,
Having fully dined before.

[Enter Titus Lartius with his power, from the pursuit.]


LARTIUS  O general,
Here is the steed, we the caparison.
Hadst thou beheld--

MARTIUS  Pray now, no more. My mother,
Who has a charter to extol her blood,
When she does praise me grieves me. I have done
As you have done--that's what I can;
Induced as you have been--that's for my country.
He that has but effected his good will
Hath overta'en mine act.

COMINIUS  You shall not be
The grave of your deserving. Rome must know
The value of her own. 'Twere a concealment
Worse than a theft, no less than a traducement,
To hide your doings and to silence that
Which, to the spire and top of praises vouched,
Would seem but modest. Therefore, I beseech you--
In sign of what you are, not to reward
What you have done--before our army hear me.

MARTIUS
I have some wounds upon me, and they smart
To hear themselves remembered.

COMINIUS  Should they not,
Well might they fester 'gainst ingratitude
And tent themselves with death. Of all the horses--
Whereof we have ta'en good and good store--of all
The treasure in this field achieved and city,
We render you the tenth, to be ta'en forth
Before the common distribution
At your only choice.

MARTIUS  I thank you, general,
But cannot make my heart consent to take
A bribe to pay my sword. I do refuse it
And stand upon my common part with those
That have beheld the doing.
[A long flourish. They all cry "Martius, Martius!"
and cast up their caps and lances.
Cominius and Lartius stand bare.]
May these same instruments, which you profane,
Never sound more! When drums and trumpets shall
I' th' field prove flatterers, let courts and cities be
Made all of false-faced soothing! When steel grows
Soft as the parasite's silk, let him be made
An ovator for th' wars! No more, I say.
For that I have not washed my nose that bled,
Or foiled some debile wretch--which, without note,
Here's many else have done--you shout me forth
In acclamations hyperbolical,
As if I loved my little should be dieted
In praises sauced with lies.

COMINIUS  Too modest are you,
More cruel to your good report than grateful
To us that give you truly. By your patience,
If 'gainst yourself you be incensed, we'll put you,
Like one that means his proper harm, in manacles,
Then reason safely with you. Therefore be it known,
As to us to all the world, that Caius Martius
Wears this war's garland, in token of the which
My noble steed, known to the camp, I give him,
With all his trim belonging. And from this time,
For what he did before Corioles, call him,
With all th' applause and clamor of the host,
Martius Caius Coriolanus! Bear
Th' addition nobly ever!

[Flourish. Trumpets sound, and drums.]


ALL
Martius Caius Coriolanus!

CORIOLANUS  I will go wash;
And when my face is fair, you shall perceive
Whether I blush or no. Howbeit, I thank you.
I mean to stride your steed and at all times
To undercrest your good addition
To th' fairness of my power.

COMINIUS  So, to our tent,
Where, ere we do repose us, we will write
To Rome of our success.--You, Titus Lartius,
Must to Corioles back. Send us to Rome
The best, with whom we may articulate
For their own good and ours.

LARTIUS  I shall, my lord.

CORIOLANUS
The gods begin to mock me. I, that now
Refused most princely gifts, am bound to beg
Of my lord general.

COMINIUS  Take 't, 'tis yours. What is 't?

CORIOLANUS
I sometime lay here in Corioles
At a poor man's house; he used me kindly.
He cried to me; I saw him prisoner;
But then Aufidius was within my view,
And wrath o'erwhelmed my pity. I request you
To give my poor host freedom.

COMINIUS  O, well begged!
Were he the butcher of my son, he should
Be free as is the wind.--Deliver him, Titus.

LARTIUS
Martius, his name?

CORIOLANUS  By Jupiter, forgot!
I am weary; yea, my memory is tired.
Have we no wine here?

COMINIUS  Go we to our tent.
The blood upon your visage dries; 'tis time
It should be looked to. Come.
[A flourish of cornets. They exit.]

Scene 10
========
[Enter Tullus Aufidius bloody, with two or three Soldiers.]


AUFIDIUS  The town is ta'en.

SOLDIER
'Twill be delivered back on good condition.

AUFIDIUS  Condition?
I would I were a Roman, for I cannot,
Being a Volsce, be that I am. Condition?
What good condition can a treaty find
I' th' part that is at mercy? Five times, Martius,
I have fought with thee; so often hast thou beat me
And wouldst do so, I think, should we encounter
As often as we eat. By th' elements,
If e'er again I meet him beard to beard,
He's mine, or I am his. Mine emulation
Hath not that honor in 't it had; for where
I thought to crush him in an equal force,
True sword to sword, I'll potch at him some way
Or wrath or craft may get him.

SOLDIER  He's the devil.

AUFIDIUS
Bolder, though not so subtle. My valor's poisoned
With only suff'ring stain by him; for him
Shall fly out of itself. Nor sleep nor sanctuary,
Being naked, sick, nor fane nor Capitol,
The prayers of priests nor times of sacrifice,
Embarquements all of fury, shall lift up
Their rotten privilege and custom 'gainst
My hate to Martius. Where I find him, were it
At home, upon my brother's guard, even there,
Against the hospitable canon, would I
Wash my fierce hand in 's heart. Go you to th' city;
Learn how 'tis held and what they are that must
Be hostages for Rome.

SOLDIER  Will not you go?

AUFIDIUS
I am attended at the cypress grove. I pray you--
'Tis south the city mills--bring me word thither
How the world goes, that to the pace of it
I may spur on my journey.

SOLDIER  I shall, sir.
[They exit, Aufidius through one door,
Soldiers through another.]


ACT 2
=====

Scene 1
=======
[Enter Menenius with the two Tribunes of the people,
Sicinius and Brutus.]


MENENIUS  The augurer tells me we shall have news
tonight.

BRUTUS  Good or bad?

MENENIUS  Not according to the prayer of the people,
for they love not Martius.

SICINIUS  Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.

MENENIUS  Pray you, who does the wolf love?

SICINIUS  The lamb.

MENENIUS  Ay, to devour him, as the hungry plebeians
would the noble Martius.

BRUTUS  He's a lamb indeed, that baas like a bear.

MENENIUS  He's a bear indeed, that lives like a lamb.
You two are old men; tell me one thing that I shall
ask you.

BOTH  Well, sir.

MENENIUS  In what enormity is Martius poor in, that
you two have not in abundance?

BRUTUS  He's poor in no one fault, but stored with all.

SICINIUS  Especially in pride.

BRUTUS  And topping all others in boasting.

MENENIUS  This is strange now. Do you two know how
you are censured here in the city, I mean of us o'
th' right-hand file, do you?

BOTH  Why, how are we censured?

MENENIUS  Because you talk of pride now, will you not
be angry?

BOTH  Well, well, sir, well?

MENENIUS  Why, 'tis no great matter; for a very little
thief of occasion will rob you of a great deal of patience.
Give your dispositions the reins, and be
angry at your pleasures, at the least, if you take it
as a pleasure to you in being so. You blame Martius
for being proud.

BRUTUS  We do it not alone, sir.

MENENIUS  I know you can do very little alone, for
your helps are many, or else your actions would
grow wondrous single. Your abilities are too infantlike
for doing much alone. You talk of pride. O,
that you could turn your eyes toward the napes
of your necks and make but an interior survey of
your good selves! O, that you could!

BOTH  What then, sir?

MENENIUS  Why, then you should discover a brace of
unmeriting, proud, violent, testy magistrates, alias
fools, as any in Rome.

SICINIUS  Menenius, you are known well enough, too.

MENENIUS  I am known to be a humorous patrician and
one that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of
allaying Tiber in 't; said to be something imperfect
in favoring the first complaint, hasty and tinder-like
upon too trivial motion; one that converses
more with the buttock of the night than with the
forehead of the morning. What I think I utter,
and spend my malice in my breath. Meeting two
such wealsmen as you are--I cannot call you
Lycurguses--if the drink you give me touch my
palate adversely, I make a crooked face at it. I cannot
say your Worships have delivered the matter
well when I find the ass in compound with the
major part of your syllables. And though I must
be content to bear with those that say you are reverend
grave men, yet they lie deadly that tell you
have good faces. If you see this in the map of my
microcosm, follows it that I am known well enough
too? What harm can your bisson conspectuities
glean out of this character, if I be known well
enough, too?

BRUTUS  Come, sir, come; we know you well enough.

MENENIUS  You know neither me, yourselves, nor anything.
You are ambitious for poor knaves' caps
and legs. You wear out a good wholesome forenoon
in hearing a cause between an orange-wife
and a faucet-seller, and then rejourn the controversy
of threepence to a second day of audience.
When you are hearing a matter between party and
party, if you chance to be pinched with the colic,
you make faces like mummers, set up the bloody
flag against all patience, and, in roaring for a
chamber pot, dismiss the controversy bleeding,
the more entangled by your hearing. All the peace
you make in their cause is calling both the parties
knaves. You are a pair of strange ones.

BRUTUS  Come, come. You are well understood to be a
perfecter giber for the table than a necessary
bencher in the Capitol.

MENENIUS  Our very priests must become mockers if
they shall encounter such ridiculous subjects as
you are. When you speak best unto the purpose, it
is not worth the wagging of your beards, and your
beards deserve not so honorable a grave as to
stuff a botcher's cushion or to be entombed in an
ass's packsaddle. Yet you must be saying Martius is
proud, who, in a cheap estimation, is worth all
your predecessors since Deucalion, though peradventure
some of the best of 'em were hereditary
hangmen. Good e'en to your Worships. More of
your conversation would infect my brain, being
the herdsmen of the beastly plebeians. I will be
bold to take my leave of you.
[He begins to exit. Brutus and Sicinius stand aside.]

[Enter Volumnia, Virgilia, and Valeria.]

How now, my as fair as noble ladies--and the
moon, were she earthly, no nobler--whither do
you follow your eyes so fast?

VOLUMNIA  Honorable Menenius, my boy Martius approaches.
For the love of Juno, let's go!

MENENIUS  Ha? Martius coming home?

VOLUMNIA  Ay, worthy Menenius, and with most prosperous
approbation.

MENENIUS  Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee! [(He
throws his cap in the air.)] Hoo! Martius coming
home?

VALERIA, VIRGILIA  Nay, 'tis true.

VOLUMNIA  Look, here's a letter from him. [She produces
a paper.] The state hath another, his wife another,
and I think there's one at home for you.

MENENIUS  I will make my very house reel tonight. A
letter for me?

VIRGILIA  Yes, certain, there's a letter for you; I saw 't.

MENENIUS  A letter for me? It gives me an estate of
seven years' health, in which time I will make a lip
at the physician. The most sovereign prescription
in Galen is but empiricutic and, to this preservative,
of no better report than a horse drench. Is he not
wounded? He was wont to come home wounded.

VIRGILIA  O no, no, no!

VOLUMNIA  O, he is wounded, I thank the gods for 't.

MENENIUS  So do I too, if it be not too much. Brings he
victory in his pocket, the wounds become him.

VOLUMNIA  On 's brows, Menenius. He comes the third
time home with the oaken garland.

MENENIUS  Has he disciplined Aufidius soundly?

VOLUMNIA  Titus Lartius writes they fought together,
but Aufidius got off.

MENENIUS  And 'twas time for him too, I'll warrant him
that. An he had stayed by him, I would not have
been so 'fidiused for all the chests in Corioles and
the gold that's in them. Is the Senate possessed of
this?

VOLUMNIA  Good ladies, let's go.--Yes, yes, yes. The
Senate has letters from the General, wherein he
gives my son the whole name of the war. He hath
in this action outdone his former deeds doubly.

VALERIA  In troth, there's wondrous things spoke of
him.

MENENIUS  Wondrous? Ay, I warrant you, and not without
his true purchasing.

VIRGILIA  The gods grant them true.

VOLUMNIA  True? Pow waw!

MENENIUS  True? I'll be sworn they are true. Where is
he wounded? [(To the Tribunes.)] God save your
good Worships! Martius is coming home; he has
more cause to be proud.--Where is he wounded?

VOLUMNIA  I' th' shoulder and i' th' left arm. There will
be large cicatrices to show the people when he
shall stand for his place. He received in the repulse
of Tarquin seven hurts i' th' body.

MENENIUS  One i' th' neck and two i' th' thigh--there's
nine that I know.

VOLUMNIA  He had, before this last expedition, twenty-five
wounds upon him.

MENENIUS  Now it's twenty-seven. Every gash was an
enemy's grave. [(A shout and flourish.)] Hark, the
trumpets!

VOLUMNIA  These are the ushers of Martius: before him
he carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears.
Death, that dark spirit, in 's nervy arm doth lie,
Which, being advanced, declines, and then men die.
[A sennet.]

[Enter Cominius the General and Titus Lartius, between
them Coriolanus crowned with an oaken garland, with
Captains and Soldiers and a Herald. Trumpets sound.]


HERALD
Know, Rome, that all alone Martius did fight
Within Corioles' gates, where he hath won,
With fame, a name to Martius Caius; these
In honor follows "Coriolanus."
Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus.
[Sound flourish.]

ALL
Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!

CORIOLANUS
No more of this. It does offend my heart.
Pray now, no more.

COMINIUS  Look, sir, your mother.

CORIOLANUS  O,
You have, I know, petitioned all the gods
For my prosperity.	[Kneels.]

VOLUMNIA  Nay, my good soldier, up.
[He stands.]
My gentle Martius, worthy Caius, and
By deed-achieving honor newly named--
What is it? Coriolanus must I call thee?
But, O, thy wife--

CORIOLANUS  My gracious silence, hail.
Wouldst thou have laughed had I come coffined
home,
That weep'st to see me triumph? Ah, my dear,
Such eyes the widows in Corioles wear
And mothers that lack sons.

MENENIUS  Now the gods crown
thee!

CORIOLANUS
And live you yet? [(To Valeria.)] O, my sweet lady,
pardon.

VOLUMNIA
I know not where to turn. O, welcome home!--
And, welcome, general.--And you're welcome all.

MENENIUS
A hundred thousand welcomes! I could weep,
And I could laugh; I am light and heavy. Welcome.
A curse begin at very root on 's heart
That is not glad to see thee! You are three
That Rome should dote on; yet, by the faith of men,
We have some old crab trees here at home that will
not
Be grafted to your relish. Yet welcome, warriors!
We call a nettle but a nettle, and
The faults of fools but folly.

COMINIUS  Ever right.

CORIOLANUS  Menenius ever, ever.

HERALD
Give way there, and go on!

CORIOLANUS, [to Volumnia and Virgilia]  Your hand
and yours.
Ere in our own house I do shade my head,
The good patricians must be visited,
From whom I have received not only greetings,
But with them change of honors.

VOLUMNIA  I have lived
To see inherited my very wishes
And the buildings of my fancy. Only
There's one thing wanting, which I doubt not but
Our Rome will cast upon thee.

CORIOLANUS  Know, good mother,
I had rather be their servant in my way
Than sway with them in theirs.

COMINIUS  On, to the Capitol.
[Flourish of cornets. They exit in state, as before.]

[Brutus and Sicinius come forward.]



BRUTUS
All tongues speak of him, and the bleared sights
Are spectacled to see him. Your prattling nurse
Into a rapture lets her baby cry
While she chats him. The kitchen malkin pins
Her richest lockram 'bout her reechy neck,
Clamb'ring the walls to eye him. Stalls, bulks,
windows
Are smothered up, leads filled, and ridges horsed
With variable complexions, all agreeing
In earnestness to see him. Seld-shown flamens
Do press among the popular throngs and puff
To win a vulgar station. Our veiled dames
Commit the war of white and damask in
Their nicely-gauded cheeks to th' wanton spoil
Of Phoebus' burning kisses. Such a pother,
As if that whatsoever god who leads him
Were slyly crept into his human powers
And gave him graceful posture.

SICINIUS  On the sudden
I warrant him consul.

BRUTUS  Then our office may,
During his power, go sleep.

SICINIUS
He cannot temp'rately transport his honors
From where he should begin and end, but will
Lose those he hath won.

BRUTUS  In that there's comfort.

SICINIUS  Doubt
not
The commoners, for whom we stand, but they
Upon their ancient malice will forget
With the least cause these his new honors--which
That he will give them make I as little question
As he is proud to do 't.

BRUTUS  I heard him swear,
Were he to stand for consul, never would he
Appear i' th' marketplace nor on him put
The napless vesture of humility,
Nor showing, as the manner is, his wounds
To th' people, beg their stinking breaths.

SICINIUS  'Tis right.

BRUTUS
It was his word. O, he would miss it rather
Than carry it but by the suit of the gentry to him
And the desire of the nobles.

SICINIUS  I wish no better
Than have him hold that purpose and to put it
In execution.

BRUTUS  'Tis most like he will.

SICINIUS
It shall be to him then as our good wills,
A sure destruction.

BRUTUS  So it must fall out
To him, or our authority's for an end.
We must suggest the people in what hatred
He still hath held them; that to 's power he would
Have made them mules, silenced their pleaders, and
Dispropertied their freedoms; holding them
In human action and capacity
Of no more soul nor fitness for the world
Than camels in their war, who have their provand
Only for bearing burdens, and sore blows
For sinking under them.

SICINIUS  This, as you say, suggested
At some time when his soaring insolence
Shall touch the people--which time shall not want
If he be put upon 't, and that's as easy
As to set dogs on sheep--will be his fire
To kindle their dry stubble, and their blaze
Shall darken him forever.

[Enter a Messenger.]


BRUTUS  What's the matter?

MESSENGER
You are sent for to the Capitol. 'Tis thought
That Martius shall be consul. I have seen
The dumb men throng to see him, and the blind
To hear him speak; matrons flung gloves,
Ladies and maids their scarves and handkerchiefs,
Upon him as he passed; the nobles bended
As to Jove's statue, and the Commons made
A shower and thunder with their caps and shouts.
I never saw the like.

BRUTUS  Let's to the Capitol,
And carry with us ears and eyes for th' time,
But hearts for the event.

SICINIUS  Have with you.
[They exit.]

Scene 2
=======
[Enter two Officers, to lay cushions, as it were
in the Capitol.]


FIRST OFFICER  Come, come. They are almost here. How
many stand for consulships?

SECOND OFFICER  Three, they say; but 'tis thought of
everyone Coriolanus will carry it.

FIRST OFFICER  That's a brave fellow, but he's vengeance
proud and loves not the common people.

SECOND OFFICER  'Faith, there hath been many great
men that have flattered the people who ne'er loved
them; and there be many that they have loved they
know not wherefore; so that, if they love they
know not why, they hate upon no better a ground.
Therefore, for Coriolanus neither to care whether
they love or hate him manifests the true knowledge
he has in their disposition and, out of his noble
carelessness, lets them plainly see 't.

FIRST OFFICER  If he did not care whether he had their
love or no, he waved indifferently 'twixt doing them
neither good nor harm; but he seeks their hate with
greater devotion than they can render it him and
leaves nothing undone that may fully discover him
their opposite. Now, to seem to affect the malice
and displeasure of the people is as bad as that
which he dislikes, to flatter them for their love.

SECOND OFFICER  He hath deserved worthily of his
country, and his ascent is not by such easy degrees
as those who, having been supple and courteous to
the people, bonneted, without any further deed to
have them at all into their estimation and report;
but he hath so planted his honors in their eyes and
his actions in their hearts that for their tongues to
be silent and not confess so much were a kind of
ingrateful injury. To report otherwise were a malice
that, giving itself the lie, would pluck reproof
and rebuke from every ear that heard it.

FIRST OFFICER  No more of him; he's a worthy man.
Make way. They are coming.

[A sennet. Enter the Patricians and the Tribunes of the
people, Lictors before them; Coriolanus, Menenius,
Cominius the consul. The Patricians sit. Sicinius
and Brutus take their places by themselves.
Coriolanus stands.]


MENENIUS
Having determined of the Volsces and
To send for Titus Lartius, it remains,
As the main point of this our after-meeting,
To gratify his noble service that
Hath thus stood for his country. Therefore please
you,
Most reverend and grave elders, to desire
The present consul and last general
In our well-found successes to report
A little of that worthy work performed
By Martius Caius Coriolanus, whom
We met here both to thank and to remember
With honors like himself.	[Coriolanus sits.]

FIRST SENATOR  Speak, good Cominius.
Leave nothing out for length, and make us think
Rather our state's defective for requital,
Than we to stretch it out. [(To the Tribunes.)]
Masters o' th' people,
We do request your kindest ears and, after,
Your loving motion toward the common body
To yield what passes here.

SICINIUS  We are convented
Upon a pleasing treaty and have hearts
Inclinable to honor and advance
The theme of our assembly.

BRUTUS  Which the rather
We shall be blest to do if he remember
A kinder value of the people than
He hath hereto prized them at.

MENENIUS  That's off, that's off!
I would you rather had been silent. Please you
To hear Cominius speak?

BRUTUS  Most willingly,
But yet my caution was more pertinent
Than the rebuke you give it.

MENENIUS  He loves your people,
But tie him not to be their bedfellow.--
Worthy Cominius, speak.
[Coriolanus rises and offers to go away.]
Nay, keep your place.

FIRST SENATOR
Sit, Coriolanus. Never shame to hear
What you have nobly done.

CORIOLANUS  Your Honors, pardon.
I had rather have my wounds to heal again
Than hear say how I got them.

BRUTUS  Sir, I hope
My words disbenched you not?

CORIOLANUS  No, sir. Yet oft,
When blows have made me stay, I fled from words.
You soothed not, therefore hurt not; but your
people,
I love them as they weigh.

MENENIUS  Pray now, sit down.

CORIOLANUS
I had rather have one scratch my head i' th' sun
When the alarum were struck than idly sit
To hear my nothings monstered.	[Coriolanus exits.]

MENENIUS  Masters of the people,
Your multiplying spawn how can he flatter--
That's thousand to one good one--when you now
see
He had rather venture all his limbs for honor
Than one on 's ears to hear it.--Proceed, Cominius.

COMINIUS
I shall lack voice. The deeds of Coriolanus
Should not be uttered feebly. It is held
That valor is the chiefest virtue and
Most dignifies the haver; if it be,
The man I speak of cannot in the world
Be singly counterpoised. At sixteen years,
When Tarquin made a head for Rome, he fought
Beyond the mark of others. Our then dictator,
Whom with all praise I point at, saw him fight
When with his Amazonian chin he drove
The bristled lips before him. He bestrid
An o'erpressed Roman and i' th' Consul's view
Slew three opposers. Tarquin's self he met
And struck him on his knee. In that day's feats,
When he might act the woman in the scene,
He proved best man i' th' field and for his meed
Was brow-bound with the oak. His pupil age
Man-entered thus, he waxed like a sea,
And in the brunt of seventeen battles since
He lurched all swords of the garland. For this last,
Before and in Corioles, let me say,
I cannot speak him home. He stopped the flyers
And by his rare example made the coward
Turn terror into sport. As weeds before
A vessel under sail, so men obeyed
And fell below his stem. His sword, Death's stamp,
Where it did mark, it took; from face to foot
He was a thing of blood, whose every motion
Was timed with dying cries. Alone he entered
The mortal gate o' th' city, which he painted
With shunless destiny; aidless came off
And with a sudden reinforcement struck
Corioles like a planet. Now all's his,
When by and by the din of war gan pierce
His ready sense; then straight his doubled spirit
Requickened what in flesh was fatigate,
And to the battle came he, where he did
Run reeking o'er the lives of men as if
'Twere a perpetual spoil; and till we called
Both field and city ours, he never stood
To ease his breast with panting.

MENENIUS  Worthy man!

FIRST SENATOR
He cannot but with measure fit the honors
Which we devise him.

COMINIUS  Our spoils he kicked at
And looked upon things precious as they were
The common muck of the world. He covets less
Than misery itself would give, rewards
His deeds with doing them, and is content
To spend the time to end it.

MENENIUS  He's right noble.
Let him be called for.

FIRST SENATOR  Call Coriolanus.

OFFICER  He doth appear.

[Enter Coriolanus.]


MENENIUS
The Senate, Coriolanus, are well pleased
To make thee consul.

CORIOLANUS  I do owe them still
My life and services.

MENENIUS  It then remains
That you do speak to the people.

CORIOLANUS  I do beseech you,
Let me o'erleap that custom, for I cannot
Put on the gown, stand naked, and entreat them
For my wounds' sake to give their suffrage. Please
you
That I may pass this doing.

SICINIUS  Sir, the people
Must have their voices; neither will they bate
One jot of ceremony.

MENENIUS, [to Coriolanus]  Put them not to 't.
Pray you, go fit you to the custom, and
Take to you, as your predecessors have,
Your honor with your form.

CORIOLANUS  It is a part
That I shall blush in acting, and might well
Be taken from the people.

BRUTUS, [to Sicinius]  Mark you that?

CORIOLANUS
To brag unto them "Thus I did, and thus!"
Show them th' unaching scars, which I should hide,
As if I had received them for the hire
Of their breath only!

MENENIUS  Do not stand upon 't.--
We recommend to you, tribunes of the people,
Our purpose to them, and to our noble consul
Wish we all joy and honor.

SENATORS
To Coriolanus come all joy and honor!
[Flourish cornets. Then they exit. Sicinius and
Brutus remain.]

BRUTUS
You see how he intends to use the people.

SICINIUS
May they perceive 's intent! He will require them
As if he did contemn what he requested
Should be in them to give.

BRUTUS  Come, we'll inform them
Of our proceedings here. On th' marketplace
I know they do attend us.
[They exit.]

Scene 3
=======
[Enter seven or eight Citizens.]


FIRST CITIZEN  Once, if he do require our voices, we
ought not to deny him.

SECOND CITIZEN  We may, sir, if we will.

THIRD CITIZEN  We have power in ourselves to do it, but
it is a power that we have no power to do; for, if
he show us his wounds and tell us his deeds, we
are to put our tongues into those wounds and
speak for them. So, if he tell us his noble deeds, we
must also tell him our noble acceptance of them.
Ingratitude is monstrous, and for the multitude to
be ingrateful were to make a monster of the multitude,
of the which, we being members, should
bring ourselves to be monstrous members.

FIRST CITIZEN  And to make us no better thought of, a
little help will serve; for once we stood up about
the corn, he himself stuck not to call us the many-headed
multitude.

THIRD CITIZEN  We have been called so of many; not that
our heads are some brown, some black, some
abram, some bald, but that our wits are so diversely
colored; and truly I think if all our wits were to
issue out of one skull, they would fly east, west,
north, south, and their consent of one direct way
should be at once to all the points o' th' compass.

SECOND CITIZEN  Think you so? Which way do you
judge my wit would fly?

THIRD CITIZEN  Nay, your wit will not so soon out as another
man's will; 'tis strongly wedged up in a blockhead.
But if it were at liberty, 'twould sure
southward.

SECOND CITIZEN  Why that way?

THIRD CITIZEN  To lose itself in a fog, where, being three
parts melted away with rotten dews, the fourth
would return for conscience' sake, to help to get
thee a wife.

SECOND CITIZEN  You are never without your tricks. You
may, you may.

THIRD CITIZEN  Are you all resolved to give your voices?
But that's no matter; the greater part carries it. I
say, if he would incline to the people, there was
never a worthier man.

[Enter Coriolanus in a gown of humility, with Menenius.]

Here he comes, and in the gown of humility. Mark
his behavior. We are not to stay all together, but to
come by him where he stands, by ones, by twos,
and by threes. He's to make his requests by particulars,
wherein every one of us has a single honor
in giving him our own voices with our own tongues.
Therefore follow me, and I'll direct you how you
shall go by him.

ALL  Content, content.	[Citizens exit.]

MENENIUS
O sir, you are not right. Have you not known
The worthiest men have done 't?

CORIOLANUS  What must I say?
"I pray, sir?"--plague upon 't! I cannot bring
My tongue to such a pace. "Look, sir, my wounds!
I got them in my country's service when
Some certain of your brethren roared and ran
From th' noise of our own drums."

MENENIUS  O me, the gods!
You must not speak of that. You must desire them
To think upon you.

CORIOLANUS  Think upon me? Hang 'em!
I would they would forget me, like the virtues
Which our divines lose by 'em.

MENENIUS  You'll mar all.
I'll leave you. Pray you, speak to 'em, I pray you,
In wholesome manner.	[He exits.]

CORIOLANUS  Bid them wash their faces
And keep their teeth clean.

[Enter three of the Citizens.]

So, here comes a brace.--
You know the cause, sir, of my standing here.

THIRD CITIZEN
We do, sir. Tell us what hath brought you to 't.

CORIOLANUS  Mine own desert.

SECOND CITIZEN  Your own desert?

CORIOLANUS  Ay, but not mine own desire.

THIRD CITIZEN  How, not your own desire?

CORIOLANUS  No, sir, 'twas never my desire yet to trouble
the poor with begging.

THIRD CITIZEN  You must think if we give you anything,
we hope to gain by you.

CORIOLANUS  Well then, I pray, your price o' th'
consulship?

FIRST CITIZEN  The price is to ask it kindly.

CORIOLANUS  Kindly, sir, I pray, let me ha 't. I have
wounds to show you, which shall be yours in
private.--Your good voice, sir. What say you?

SECOND CITIZEN  You shall ha 't, worthy sir.

CORIOLANUS  A match, sir. There's in all two worthy
voices begged. I have your alms. Adieu.

THIRD CITIZEN, [to the other Citizens]  But this is something
odd.

SECOND CITIZEN  An 'twere to give again--but 'tis no
matter.	[These citizens exit.]

[Enter two other Citizens.]


CORIOLANUS  Pray you now, if it may stand with the
tune of your voices that I may be consul, I have
here the customary gown.

FOURTH CITIZEN  You have deserved nobly of your
country, and you have not deserved nobly.

CORIOLANUS  Your enigma?

FOURTH CITIZEN  You have been a scourge to her enemies;
you have been a rod to her friends. You have
not indeed loved the common people.

CORIOLANUS  You should account me the more virtuous
that I have not been common in my love. I will, sir,
flatter my sworn brother, the people, to earn a
dearer estimation of them; 'tis a condition they account
gentle. And since the wisdom of their choice
is rather to have my hat than my heart, I will practice
the insinuating nod and be off to them most
counterfeitly. That is, sir, I will counterfeit the bewitchment
of some popular man and give it bountiful
to the desirers. Therefore, beseech you, I may
be consul.

FIFTH CITIZEN  We hope to find you our friend, and
therefore give you our voices heartily.

FOURTH CITIZEN  You have received many wounds for
your country.

CORIOLANUS  I will not seal your knowledge with showing
them. I will make much of your voices and so
trouble you no farther.

BOTH  The gods give you joy, sir, heartily.
[Citizens exit.]

CORIOLANUS  Most sweet voices!
Better it is to die, better to starve,
Than crave the hire which first we do deserve.
Why in this woolvish toge should I stand here
To beg of Hob and Dick that does appear
Their needless vouches? Custom calls me to 't.
What custom wills, in all things should we do 't?
The dust on antique time would lie unswept
And mountainous error be too highly heaped
For truth to o'erpeer. Rather than fool it so,
Let the high office and the honor go
To one that would do thus. I am half through;
The one part suffered, the other will I do.

[Enter three Citizens more.]

Here come more voices.--
Your voices! For your voices I have fought;
Watched for your voices; for your voices bear
Of wounds two dozen odd. Battles thrice six
I have seen and heard of; for your voices have
Done many things, some less, some more. Your
voices!
Indeed, I would be consul.

SIXTH CITIZEN  He has done nobly, and cannot go
without any honest man's voice.

SEVENTH CITIZEN  Therefore let him be consul. The
gods give him joy, and make him good friend to
the people!

ALL  Amen, amen. God save thee, noble consul.
[Citizens exit.]

CORIOLANUS  Worthy voices!

[Enter Menenius, with Brutus and Sicinius.]


MENENIUS
You have stood your limitation, and the Tribunes
Endue you with the people's voice. Remains
That in th' official marks invested, you
Anon do meet the Senate.

CORIOLANUS  Is this done?

SICINIUS
The custom of request you have discharged.
The people do admit you, and are summoned
To meet anon upon your approbation.

CORIOLANUS
Where? At the Senate House?

SICINIUS  There, Coriolanus.

CORIOLANUS
May I change these garments?

SICINIUS  You may, sir.

CORIOLANUS
That I'll straight do and, knowing myself again,
Repair to th' Senate House.

MENENIUS
I'll keep you company.--Will you along?

BRUTUS
We stay here for the people.

SICINIUS  Fare you well.
[Coriolanus and Menenius exit.]
He has it now; and by his looks, methinks,
'Tis warm at 's heart.

BRUTUS  With a proud heart he wore
His humble weeds. Will you dismiss the people?

[Enter the Plebeians.]


SICINIUS
How now, my masters, have you chose this man?

FIRST CITIZEN  He has our voices, sir.

BRUTUS
We pray the gods he may deserve your loves.

SECOND CITIZEN
Amen, sir. To my poor unworthy notice,
He mocked us when he begged our voices.

THIRD CITIZEN
Certainly, he flouted us downright.

FIRST CITIZEN
No, 'tis his kind of speech. He did not mock us.

SECOND CITIZEN
Not one amongst us, save yourself, but says
He used us scornfully. He should have showed us
His marks of merit, wounds received for 's country.

SICINIUS  Why, so he did, I am sure.

ALL  No, no. No man saw 'em.

THIRD CITIZEN
He said he had wounds, which he could show in
private,
And with his hat, thus waving it in scorn,
"I would be consul," says he. "Aged custom,
But by your voices, will not so permit me;
Your voices therefore." When we granted that,
Here was "I thank you for your voices. Thank you.
Your most sweet voices! Now you have left your
voices,
I have no further with you." Was not this mockery?

SICINIUS
Why either were you ignorant to see 't
Or, seeing it, of such childish friendliness
To yield your voices?

BRUTUS  Could you not have told him
As you were lessoned? When he had no power,
But was a petty servant to the state,
He was your enemy, ever spake against
Your liberties and the charters that you bear
I' th' body of the weal; and, now arriving
A place of potency and sway o' th' state,
If he should still malignantly remain
Fast foe to th' plebeii, your voices might
Be curses to yourselves. You should have said
That as his worthy deeds did claim no less
Than what he stood for, so his gracious nature
Would think upon you for your voices, and
Translate his malice towards you into love,
Standing your friendly lord.

SICINIUS  Thus to have said,
As you were fore-advised, had touched his spirit
And tried his inclination; from him plucked
Either his gracious promise, which you might,
As cause had called you up, have held him to;
Or else it would have galled his surly nature,
Which easily endures not article
Tying him to aught. So putting him to rage,
You should have ta'en th' advantage of his choler
And passed him unelected.

BRUTUS  Did you perceive
He did solicit you in free contempt
When he did need your loves, and do you think
That his contempt shall not be bruising to you
When he hath power to crush? Why, had your
bodies
No heart among you? Or had you tongues to cry
Against the rectorship of judgment?

SICINIUS
Have you ere now denied the asker? And now
Again, of him that did not ask but mock,
Bestow your sued-for tongues?

THIRD CITIZEN  He's not confirmed.
We may deny him yet.

SECOND CITIZEN  And will deny him.
I'll have five hundred voices of that sound.

FIRST CITIZEN
I twice five hundred, and their friends to piece 'em.

BRUTUS
Get you hence instantly, and tell those friends
They have chose a consul that will from them take
Their liberties, make them of no more voice
Than dogs that are as often beat for barking
As therefor kept to do so.

SICINIUS  Let them assemble
And, on a safer judgment, all revoke
Your ignorant election. Enforce his pride
And his old hate unto you. Besides, forget not
With what contempt he wore the humble weed,
How in his suit he scorned you; but your loves,
Thinking upon his services, took from you
Th' apprehension of his present portance,
Which most gibingly, ungravely, he did fashion
After the inveterate hate he bears you.

BRUTUS  Lay
A fault on us, your tribunes, that we labored,
No impediment between, but that you must
Cast your election on him.

SICINIUS  Say you chose him
More after our commandment than as guided
By your own true affections, and that your minds,
Preoccupied with what you rather must do
Than what you should, made you against the grain
To voice him consul. Lay the fault on us.

BRUTUS
Ay, spare us not. Say we read lectures to you,
How youngly he began to serve his country,
How long continued, and what stock he springs of,
The noble house o' th' Martians, from whence came
That Ancus Martius, Numa's daughter's son,
Who after great Hostilius here was king,
Of the same house Publius and Quintus were,
That our best water brought by conduits hither;
And Censorinus, that was so surnamed,
And nobly named so, twice being censor,
Was his great ancestor.

SICINIUS  One thus descended,
That hath besides well in his person wrought
To be set high in place, we did commend
To your remembrances; but you have found,
Scaling his present bearing with his past,
That he's your fixed enemy, and revoke
Your sudden approbation.

BRUTUS  Say you ne'er had done 't--
Harp on that still--but by our putting on.
And presently, when you have drawn your number,
Repair to th' Capitol.

ALL  We will so. Almost all
Repent in their election.	[Plebeians exit.]

BRUTUS  Let them go on.
This mutiny were better put in hazard
Than stay, past doubt, for greater.
If, as his nature is, he fall in rage
With their refusal, both observe and answer
The vantage of his anger.

SICINIUS  To th' Capitol, come.
We will be there before the stream o' th' people,
And this shall seem, as partly 'tis, their own,
Which we have goaded onward.
[They exit.]


ACT 3
=====

Scene 1
=======
[Cornets. Enter Coriolanus, Menenius, all the Gentry,
Cominius, Titus Lartius, and other Senators.]


CORIOLANUS
Tullus Aufidius then had made new head?

LARTIUS
He had, my lord, and that it was which caused
Our swifter composition.

CORIOLANUS
So then the Volsces stand but as at first,
Ready, when time shall prompt them, to make road
Upon 's again.

COMINIUS  They are worn, lord consul, so,
That we shall hardly in our ages see
Their banners wave again.

CORIOLANUS  Saw you Aufidius?

LARTIUS
On safeguard he came to me, and did curse
Against the Volsces, for they had so vilely
Yielded the town. He is retired to Antium.

CORIOLANUS
Spoke he of me?

LARTIUS  He did, my lord.

CORIOLANUS  How? What?

LARTIUS
How often he had met you sword to sword;
That of all things upon the earth he hated
Your person most; that he would pawn his fortunes
To hopeless restitution, so he might
Be called your vanquisher.

CORIOLANUS  At Antium lives he?

LARTIUS  At Antium.

CORIOLANUS
I wish I had a cause to seek him there,
To oppose his hatred fully. Welcome home.

[Enter Sicinius and Brutus.]

Behold, these are the tribunes of the people,
The tongues o' th' common mouth. I do despise
them,
For they do prank them in authority
Against all noble sufferance.

SICINIUS  Pass no further.

CORIOLANUS  Ha? What is that?

BRUTUS
It will be dangerous to go on. No further.

CORIOLANUS  What makes this change?

MENENIUS  The matter?

COMINIUS
Hath he not passed the noble and the common?

BRUTUS
Cominius, no.

CORIOLANUS  Have I had children's voices?

FIRST SENATOR
Tribunes, give way. He shall to th' marketplace.

BRUTUS
The people are incensed against him.

SICINIUS  Stop,
Or all will fall in broil.

CORIOLANUS  Are these your herd?
Must these have voices, that can yield them now
And straight disclaim their tongues? What are your
offices?
You being their mouths, why rule you not their
teeth?
Have you not set them on?

MENENIUS  Be calm, be calm.

CORIOLANUS
It is a purposed thing, and grows by plot,
To curb the will of the nobility.
Suffer 't, and live with such as cannot rule
Nor ever will be ruled.

BRUTUS  Call 't not a plot.
The people cry you mocked them; and, of late,
When corn was given them gratis, you repined,
Scandaled the suppliants for the people, called them
Timepleasers, flatterers, foes to nobleness.

CORIOLANUS
Why, this was known before.

BRUTUS  Not to them all.

CORIOLANUS
Have you informed them sithence?

BRUTUS  How? I inform
them?

COMINIUS  You are like to do such business.

BRUTUS
Not unlike, each way, to better yours.

CORIOLANUS
Why then should I be consul? By yond clouds,
Let me deserve so ill as you, and make me
Your fellow tribune.

SICINIUS  You show too much of that
For which the people stir. If you will pass
To where you are bound, you must inquire your
way,
Which you are out of, with a gentler spirit,
Or never be so noble as a consul,
Nor yoke with him for tribune.

MENENIUS  Let's be calm.

COMINIUS
The people are abused, set on. This palt'ring
Becomes not Rome, nor has Coriolanus
Deserved this so dishonored rub, laid falsely
I' th' plain way of his merit.

CORIOLANUS  Tell me of corn?
This was my speech, and I will speak 't again.

MENENIUS
Not now, not now.

FIRST SENATOR  Not in this heat, sir, now.

CORIOLANUS  Now, as I live, I will.
My nobler friends, I crave their pardons. For
The mutable, rank-scented meiny, let them
Regard me, as I do not flatter, and
Therein behold themselves. I say again,
In soothing them, we nourish 'gainst our senate
The cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition,
Which we ourselves have plowed for, sowed, and
scattered
By mingling them with us, the honored number,
Who lack not virtue, no, nor power, but that
Which they have given to beggars.

MENENIUS  Well, no more.

FIRST SENATOR
No more words, we beseech you.

CORIOLANUS  How? No more?
As for my country I have shed my blood,
Not fearing outward force, so shall my lungs
Coin words till their decay against those measles
Which we disdain should tetter us, yet sought
The very way to catch them.

BRUTUS  You speak o' th' people
As if you were a god to punish, not
A man of their infirmity.

SICINIUS  'Twere well
We let the people know 't.

MENENIUS  What, what? His choler?

CORIOLANUS  Choler?
Were I as patient as the midnight sleep,
By Jove, 'twould be my mind.

SICINIUS  It is a mind
That shall remain a poison where it is,
Not poison any further.

CORIOLANUS  "Shall remain"?
Hear you this Triton of the minnows? Mark you
His absolute "shall"?

COMINIUS  'Twas from the canon.

CORIOLANUS  "Shall"?
O good but most unwise patricians, why,
You grave but reckless senators, have you thus
Given Hydra here to choose an officer,
That with his peremptory "shall," being but
The horn and noise o' th' monster's, wants not spirit
To say he'll turn your current in a ditch
And make your channel his? If he have power,
Then vail your ignorance; if none, awake
Your dangerous lenity. If you are learned,
Be not as common fools; if you are not,
Let them have cushions by you. You are plebeians,
If they be senators; and they are no less
When, both your voices blended, the great'st taste
Most palates theirs. They choose their magistrate,
And such a one as he, who puts his "shall,"
His popular "shall," against a graver bench
Than ever frowned in Greece. By Jove himself,
It makes the consuls base! And my soul aches
To know, when two authorities are up,
Neither supreme, how soon confusion
May enter 'twixt the gap of both and take
The one by th' other.

COMINIUS  Well, on to th' marketplace.

CORIOLANUS
Whoever gave that counsel to give forth
The corn o' th' storehouse gratis, as 'twas used
Sometime in Greece--

MENENIUS  Well, well, no more of that.

CORIOLANUS
Though there the people had more absolute power,
I say they nourished disobedience, fed
The ruin of the state.

BRUTUS  Why shall the people give
One that speaks thus their voice?

CORIOLANUS  I'll give my reasons,
More worthier than their voices. They know the
corn
Was not our recompense, resting well assured
They ne'er did service for 't. Being pressed to th' war,
Even when the navel of the state was touched,
They would not thread the gates. This kind of
service
Did not deserve corn gratis. Being i' th' war,
Their mutinies and revolts, wherein they showed
Most valor, spoke not for them. Th' accusation
Which they have often made against the Senate,
All cause unborn, could never be the native
Of our so frank donation. Well, what then?
How shall this bosom multiplied digest
The Senate's courtesy? Let deeds express
What's like to be their words: "We did request it;
We are the greater poll, and in true fear
They gave us our demands." Thus we debase
The nature of our seats and make the rabble
Call our cares fears, which will in time
Break ope the locks o' th' Senate and bring in
The crows to peck the eagles.

MENENIUS  Come, enough.

BRUTUS
Enough, with over-measure.

CORIOLANUS  No, take more!
What may be sworn by, both divine and human,
Seal what I end withal! This double worship--
Where one part does disdain with cause, the other
Insult without all reason, where gentry, title,
wisdom
Cannot conclude but by the yea and no
Of general ignorance--it must omit
Real necessities and give way the while
To unstable slightness. Purpose so barred, it follows
Nothing is done to purpose. Therefore, beseech
you--
You that will be less fearful than discreet,
That love the fundamental part of state
More than you doubt the change on 't, that prefer
A noble life before a long, and wish
To jump a body with a dangerous physic
That's sure of death without it--at once pluck out
The multitudinous tongue; let them not lick
The sweet which is their poison. Your dishonor
Mangles true judgment and bereaves the state
Of that integrity which should become 't,
Not having the power to do the good it would
For th' ill which doth control 't.

BRUTUS  'Has said enough.

SICINIUS
'Has spoken like a traitor and shall answer
As traitors do.

CORIOLANUS  Thou wretch, despite o'erwhelm thee!
What should the people do with these bald tribunes,
On whom depending, their obedience fails
To th' greater bench? In a rebellion,
When what's not meet but what must be was law,
Then were they chosen. In a better hour,
Let what is meet be said it must be meet,
And throw their power i' th' dust.

BRUTUS  Manifest treason.

SICINIUS  This a consul? No.

BRUTUS  The aediles, ho! Let him be apprehended.

[Enter an Aedile.]


SICINIUS
Go, call the people; [Aedile exits.] in whose name
myself
Attach thee as a traitorous innovator,
A foe to th' public weal. Obey, I charge thee,
And follow to thine answer.

CORIOLANUS  Hence, old goat.

ALL PATRICIANS
We'll surety him.

COMINIUS, [to Sicinius]  Aged sir, hands off.

CORIOLANUS, [to Sicinius]
Hence, rotten thing, or I shall shake thy bones
Out of thy garments.

SICINIUS  Help, you citizens!

[Enter a rabble of Plebeians with the Aediles.]


MENENIUS  On both sides more respect!

SICINIUS
Here's he that would take from you all your power.

BRUTUS  Seize him, aediles.

ALL PLEBEIANS  Down with him, down with him!

SECOND SENATOR  Weapons, weapons, weapons!
[They all bustle about Coriolanus.]
Tribunes, patricians, citizens, what ho!
Sicinius, Brutus, Coriolanus, citizens!

ALL  Peace, peace, peace! Stay, hold, peace!

MENENIUS
What is about to be? I am out of breath.
Confusion's near. I cannot speak. You, tribunes
To th' people!--Coriolanus, patience!--
Speak, good Sicinius.

SICINIUS  Hear me, people! Peace!

ALL PLEBEIANS
Let's hear our tribune. Peace! Speak, speak, speak.

SICINIUS
You are at point to lose your liberties.
Martius would have all from you, Martius,
Whom late you have named for consul.

MENENIUS  Fie, fie, fie!
This is the way to kindle, not to quench.

FIRST SENATOR
To unbuild the city and to lay all flat.

SICINIUS
What is the city but the people?

ALL PLEBEIANS  True,
The people are the city.

BRUTUS
By the consent of all, we were established
The people's magistrates.

ALL PLEBEIANS  You so remain.

MENENIUS  And so are like to do.

CORIOLANUS
That is the way to lay the city flat,
To bring the roof to the foundation
And bury all which yet distinctly ranges
In heaps and piles of ruin.

SICINIUS  This deserves death.

BRUTUS
Or let us stand to our authority
Or let us lose it. We do here pronounce,
Upon the part o' th' people, in whose power
We were elected theirs, Martius is worthy
Of present death.

SICINIUS  Therefore lay hold of him,
Bear him to th' rock Tarpeian, and from thence
Into destruction cast him.

BRUTUS  Aediles, seize him!

ALL PLEBEIANS
Yield, Martius, yield!

MENENIUS  Hear me one word.
Beseech you, tribunes, hear me but a word.

AEDILES  Peace, peace!

MENENIUS
Be that you seem, truly your country's friend,
And temp'rately proceed to what you would
Thus violently redress.

BRUTUS  Sir, those cold ways,
That seem like prudent helps, are very poisonous
Where the disease is violent.--Lay hands upon him,
And bear him to the rock.
[Coriolanus draws his sword.]

CORIOLANUS  No, I'll die here.
There's some among you have beheld me fighting.
Come, try upon yourselves what you have seen me.

MENENIUS
Down with that sword!--Tribunes, withdraw awhile.

BRUTUS
Lay hands upon him!

MENENIUS  Help Martius, help!
You that be noble, help him, young and old!

ALL PLEBEIANS  Down with him, down with him!

[In this mutiny, the Tribunes, the Aediles, and the People
are beat in.]


MENENIUS, [to Coriolanus]
Go, get you to your house. Begone, away.
All will be naught else.

SECOND SENATOR  Get you gone.

CORIOLANUS  Stand fast!
We have as many friends as enemies.

MENENIUS
Shall it be put to that?

FIRST SENATOR  The gods forbid!--
I prithee, noble friend, home to thy house;
Leave us to cure this cause.

MENENIUS  For 'tis a sore upon us
You cannot tent yourself. Begone, beseech you.

COMINIUS  Come, sir, along with us.

CORIOLANUS
I would they were barbarians, as they are,
Though in Rome littered; not Romans, as they are
not,
Though calved i' th' porch o' th' Capitol.

MENENIUS  Begone!
Put not your worthy rage into your tongue.
One time will owe another.

CORIOLANUS  On fair ground
I could beat forty of them.

MENENIUS  I could myself
Take up a brace o' th' best of them, yea, the two
tribunes.

COMINIUS
But now 'tis odds beyond arithmetic,
And manhood is called foolery when it stands
Against a falling fabric. [To Coriolanus.] Will you
hence,
Before the tag return, whose rage doth rend
Like interrupted waters and o'erbear
What they are used to bear?

MENENIUS, [to Coriolanus]  Pray you, begone.
I'll try whether my old wit be in request
With those that have but little. This must be patched
With cloth of any color.

COMINIUS  Nay, come away.
[Coriolanus and Cominius exit.]

PATRICIAN  This man has marred his fortune.

MENENIUS
His nature is too noble for the world.
He would not flatter Neptune for his trident
Or Jove for 's power to thunder. His heart's his
mouth;
What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent,
And, being angry, does forget that ever
He heard the name of death.	[A noise within.]
Here's goodly work.

PATRICIAN  I would they were abed!

MENENIUS
I would they were in Tiber. What the vengeance,
Could he not speak 'em fair?

[Enter Brutus and Sicinius with the rabble again.]


SICINIUS  Where is this viper
That would depopulate the city and
Be every man himself?

MENENIUS  You worthy tribunes--

SICINIUS
He shall be thrown down the Tarpeian rock
With rigorous hands. He hath resisted law,
And therefore law shall scorn him further trial
Than the severity of the public power
Which he so sets at naught.

FIRST CITIZEN  He shall well know
The noble tribunes are the people's mouths
And we their hands.

ALL PLEBEIANS  He shall, sure on 't.

MENENIUS  Sir, sir--

SICINIUS  Peace!

MENENIUS
Do not cry havoc where you should but hunt
With modest warrant.

SICINIUS  Sir, how comes 't that you
Have holp to make this rescue?

MENENIUS  Hear me speak.
As I do know the Consul's worthiness,
So can I name his faults.

SICINIUS  Consul? What consul?

MENENIUS  The consul Coriolanus.

BRUTUS  He consul?

ALL PLEBEIANS  No, no, no, no, no!

MENENIUS
If, by the Tribunes' leave, and yours, good people,
I may be heard, I would crave a word or two,
The which shall turn you to no further harm
Than so much loss of time.

SICINIUS  Speak briefly then,
For we are peremptory to dispatch
This viperous traitor. To eject him hence
Were but one danger, and to keep him here
Our certain death. Therefore it is decreed
He dies tonight.

MENENIUS  Now the good gods forbid
That our renowned Rome, whose gratitude
Towards her deserved children is enrolled
In Jove's own book, like an unnatural dam
Should now eat up her own.

SICINIUS
He's a disease that must be cut away.

MENENIUS
O, he's a limb that has but a disease--
Mortal to cut it off; to cure it easy.
What has he done to Rome that's worthy death?
Killing our enemies, the blood he hath lost--
Which I dare vouch is more than that he hath
By many an ounce--he dropped it for his country;
And what is left, to lose it by his country
Were to us all that do 't and suffer it
A brand to th' end o' th' world.

SICINIUS  This is clean cam.

BRUTUS
Merely awry. When he did love his country,
It honored him.

SICINIUS  The service of the foot,
Being once gangrened, is not then respected
For what before it was.

BRUTUS  We'll hear no more.
Pursue him to his house, and pluck him thence,
Lest his infection, being of catching nature,
Spread further.

MENENIUS  One word more, one word!
This tiger-footed rage, when it shall find
The harm of unscanned swiftness, will too late
Tie leaden pounds to 's heels. Proceed by process,
Lest parties--as he is beloved--break out
And sack great Rome with Romans.

BRUTUS  If it were so--

SICINIUS  What do you talk?
Have we not had a taste of his obedience?
Our aediles smote! Ourselves resisted! Come.

MENENIUS
Consider this: he has been bred i' th' wars
Since he could draw a sword, and is ill schooled
In bolted language; meal and bran together
He throws without distinction. Give me leave,
I'll go to him and undertake to bring him
Where he shall answer by a lawful form,
In peace, to his utmost peril.

FIRST SENATOR  Noble tribunes,
It is the humane way: the other course
Will prove too bloody, and the end of it
Unknown to the beginning.

SICINIUS  Noble Menenius,
Be you then as the people's officer.--
Masters, lay down your weapons.

BRUTUS  Go not home.

SICINIUS
Meet on the marketplace. [To Menenius.] We'll
attend you there,
Where if you bring not Martius, we'll proceed
In our first way.

MENENIUS  I'll bring him to you.
[To Senators.] Let me desire your company. He must
come,
Or what is worst will follow.

FIRST SENATOR  Pray you, let's to him.
[All exit.]

Scene 2
=======
[Enter Coriolanus with Nobles.]


CORIOLANUS
Let them pull all about mine ears, present me
Death on the wheel or at wild horses' heels,
Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock,
That the precipitation might down stretch
Below the beam of sight, yet will I still
Be thus to them.

NOBLE  You do the nobler.

CORIOLANUS  I muse my mother
Does not approve me further, who was wont
To call them woolen vassals, things created
To buy and sell with groats, to show bare heads
In congregations, to yawn, be still, and wonder
When one but of my ordinance stood up
To speak of peace or war.

[Enter Volumnia.]

I talk of you.
Why did you wish me milder? Would you have me
False to my nature? Rather say I play
The man I am.

VOLUMNIA  O sir, sir, sir,
I would have had you put your power well on
Before you had worn it out.

CORIOLANUS  Let go.

VOLUMNIA
You might have been enough the man you are
With striving less to be so. Lesser had been
The thwartings of your dispositions if
You had not showed them how you were disposed
Ere they lacked power to cross you.

CORIOLANUS  Let them hang!

VOLUMNIA  Ay, and burn too.

[Enter Menenius with the Senators.]


MENENIUS, [to Coriolanus]
Come, come, you have been too rough, something
too rough.
You must return and mend it.

FIRST SENATOR  There's no remedy,
Unless, by not so doing, our good city
Cleave in the midst and perish.

VOLUMNIA  Pray be counseled.
I have a heart as little apt as yours,
But yet a brain that leads my use of anger
To better vantage.

MENENIUS  Well said, noble woman.
Before he should thus stoop to th' herd--but that
The violent fit o' th' time craves it as physic
For the whole state--I would put mine armor on,
Which I can scarcely bear.

CORIOLANUS  What must I do?

MENENIUS
Return to th' Tribunes.

CORIOLANUS  Well, what then? What then?

MENENIUS  Repent what you have spoke.

CORIOLANUS
For them? I cannot do it to the gods.
Must I then do 't to them?

VOLUMNIA  You are too absolute,
Though therein you can never be too noble
But when extremities speak. I have heard you say
Honor and policy, like unsevered friends,
I' th' war do grow together. Grant that, and tell me
In peace what each of them by th' other lose
That they combine not there?

CORIOLANUS  Tush, tush!

MENENIUS  A good
demand.

VOLUMNIA
If it be honor in your wars to seem
The same you are not, which for your best ends
You adopt your policy, how is it less or worse
That it shall hold companionship in peace
With honor as in war, since that to both
It stands in like request?

CORIOLANUS  Why force you this?

VOLUMNIA
Because that now it lies you on to speak
To th' people, not by your own instruction,
Nor by th' matter which your heart prompts you,
But with such words that are but roted in
Your tongue, though but bastards and syllables
Of no allowance to your bosom's truth.
Now, this no more dishonors you at all
Than to take in a town with gentle words,
Which else would put you to your fortune and
The hazard of much blood.
I would dissemble with my nature where
My fortunes and my friends at stake required
I should do so in honor. I am in this
Your wife, your son, these senators, the nobles;
And you will rather show our general louts
How you can frown than spend a fawn upon 'em
For the inheritance of their loves and safeguard
Of what that want might ruin.

MENENIUS  Noble lady!--
Come, go with us; speak fair. You may salve so,
Not what is dangerous present, but the loss
Of what is past.

VOLUMNIA  I prithee now, my son,
Go to them with this bonnet in thy hand,
And thus far having stretched it--here be with
them--
Thy knee bussing the stones--for in such business
Action is eloquence, and the eyes of th' ignorant
More learned than the ears--waving thy head,
Which often thus correcting thy stout heart,
Now humble as the ripest mulberry
That will not hold the handling. Or say to them
Thou art their soldier and, being bred in broils,
Hast not the soft way, which thou dost confess
Were fit for thee to use as they to claim,
In asking their good loves; but thou wilt frame
Thyself, forsooth, hereafter theirs, so far
As thou hast power and person.

MENENIUS  This but done
Even as she speaks, why, their hearts were yours;
For they have pardons, being asked, as free
As words to little purpose.

VOLUMNIA  Prithee now,
Go, and be ruled; although I know thou hadst rather
Follow thine enemy in a fiery gulf
Than flatter him in a bower.

[Enter Cominius.]

Here is Cominius.

COMINIUS
I have been i' th' marketplace; and, sir, 'tis fit
You make strong party or defend yourself
By calmness or by absence. All's in anger.

MENENIUS
Only fair speech.

COMINIUS  I think 'twill serve, if he
Can thereto frame his spirit.

VOLUMNIA  He must, and will.--
Prithee, now, say you will, and go about it.

CORIOLANUS
Must I go show them my unbarbed sconce? Must I
With my base tongue give to my noble heart
A lie that it must bear? Well, I will do 't.
Yet, were there but this single plot to lose,
This mold of Martius, they to dust should grind it
And throw 't against the wind. To th' marketplace!
You have put me now to such a part which never
I shall discharge to th' life.

COMINIUS  Come, come, we'll prompt
you.

VOLUMNIA
I prithee now, sweet son, as thou hast said
My praises made thee first a soldier, so,
To have my praise for this, perform a part
Thou hast not done before.

CORIOLANUS  Well, I must do 't.
Away, my disposition, and possess me
Some harlot's spirit! My throat of war be turned,
Which choired with my drum, into a pipe
Small as an eunuch or the virgin voice
That babies lull asleep! The smiles of knaves
Tent in my cheeks, and schoolboys' tears take up
The glasses of my sight! A beggar's tongue
Make motion through my lips, and my armed knees,
Who bowed but in my stirrup, bend like his
That hath received an alms. I will not do 't,
Lest I surcease to honor mine own truth
And, by my body's action, teach my mind
A most inherent baseness.

VOLUMNIA  At thy choice, then.
To beg of thee, it is my more dishonor
Than thou of them. Come all to ruin. Let
Thy mother rather feel thy pride than fear
Thy dangerous stoutness, for I mock at death
With as big heart as thou. Do as thou list.
Thy valiantness was mine; thou suck'st it from me,
But owe thy pride thyself.

CORIOLANUS  Pray be content.
Mother, I am going to the marketplace.
Chide me no more. I'll mountebank their loves,
Cog their hearts from them, and come home
beloved
Of all the trades in Rome. Look, I am going.
Commend me to my wife. I'll return consul,
Or never trust to what my tongue can do
I' th' way of flattery further.

VOLUMNIA  Do your will.
[Volumnia exits.]

COMINIUS
Away! The Tribunes do attend you. Arm yourself
To answer mildly, for they are prepared
With accusations, as I hear, more strong
Than are upon you yet.

CORIOLANUS
The word is "mildly." Pray you, let us go.
Let them accuse me by invention, I
Will answer in mine honor.

MENENIUS  Ay, but mildly.

CORIOLANUS  Well, mildly be it, then. Mildly.
[They exit.]

Scene 3
=======
[Enter Sicinius and Brutus.]


BRUTUS
In this point charge him home, that he affects
Tyrannical power. If he evade us there,
Enforce him with his envy to the people,
And that the spoil got on the Antiates
Was ne'er distributed.

[Enter an Aedile.]

What, will he come?

AEDILE  He's coming.

BRUTUS  How accompanied?

AEDILE
With old Menenius, and those senators
That always favored him.

SICINIUS  Have you a catalogue
Of all the voices that we have procured,
Set down by th' poll?

AEDILE  I have. 'Tis ready.

SICINIUS
Have you collected them by tribes?

AEDILE  I have.

SICINIUS
Assemble presently the people hither;
And when they hear me say "It shall be so
I' th' right and strength o' th' commons," be it either
For death, for fine, or banishment, then let them
If I say "Fine," cry "Fine," if "Death," cry "Death,"
Insisting on the old prerogative
And power i' th' truth o' th' cause.

AEDILE  I shall inform them.

BRUTUS
And when such time they have begun to cry,
Let them not cease, but with a din confused
Enforce the present execution
Of what we chance to sentence.

AEDILE  Very well.

SICINIUS
Make them be strong and ready for this hint
When we shall hap to give 't them.

BRUTUS  Go about it.
[Aedile exits.]
Put him to choler straight. He hath been used
Ever to conquer and to have his worth
Of contradiction. Being once chafed, he cannot
Be reined again to temperance; then he speaks
What's in his heart, and that is there which looks
With us to break his neck.

[Enter Coriolanus, Menenius, and Cominius, with
others (Senators).]


SICINIUS  Well, here he comes.

MENENIUS, [aside to Coriolanus]  Calmly, I do beseech
you.

CORIOLANUS, [aside to Menenius]
Ay, as an hostler that for th' poorest piece
Will bear the knave by th' volume.--Th' honored
gods
Keep Rome in safety and the chairs of justice
Supplied with worthy men! Plant love among 's!
Throng our large temples with the shows of peace
And not our streets with war!

FIRST SENATOR  Amen, amen.

MENENIUS  A noble wish.

[Enter the Aedile with the Plebeians.]


SICINIUS  Draw near, you people.

AEDILE
List to your tribunes. Audience! Peace, I say!

CORIOLANUS  First, hear me speak.

BOTH TRIBUNES  Well, say.--Peace, ho!

CORIOLANUS
Shall I be charged no further than this present?
Must all determine here?

SICINIUS  I do demand
If you submit you to the people's voices,
Allow their officers, and are content
To suffer lawful censure for such faults
As shall be proved upon you.

CORIOLANUS  I am content.

MENENIUS
Lo, citizens, he says he is content.
The warlike service he has done, consider. Think
Upon the wounds his body bears, which show
Like graves i' th' holy churchyard.

CORIOLANUS  Scratches with
briars,
Scars to move laughter only.

MENENIUS  Consider further,
That when he speaks not like a citizen,
You find him like a soldier. Do not take
His rougher accents for malicious sounds,
But, as I say, such as become a soldier
Rather than envy you.

COMINIUS  Well, well, no more.

CORIOLANUS  What is the matter,
That, being passed for consul with full voice,
I am so dishonored that the very hour
You take it off again?

SICINIUS  Answer to us.

CORIOLANUS  Say then. 'Tis true, I ought so.

SICINIUS
We charge you that you have contrived to take
From Rome all seasoned office and to wind
Yourself into a power tyrannical,
For which you are a traitor to the people.

CORIOLANUS
How? Traitor?

MENENIUS  Nay, temperately! Your promise.

CORIOLANUS
The fires i' th' lowest hell fold in the people!
Call me their traitor? Thou injurious tribune!
Within thine eyes sat twenty thousand deaths,
In thy hands clutched as many millions, in
Thy lying tongue both numbers, I would say
"Thou liest" unto thee with a voice as free
As I do pray the gods.

SICINIUS  Mark you this, people?

ALL PLEBEIANS  To th' rock, to th' rock with him!

SICINIUS  Peace!
We need not put new matter to his charge.
What you have seen him do and heard him speak,
Beating your officers, cursing yourselves,
Opposing laws with strokes, and here defying
Those whose great power must try him--even this,
So criminal and in such capital kind,
Deserves th' extremest death.

BRUTUS  But since he hath
Served well for Rome--

CORIOLANUS  What do you prate of service?

BRUTUS  I talk of that that know it.

CORIOLANUS  You?

MENENIUS
Is this the promise that you made your mother?

COMINIUS  Know, I pray you--

CORIOLANUS  I'll know no further.
Let them pronounce the steep Tarpeian death,
Vagabond exile, flaying, pent to linger
But with a grain a day, I would not buy
Their mercy at the price of one fair word,
Nor check my courage for what they can give,
To have 't with saying "Good morrow."

SICINIUS  For that he has,
As much as in him lies, from time to time
Envied against the people, seeking means
To pluck away their power, as now at last
Given hostile strokes, and that not in the presence
Of dreaded justice, but on the ministers
That doth distribute it, in the name o' th' people
And in the power of us the Tribunes, we,
Even from this instant, banish him our city
In peril of precipitation
From off the rock Tarpeian, never more
To enter our Rome gates. I' th' people's name,
I say it shall be so.

ALL PLEBEIANS
It shall be so, it shall be so! Let him away!
He's banished, and it shall be so.

COMINIUS
Hear me, my masters and my common friends--

SICINIUS
He's sentenced. No more hearing.

COMINIUS  Let me speak.
I have been consul and can show for Rome
Her enemies' marks upon me. I do love
My country's good with a respect more tender,
More holy and profound, than mine own life,
My dear wife's estimate, her womb's increase,
And treasure of my loins. Then if I would
Speak that--

SICINIUS  We know your drift. Speak what?

BRUTUS
There's no more to be said, but he is banished
As enemy to the people and his country.
It shall be so.

ALL PLEBEIANS  It shall be so, it shall be so!

CORIOLANUS
You common cry of curs, whose breath I hate
As reek o' th' rotten fens, whose loves I prize
As the dead carcasses of unburied men
That do corrupt my air, I banish you!
And here remain with your uncertainty;
Let every feeble rumor shake your hearts;
Your enemies, with nodding of their plumes,
Fan you into despair! Have the power still
To banish your defenders, till at length
Your ignorance--which finds not till it feels,
Making but reservation of yourselves,
Still your own foes--deliver you
As most abated captives to some nation
That won you without blows! Despising
For you the city, thus I turn my back.
There is a world elsewhere.
[Coriolanus, Cominius, with others (Senators) exit.]

AEDILE
The people's enemy is gone, is gone.

ALL PLEBEIANS
Our enemy is banished; he is gone. Hoo, hoo!
[They all shout and throw up their caps.]

SICINIUS
Go see him out at gates, and follow him,
As he hath followed you, with all despite.
Give him deserved vexation. Let a guard
Attend us through the city.

ALL PLEBEIANS
Come, come, let's see him out at gates! Come!
The gods preserve our noble tribunes! Come!
[They exit.]


ACT 4
=====

Scene 1
=======
[Enter Coriolanus, Volumnia, Virgilia, Menenius,
Cominius, with the young nobility of Rome.]


CORIOLANUS
Come, leave your tears. A brief farewell. The beast
With many heads butts me away. Nay, mother,
Where is your ancient courage? You were used
To say extremities was the trier of spirits;
That common chances common men could bear;
That when the sea was calm, all boats alike
Showed mastership in floating; fortune's blows
When most struck home, being gentle wounded
craves
A noble cunning. You were used to load me
With precepts that would make invincible
The heart that conned them.

VIRGILIA
O heavens! O heavens!

CORIOLANUS  Nay, I prithee,
woman--

VOLUMNIA
Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome,
And occupations perish!

CORIOLANUS  What, what, what!
I shall be loved when I am lacked. Nay, mother,
Resume that spirit when you were wont to say
If you had been the wife of Hercules,
Six of his labors you'd have done and saved
Your husband so much sweat.--Cominius,
Droop not. Adieu.--Farewell, my wife, my mother.
I'll do well yet.--Thou old and true Menenius,
Thy tears are salter than a younger man's
And venomous to thine eyes.--My sometime
general,
I have seen thee stern, and thou hast oft beheld
Heart-hard'ning spectacles. Tell these sad women
'Tis fond to wail inevitable strokes
As 'tis to laugh at 'em.--My mother, you wot well
My hazards still have been your solace, and--
Believe 't not lightly--though I go alone,
Like to a lonely dragon that his fen
Makes feared and talked of more than seen, your
son
Will or exceed the common or be caught
With cautelous baits and practice.

VOLUMNIA  My first son,
Whither wilt thou go? Take good Cominius
With thee awhile. Determine on some course
More than a wild exposure to each chance
That starts i' th' way before thee.

VIRGILIA  O the gods!

COMINIUS
I'll follow thee a month, devise with thee
Where thou shalt rest, that thou mayst hear of us
And we of thee; so if the time thrust forth
A cause for thy repeal, we shall not send
O'er the vast world to seek a single man
And lose advantage, which doth ever cool
I' th' absence of the needer.

CORIOLANUS  Fare you well.
Thou hast years upon thee, and thou art too full
Of the wars' surfeits to go rove with one
That's yet unbruised. Bring me but out at gate.--
Come, my sweet wife, my dearest mother, and
My friends of noble touch. When I am forth,
Bid me farewell, and smile. I pray you, come.
While I remain above the ground, you shall
Hear from me still, and never of me aught
But what is like me formerly.

MENENIUS  That's worthily
As any ear can hear. Come, let's not weep.
If I could shake off but one seven years
From these old arms and legs, by the good gods,
I'd with thee every foot.

CORIOLANUS  Give me thy hand.
Come.
[They exit.]

Scene 2
=======
[Enter the two Tribunes, Sicinius, and Brutus,
with the Aedile.]


SICINIUS
Bid them all home. He's gone, and we'll no further.
The nobility are vexed, whom we see have sided
In his behalf.

BRUTUS  Now we have shown our power,
Let us seem humbler after it is done
Than when it was a-doing.

SICINIUS  Bid them home.
Say their great enemy is gone, and they
Stand in their ancient strength.

BRUTUS  Dismiss them home.
[Aedile exits.]
Here comes his mother.

[Enter Volumnia, Virgilia, and Menenius.]


SICINIUS  Let's not meet her.

BRUTUS  Why?

SICINIUS  They say she's mad.

BRUTUS
They have ta'en note of us. Keep on your way.

VOLUMNIA
O, you're well met. The hoarded plague o' th' gods
Requite your love!

MENENIUS  Peace, peace! Be not so loud.

VOLUMNIA, [to the Tribunes]
If that I could for weeping, you should hear--
Nay, and you shall hear some. [(To Sicinius.)] Will
you be gone?

VIRGILIA, [to Brutus]
You shall stay too. I would I had the power
To say so to my husband.

SICINIUS, [to Volumnia]  Are you mankind?

VOLUMNIA
Ay, fool, is that a shame? Note but this, fool.
Was not a man my father? Hadst thou foxship
To banish him that struck more blows for Rome
Than thou hast spoken words?

SICINIUS  O blessed heavens!

VOLUMNIA
More noble blows than ever thou wise words,
And for Rome's good. I'll tell thee what--yet go.
Nay, but thou shalt stay too. I would my son
Were in Arabia and thy tribe before him,
His good sword in his hand.

SICINIUS  What then?

VIRGILIA  What then?
He'd make an end of thy posterity.

VOLUMNIA  Bastards and all.
Good man, the wounds that he does bear for Rome!

MENENIUS  Come, come, peace.

SICINIUS
I would he had continued to his country
As he began, and not unknit himself
The noble knot he made.

BRUTUS  I would he had.

VOLUMNIA
"I would he had"? 'Twas you incensed the rabble.
Cats, that can judge as fitly of his worth
As I can of those mysteries which heaven
Will not have Earth to know.

BRUTUS, [to Sicinius]  Pray, let's go.

VOLUMNIA  Now, pray, sir, get you gone.
You have done a brave deed. Ere you go, hear this:
As far as doth the Capitol exceed
The meanest house in Rome, so far my son--
This lady's husband here, this, do you see?--
Whom you have banished, does exceed you all.

BRUTUS
Well, well, we'll leave you.

SICINIUS  Why stay we to be baited
With one that wants her wits?	[Tribunes exit.]

VOLUMNIA  Take my prayers with
you.
I would the gods had nothing else to do
But to confirm my curses. Could I meet 'em
But once a day, it would unclog my heart
Of what lies heavy to 't.

MENENIUS  You have told them home,
And, by my troth, you have cause. You'll sup with
me?

VOLUMNIA
Anger's my meat. I sup upon myself
And so shall starve with feeding.
[(To Virgilia.)] Come, let's go.
Leave this faint puling, and lament as I do,
In anger, Juno-like. Come, come, come.	[They exit.]

MENENIUS  Fie, fie, fie!
[He exits.]

Scene 3
=======
[Enter a Roman (Nicanor) and a Volsce (Adrian).]


ROMAN  I know you well, sir, and you know me. Your
name I think is Adrian.

VOLSCE  It is so, sir. Truly, I have forgot you.

ROMAN  I am a Roman, and my services are, as you are,
against 'em. Know you me yet?

VOLSCE  Nicanor, no?

ROMAN  The same, sir.

VOLSCE  You had more beard when I last saw you, but
your favor is well approved by your tongue.
What's the news in Rome? I have a note from the
Volscian state to find you out there. You have well
saved me a day's journey.

ROMAN  There hath been in Rome strange insurrections,
the people against the senators, patricians,
and nobles.

VOLSCE  Hath been? Is it ended, then? Our state thinks
not so. They are in a most warlike preparation and
hope to come upon them in the heat of their
division.

ROMAN  The main blaze of it is past, but a small thing
would make it flame again; for the nobles receive
so to heart the banishment of that worthy Coriolanus
that they are in a ripe aptness to take all power
from the people and to pluck from them their tribunes
forever. This lies glowing, I can tell you, and
is almost mature for the violent breaking out.

VOLSCE  Coriolanus banished?

ROMAN  Banished, sir.

VOLSCE  You will be welcome with this intelligence,
Nicanor.

ROMAN  The day serves well for them now. I have heard
it said the fittest time to corrupt a man's wife is
when she's fall'n out with her husband. Your noble
Tullus Aufidius will appear well in these wars, his
great opposer Coriolanus being now in no request
of his country.

VOLSCE  He cannot choose. I am most fortunate thus
accidentally to encounter you. You have ended my
business, and I will merrily accompany you home.

ROMAN  I shall between this and supper tell you most
strange things from Rome, all tending to the good
of their adversaries. Have you an army ready, say
you?

VOLSCE  A most royal one. The centurions and their
charges, distinctly billeted, already in th' entertainment,
and to be on foot at an hour's warning.

ROMAN  I am joyful to hear of their readiness and am
the man, I think, that shall set them in present action.
So, sir, heartily well met, and most glad of
your company.

VOLSCE  You take my part from me, sir. I have the most
cause to be glad of yours.

ROMAN  Well, let us go together.
[They exit.]

Scene 4
=======
[Enter Coriolanus in mean apparel, disguised,
and muffled.]


CORIOLANUS
A goodly city is this Antium. City,
'Tis I that made thy widows. Many an heir
Of these fair edifices 'fore my wars
Have I heard groan and drop. Then, know me not,
Lest that thy wives with spits and boys with stones
In puny battle slay me.

[Enter a Citizen.]

Save you, sir.

CITIZEN
And you.

CORIOLANUS  Direct me, if it be your will,
Where great Aufidius lies. Is he in Antium?

CITIZEN
He is, and feasts the nobles of the state
At his house this night.

CORIOLANUS  Which is his house, beseech
you?

CITIZEN
This here before you.

CORIOLANUS  Thank you, sir. Farewell.
[Citizen exits.]
O world, thy slippery turns! Friends now fast sworn,
Whose double bosoms seems to wear one heart,
Whose hours, whose bed, whose meal and exercise
Are still together, who twin, as 'twere, in love
Unseparable, shall within this hour,
On a dissension of a doit, break out
To bitterest enmity; so fellest foes,
Whose passions and whose plots have broke their
sleep
To take the one the other, by some chance,
Some trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends
And interjoin their issues. So with me:
My birthplace hate I, and my love's upon
This enemy town. I'll enter. If he slay me,
He does fair justice; if he give me way,
I'll do his country service.
[He exits.]

Scene 5
=======
[Music plays. Enter a Servingman.]


FIRST SERVINGMAN  Wine, wine, wine! What service is
here? I think our fellows are asleep.	[He exits.]

[Enter another Servingman.]


SECOND SERVINGMAN  Where's Cotus? My master calls
for him. Cotus!	[He exits.]

[Enter Coriolanus.]


CORIOLANUS
A goodly house. The feast smells well, but I
Appear not like a guest.

[Enter the First Servingman.]


FIRST SERVINGMAN  What would you have, friend?
Whence are you? Here's no place for you. Pray, go
to the door.	[He exits.]

CORIOLANUS
I have deserved no better entertainment
In being Coriolanus.

[Enter Second Servingman.]


SECOND SERVINGMAN  Whence are you, sir?--Has the
porter his eyes in his head, that he gives entrance
to such companions?--Pray, get you out.

CORIOLANUS  Away!

SECOND SERVINGMAN  Away? Get you away.

CORIOLANUS  Now th' art troublesome.

SECOND SERVINGMAN  Are you so brave? I'll have you
talked with anon.

[Enter Third Servingman; the First, entering,
meets him.]


THIRD SERVINGMAN  What fellow's this?

FIRST SERVINGMAN  A strange one as ever I looked on. I
cannot get him out o' th' house. Prithee, call my
master to him.	[He steps aside.]

THIRD SERVINGMAN  What have you to do here, fellow?
Pray you, avoid the house.

CORIOLANUS  Let me but stand. I will not hurt your
hearth.

THIRD SERVINGMAN  What are you?

CORIOLANUS  A gentleman.

THIRD SERVINGMAN  A marv'llous poor one.

CORIOLANUS  True, so I am.

THIRD SERVINGMAN  Pray you, poor gentleman, take up
some other station. Here's no place for you. Pray
you, avoid. Come.

CORIOLANUS  Follow your function, go, and batten on
cold bits.	[Pushes him away from him.]

THIRD SERVINGMAN  What, you will not?--Prithee, tell
my master what a strange guest he has here.

SECOND SERVINGMAN  And I shall.
[Second Servingman exits.]

THIRD SERVINGMAN  Where dwell'st thou?

CORIOLANUS  Under the canopy.

THIRD SERVINGMAN  Under the canopy?

CORIOLANUS  Ay.

THIRD SERVINGMAN  Where's that?

CORIOLANUS  I' th' city of kites and crows.

THIRD SERVINGMAN  I' th' city of kites and crows? What
an ass it is! Then thou dwell'st with daws too?

CORIOLANUS  No, I serve not thy master.

THIRD SERVINGMAN  How, sir? Do you meddle with my
master?

CORIOLANUS  Ay, 'tis an honester service than to meddle
with thy mistress. Thou prat'st and prat'st. Serve
with thy trencher. Hence!	[Beats him away.]
[Third Servingman exits.]

[Enter Aufidius with the Second Servingman.]


AUFIDIUS  Where is this fellow?

SECOND SERVINGMAN  Here, sir. I'd have beaten him like
a dog, but for disturbing the lords within.
[He steps aside.]

AUFIDIUS  Whence com'st thou? What wouldst thou?
Thy name? Why speak'st not? Speak, man. What's
thy name?

CORIOLANUS, [removing his muffler]  If, Tullus,
Not yet thou know'st me, and seeing me, dost not
Think me for the man I am, necessity
Commands me name myself.

AUFIDIUS  What is thy name?

CORIOLANUS
A name unmusical to the Volscians' ears
And harsh in sound to thine.

AUFIDIUS  Say, what's thy name?
Thou hast a grim appearance, and thy face
Bears a command in 't. Though thy tackle's torn,
Thou show'st a noble vessel. What's thy name?

CORIOLANUS
Prepare thy brow to frown. Know'st thou me yet?

AUFIDIUS  I know thee not. Thy name?

CORIOLANUS
My name is Caius Martius, who hath done
To thee particularly and to all the Volsces
Great hurt and mischief; thereto witness may
My surname Coriolanus. The painful service,
The extreme dangers, and the drops of blood
Shed for my thankless country are requited
But with that surname, a good memory
And witness of the malice and displeasure
Which thou shouldst bear me. Only that name
remains.
The cruelty and envy of the people,
Permitted by our dastard nobles, who
Have all forsook me, hath devoured the rest,
And suffered me by th' voice of slaves to be
Whooped out of Rome. Now this extremity
Hath brought me to thy hearth, not out of hope--
Mistake me not--to save my life; for if
I had feared death, of all the men i' th' world
I would have 'voided thee, but in mere spite,
To be full quit of those my banishers,
Stand I before thee here. Then if thou hast
A heart of wreak in thee, that wilt revenge
Thine own particular wrongs and stop those maims
Of shame seen through thy country, speed thee
straight
And make my misery serve thy turn. So use it
That my revengeful services may prove
As benefits to thee, for I will fight
Against my cankered country with the spleen
Of all the under fiends. But if so be
Thou dar'st not this, and that to prove more fortunes
Thou 'rt tired, then, in a word, I also am
Longer to live most weary, and present
My throat to thee and to thy ancient malice,
Which not to cut would show thee but a fool,
Since I have ever followed thee with hate,
Drawn tuns of blood out of thy country's breast,
And cannot live but to thy shame, unless
It be to do thee service.

AUFIDIUS  O Martius, Martius,
Each word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my
heart
A root of ancient envy. If Jupiter
Should from yond cloud speak divine things
And say 'tis true, I'd not believe them more
Than thee, all-noble Martius. Let me twine
Mine arms about that body, whereagainst
My grained ash an hundred times hath broke
And scarred the moon with splinters.
[They embrace.]
Here I clip
The anvil of my sword and do contest
As hotly and as nobly with thy love
As ever in ambitious strength I did
Contend against thy valor. Know thou first,
I loved the maid I married; never man
Sighed truer breath. But that I see thee here,
Thou noble thing, more dances my rapt heart
Than when I first my wedded mistress saw
Bestride my threshold. Why, thou Mars, I tell thee
We have a power on foot, and I had purpose
Once more to hew thy target from thy brawn
Or lose mine arm for 't. Thou hast beat me out
Twelve several times, and I have nightly since
Dreamt of encounters 'twixt thyself and me;
We have been down together in my sleep,
Unbuckling helms, fisting each other's throat,
And waked half dead with nothing. Worthy Martius,
Had we no other quarrel else to Rome but that
Thou art thence banished, we would muster all
From twelve to seventy and, pouring war
Into the bowels of ungrateful Rome,
Like a bold flood o'erbear 't. O, come, go in,
And take our friendly senators by th' hands,
Who now are here, taking their leaves of me,
Who am prepared against your territories,
Though not for Rome itself.

CORIOLANUS  You bless me, gods!

AUFIDIUS
Therefore, most absolute sir, if thou wilt have
The leading of thine own revenges, take
Th' one half of my commission and set down--
As best thou art experienced, since thou know'st
Thy country's strength and weakness--thine own
ways,
Whether to knock against the gates of Rome,
Or rudely visit them in parts remote
To fright them ere destroy. But come in.
Let me commend thee first to those that shall
Say yea to thy desires. A thousand welcomes!
And more a friend than ere an enemy--
Yet, Martius, that was much. Your hand. Most
welcome!	[Coriolanus and Aufidius exit.]

[Two of the Servingmen come forward.]



FIRST SERVINGMAN  Here's a strange alteration!

SECOND SERVINGMAN  By my hand, I had thought to
have strucken him with a cudgel, and yet my mind
gave me his clothes made a false report of him.

FIRST SERVINGMAN  What an arm he has! He turned me
about with his finger and his thumb as one would
set up a top.

SECOND SERVINGMAN  Nay, I knew by his face that there
was something in him. He had, sir, a kind of face,
methought--I cannot tell how to term it.

FIRST SERVINGMAN  He had so, looking as it were--
Would I were hanged but I thought there was
more in him than I could think.

SECOND SERVINGMAN  So did I, I'll be sworn. He is simply
the rarest man i' th' world.

FIRST SERVINGMAN  I think he is. But a greater soldier
than he you wot one.

SECOND SERVINGMAN  Who, my master?

FIRST SERVINGMAN  Nay, it's no matter for that.

SECOND SERVINGMAN  Worth six on him.

FIRST SERVINGMAN  Nay, not so neither. But I take him
to be the greater soldier.

SECOND SERVINGMAN  Faith, look you, one cannot tell
how to say that. For the defense of a town our general
is excellent.

FIRST SERVINGMAN  Ay, and for an assault too.

[Enter the Third Servingman.]


THIRD SERVINGMAN  O slaves, I can tell you news, news,
you rascals!

BOTH  What, what, what? Let's partake!

THIRD SERVINGMAN  I would not be a Roman, of all nations;
I had as lief be a condemned man.

BOTH  Wherefore? Wherefore?

THIRD SERVINGMAN  Why, here's he that was wont to
thwack our general, Caius Martius.

FIRST SERVINGMAN  Why do you say "thwack our
general"?

THIRD SERVINGMAN  I do not say "thwack our general,"
but he was always good enough for him.

SECOND SERVINGMAN  Come, we are fellows and friends.
He was ever too hard for him; I have heard him
say so himself.

FIRST SERVINGMAN  He was too hard for him directly, to
say the truth on 't, before Corioles; he scotched
him and notched him like a carbonado.

SECOND SERVINGMAN  An he had been cannibally given,
he might have boiled and eaten him too.

FIRST SERVINGMAN  But, more of thy news.

THIRD SERVINGMAN  Why, he is so made on here within
as if he were son and heir to Mars; set at upper end
o' th' table; no question asked him by any of the
senators but they stand bald before him. Our general
himself makes a mistress of him, sanctifies
himself with 's hand, and turns up the white o' th'
eye to his discourse. But the bottom of the news is,
our general is cut i' th' middle and but one half of
what he was yesterday, for the other has half, by
the entreaty and grant of the whole table. He'll go,
he says, and sowl the porter of Rome gates by th'
ears. He will mow all down before him and leave
his passage polled.

SECOND SERVINGMAN  And he's as like to do 't as any
man I can imagine.

THIRD SERVINGMAN  Do 't? He will do 't! For, look you,
sir, he has as many friends as enemies, which
friends, sir, as it were, durst not, look you, sir, show
themselves, as we term it, his friends whilest he's
in directitude.

FIRST SERVINGMAN  Directitude? What's that?

THIRD SERVINGMAN  But when they shall see, sir, his
crest up again, and the man in blood, they will out
of their burrows like coneys after rain, and revel
all with him.

FIRST SERVINGMAN  But when goes this forward?

THIRD SERVINGMAN  Tomorrow, today, presently. You
shall have the drum struck up this afternoon. 'Tis,
as it were, a parcel of their feast, and to be executed
ere they wipe their lips.

SECOND SERVINGMAN  Why then, we shall have a stirring
world again. This peace is nothing but to rust iron,
increase tailors, and breed ballad-makers.

FIRST SERVINGMAN  Let me have war, say I. It exceeds
peace as far as day does night. It's sprightly walking,
audible, and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy,
lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter
of more bastard children than war's a destroyer of
men.

SECOND SERVINGMAN  'Tis so, and as wars in some sort
may be said to be a ravisher, so it cannot be denied
but peace is a great maker of cuckolds.

FIRST SERVINGMAN  Ay, and it makes men hate one
another.

THIRD SERVINGMAN  Reason: because they then less
need one another. The wars for my money! I hope
to see Romans as cheap as Volscians. [(Noise
within.)] They are rising; they are rising.

FIRST AND SECOND SERVINGMEN  In, in, in, in!
[They exit.]

Scene 6
=======
[Enter the two Tribunes. Sicinius and Brutus.]


SICINIUS
We hear not of him, neither need we fear him.
His remedies are tame--the present peace,
And quietness of the people, which before
Were in wild hurry. Here do we make his friends
Blush that the world goes well, who rather had,
Though they themselves did suffer by 't, behold
Dissentious numbers pest'ring streets than see
Our tradesmen singing in their shops and going
About their functions friendly.

BRUTUS
We stood to 't in good time.

[Enter Menenius.]

Is this Menenius?

SICINIUS
'Tis he, 'tis he. O, he is grown most kind
Of late.--Hail, sir.

MENENIUS  Hail to you both.

SICINIUS
Your Coriolanus is not much missed
But with his friends. The commonwealth doth stand,
And so would do were he more angry at it.

MENENIUS
All's well, and might have been much better if
He could have temporized.

SICINIUS  Where is he, hear you?

MENENIUS  Nay, I hear nothing;
His mother and his wife hear nothing from him.

[Enter three or four Citizens.]


ALL CITIZENS, [to the Tribunes]
The gods preserve
you both!

SICINIUS  Good e'en, our neighbors.

BRUTUS
Good e'en to you all, good e'en to you all.

FIRST CITIZEN
Ourselves, our wives, and children, on our knees
Are bound to pray for you both.

SICINIUS  Live, and thrive!

BRUTUS
Farewell, kind neighbors. We wished Coriolanus
Had loved you as we did.

ALL CITIZENS  Now the gods keep you!

BOTH TRIBUNES  Farewell, farewell.	[Citizens exit.]

SICINIUS
This is a happier and more comely time
Than when these fellows ran about the streets
Crying confusion.

BRUTUS  Caius Martius was
A worthy officer i' th' war, but insolent,
O'ercome with pride, ambitious, past all thinking
Self-loving.

SICINIUS
And affecting one sole throne, without assistance.

MENENIUS  I think not so.

SICINIUS
We should by this, to all our lamentation,
If he had gone forth consul, found it so.

BRUTUS
The gods have well prevented it, and Rome
Sits safe and still without him.

[Enter an Aedile.]


AEDILE  Worthy tribunes,
There is a slave, whom we have put in prison,
Reports the Volsces with two several powers
Are entered in the Roman territories,
And with the deepest malice of the war
Destroy what lies before 'em.

MENENIUS  'Tis Aufidius,
Who, hearing of our Martius' banishment,
Thrusts forth his horns again into the world,
Which were inshelled when Martius stood for Rome,
And durst not once peep out.

SICINIUS  Come, what talk you of Martius?

BRUTUS
Go see this rumorer whipped. It cannot be
The Volsces dare break with us.

MENENIUS  Cannot be?
We have record that very well it can,
And three examples of the like hath been
Within my age. But reason with the fellow
Before you punish him, where he heard this,
Lest you shall chance to whip your information
And beat the messenger who bids beware
Of what is to be dreaded.

SICINIUS  Tell not me.
I know this cannot be.

BRUTUS  Not possible.

[Enter a Messenger.]


MESSENGER
The nobles in great earnestness are going
All to the Senate House. Some news is coming
That turns their countenances.

SICINIUS  'Tis this slave--
Go whip him 'fore the people's eyes--his raising,
Nothing but his report.

MESSENGER  Yes, worthy sir,
The slave's report is seconded, and more,
More fearful, is delivered.

SICINIUS  What more fearful?

MESSENGER
It is spoke freely out of many mouths--
How probable I do not know--that Martius,
Joined with Aufidius, leads a power 'gainst Rome
And vows revenge as spacious as between
The young'st and oldest thing.

SICINIUS  This is most likely!

BRUTUS
Raised only that the weaker sort may wish
Good Martius home again.

SICINIUS  The very trick on 't.

MENENIUS  This is unlikely;
He and Aufidius can no more atone
Than violent'st contrariety.

[Enter a Second Messenger.]


SECOND MESSENGER  You are sent for to the Senate.
A fearful army, led by Caius Martius
Associated with Aufidius, rages
Upon our territories, and have already
O'erborne their way, consumed with fire and took
What lay before them.

[Enter Cominius.]


COMINIUS, [to the Tribunes]  O, you have made good
work!

MENENIUS  What news? What news?

COMINIUS, [to the Tribunes]
You have holp to ravish your own daughters and
To melt the city leads upon your pates,
To see your wives dishonored to your noses--

MENENIUS  What's the news? What's the news?

COMINIUS, [to the Tribunes]
Your temples burned in their cement, and
Your franchises, whereon you stood, confined
Into an auger's bore.

MENENIUS  Pray now, your news?--
You have made fair work, I fear me.--Pray, your
news?
If Martius should be joined with Volscians--

COMINIUS  If?
He is their god; he leads them like a thing
Made by some other deity than Nature,
That shapes man better; and they follow him
Against us brats with no less confidence
Than boys pursuing summer butterflies
Or butchers killing flies.

MENENIUS, [to the Tribunes]  You have made good work,
You and your apron-men, you that stood so much
Upon the voice of occupation and
The breath of garlic eaters!

COMINIUS
He'll shake your Rome about your ears.

MENENIUS
As Hercules did shake down mellow fruit.
You have made fair work.

BRUTUS  But is this true, sir?

COMINIUS  Ay, and you'll look pale
Before you find it other. All the regions
Do smilingly revolt, and who resists
Are mocked for valiant ignorance
And perish constant fools. Who is 't can blame him?
Your enemies and his find something in him.

MENENIUS  We are all undone, unless
The noble man have mercy.

COMINIUS  Who shall ask it?
The Tribunes cannot do 't for shame; the people
Deserve such pity of him as the wolf
Does of the shepherds. For his best friends, if they
Should say "Be good to Rome," they charged him
even
As those should do that had deserved his hate
And therein showed like enemies.

MENENIUS  'Tis true.
If he were putting to my house the brand
That should consume it, I have not the face
To say "Beseech you, cease."--You have made fair
hands,
You and your crafts! You have crafted fair!

COMINIUS  You have
brought
A trembling upon Rome such as was never
S' incapable of help.

TRIBUNES  Say not we brought it.

MENENIUS
How? Was 't we? We loved him, but like beasts
And cowardly nobles, gave way unto your clusters,
Who did hoot him out o' th' city.

COMINIUS  But I fear
They'll roar him in again. Tullus Aufidius,
The second name of men, obeys his points
As if he were his officer. Desperation
Is all the policy, strength, and defense
That Rome can make against them.

[Enter a troop of Citizens.]


MENENIUS  Here come the
clusters.--
And is Aufidius with him? You are they
That made the air unwholesome when you cast
Your stinking, greasy caps in hooting at
Coriolanus' exile. Now he's coming,
And not a hair upon a soldier's head
Which will not prove a whip. As many coxcombs
As you threw caps up will he tumble down
And pay you for your voices. 'Tis no matter.
If he could burn us all into one coal,
We have deserved it.

ALL CITIZENS  Faith, we hear fearful news.

FIRST CITIZEN  For mine own part,
When I said banish him, I said 'twas pity.

SECOND CITIZEN  And so did I.

THIRD CITIZEN  And so did I. And, to say the truth, so
did very many of us. That we did we did for the
best; and though we willingly consented to his
banishment, yet it was against our will.

COMINIUS  You're goodly things, you voices!

MENENIUS
You have made good work, you and your cry!--
Shall 's to the Capitol?

COMINIUS  O, ay, what else?	[Both exit.]

SICINIUS
Go, masters, get you home. Be not dismayed.
These are a side that would be glad to have
This true which they so seem to fear. Go home,
And show no sign of fear.

FIRST CITIZEN  The gods be good to us! Come, masters,
let's home. I ever said we were i' th' wrong when
we banished him.

SECOND CITIZEN  So did we all. But, come, let's home.
[Citizens exit.]

BRUTUS  I do not like this news.

SICINIUS  Nor I.

BRUTUS
Let's to the Capitol. Would half my wealth
Would buy this for a lie.

SICINIUS  Pray, let's go.
[Tribunes exit.]

Scene 7
=======
[Enter Aufidius with his Lieutenant.]


AUFIDIUS  Do they still fly to th' Roman?

LIEUTENANT
I do not know what witchcraft's in him, but
Your soldiers use him as the grace 'fore meat,
Their talk at table, and their thanks at end;
And you are dark'ned in this action, sir,
Even by your own.

AUFIDIUS  I cannot help it now,
Unless by using means I lame the foot
Of our design. He bears himself more proudlier,
Even to my person, than I thought he would
When first I did embrace him. Yet his nature
In that's no changeling, and I must excuse
What cannot be amended.

LIEUTENANT  Yet I wish, sir--
I mean for your particular--you had not
Joined in commission with him, but either
Have borne the action of yourself or else
To him had left it solely.

AUFIDIUS
I understand thee well, and be thou sure,
When he shall come to his account, he knows not
What I can urge against him, although it seems,
And so he thinks and is no less apparent
To th' vulgar eye, that he bears all things fairly,
And shows good husbandry for the Volscian state,
Fights dragonlike, and does achieve as soon
As draw his sword; yet he hath left undone
That which shall break his neck or hazard mine
Whene'er we come to our account.

LIEUTENANT
Sir, I beseech you, think you he'll carry Rome?

AUFIDIUS
All places yields to him ere he sits down,
And the nobility of Rome are his;
The Senators and Patricians love him too.
The Tribunes are no soldiers, and their people
Will be as rash in the repeal as hasty
To expel him thence. I think he'll be to Rome
As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it
By sovereignty of nature. First, he was
A noble servant to them, but he could not
Carry his honors even. Whether 'twas pride,
Which out of daily fortune ever taints
The happy man; whether defect of judgment,
To fail in the disposing of those chances
Which he was lord of; or whether nature,
Not to be other than one thing, not moving
From th' casque to th' cushion, but commanding
peace
Even with the same austerity and garb
As he controlled the war; but one of these--
As he hath spices of them all--not all,
For I dare so far free him--made him feared,
So hated, and so banished. But he has a merit
To choke it in the utt'rance. So our virtues
Lie in th' interpretation of the time,
And power, unto itself most commendable,
Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair
T' extol what it hath done.
One fire drives out one fire, one nail one nail;
Rights by rights falter; strengths by strengths do
fail.
Come, let's away. When, Caius, Rome is thine,
Thou art poor'st of all; then shortly art thou mine.
[They exit.]


ACT 5
=====

Scene 1
=======
[Enter Menenius, Cominius, Sicinius, Brutus (the two
Tribunes), with others.]


MENENIUS
No, I'll not go. You hear what he hath said
Which was sometime his general, who loved him
In a most dear particular. He called me father,
But what o' that? Go you that banished him;
A mile before his tent, fall down, and knee
The way into his mercy. Nay, if he coyed
To hear Cominius speak, I'll keep at home.

COMINIUS
He would not seem to know me.

MENENIUS  Do you hear?

COMINIUS
Yet one time he did call me by my name.
I urged our old acquaintance, and the drops
That we have bled together. "Coriolanus"
He would not answer to, forbade all names.
He was a kind of nothing, titleless,
Till he had forged himself a name o' th' fire
Of burning Rome.

MENENIUS, [to the Tribunes]
Why, so; you have made good work!
A pair of tribunes that have wracked Rome
To make coals cheap! A noble memory!

COMINIUS
I minded him how royal 'twas to pardon
When it was less expected. He replied
It was a bare petition of a state
To one whom they had punished.

MENENIUS  Very well.
Could he say less?

COMINIUS
I offered to awaken his regard
For 's private friends. His answer to me was
He could not stay to pick them in a pile
Of noisome musty chaff. He said 'twas folly
For one poor grain or two to leave unburnt
And still to nose th' offense.

MENENIUS  For one poor grain or two!
I am one of those! His mother, wife, his child,
And this brave fellow too, we are the grains;
You are the musty chaff, and you are smelt
Above the moon. We must be burnt for you.

SICINIUS
Nay, pray, be patient. If you refuse your aid
In this so-never-needed help, yet do not
Upbraid 's with our distress. But sure, if you
Would be your country's pleader, your good tongue,
More than the instant army we can make,
Might stop our countryman.

MENENIUS  No, I'll not meddle.

SICINIUS  Pray you, go to him.

MENENIUS  What should I do?

BRUTUS
Only make trial what your love can do
For Rome, towards Martius.

MENENIUS  Well, and say that
Martius
Return me, as Cominius is returned, unheard,
What then? But as a discontented friend,
Grief-shot with his unkindness? Say 't be so?

SICINIUS  Yet your good will
Must have that thanks from Rome after the measure
As you intended well.

MENENIUS  I'll undertake 't.
I think he'll hear me. Yet to bite his lip
And hum at good Cominius much unhearts me.
He was not taken well; he had not dined.
The veins unfilled, our blood is cold, and then
We pout upon the morning, are unapt
To give or to forgive; but when we have stuffed
These pipes and these conveyances of our blood
With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls
Than in our priestlike fasts. Therefore I'll watch him
Till he be dieted to my request,
And then I'll set upon him.

BRUTUS
You know the very road into his kindness
And cannot lose your way.

MENENIUS  Good faith, I'll prove him,
Speed how it will. I shall ere long have knowledge
Of my success.	[He exits.]

COMINIUS  He'll never hear him.

SICINIUS  Not?

COMINIUS
I tell you, he does sit in gold, his eye
Red as 'twould burn Rome; and his injury
The jailor to his pity. I kneeled before him;
'Twas very faintly he said "Rise"; dismissed me
Thus with his speechless hand. What he would do
He sent in writing after me; what he
Would not, bound with an oath to yield to his
Conditions. So that all hope is vain
Unless his noble mother and his wife,
Who, as I hear, mean to solicit him
For mercy to his country. Therefore let's hence
And with our fair entreaties haste them on.
[They exit.]

Scene 2
=======
[Enter Menenius to the Watch, or Guard.]


FIRST WATCH  Stay! Whence are you?

SECOND WATCH  Stand, and go back.

MENENIUS
You guard like men; 'tis well. But by your leave,
I am an officer of state and come
To speak with Coriolanus.

FIRST WATCH  From whence?

MENENIUS  From Rome.

FIRST WATCH
You may not pass; you must return. Our general
Will no more hear from thence.

SECOND WATCH
You'll see your Rome embraced with fire before
You'll speak with Coriolanus.

MENENIUS  Good my friends,
If you have heard your general talk of Rome
And of his friends there, it is lots to blanks
My name hath touched your ears. It is Menenius.

FIRST WATCH
Be it so; go back. The virtue of your name
Is not here passable.

MENENIUS  I tell thee, fellow,
Thy general is my lover. I have been
The book of his good acts, whence men have read
His fame unparalleled happily amplified;
For I have ever verified my friends--
Of whom he's chief--with all the size that verity
Would without lapsing suffer. Nay, sometimes,
Like to a bowl upon a subtle ground,
I have tumbled past the throw, and in his praise
Have almost stamped the leasing. Therefore, fellow,
I must have leave to pass.

FIRST WATCH  Faith, sir, if you had told as many lies in
his behalf as you have uttered words in your own,
you should not pass here, no, though it were as virtuous
to lie as to live chastely. Therefore, go back.

MENENIUS  Prithee, fellow, remember my name is Menenius,
always factionary on the party of your
general.

SECOND WATCH  Howsoever you have been his liar, as
you say you have, I am one that, telling true under
him, must say you cannot pass. Therefore, go back.

MENENIUS  Has he dined, can'st thou tell? For I would
not speak with him till after dinner.

FIRST WATCH  You are a Roman, are you?

MENENIUS  I am, as thy general is.

FIRST WATCH  Then you should hate Rome as he does.
Can you, when you have pushed out your gates the
very defender of them, and, in a violent popular
ignorance given your enemy your shield, think to
front his revenges with the easy groans of old
women, the virginal palms of your daughters, or
with the palsied intercession of such a decayed
dotant as you seem to be? Can you think to blow
out the intended fire your city is ready to flame in
with such weak breath as this? No, you are deceived.
Therefore, back to Rome and prepare for
your execution. You are condemned. Our general
has sworn you out of reprieve and pardon.

MENENIUS  Sirrah, if thy captain knew I were here, he
would use me with estimation.

FIRST WATCH  Come, my captain knows you not.

MENENIUS  I mean thy general.

FIRST WATCH  My general cares not for you. Back, I say,
go, lest I let forth your half pint of blood. Back!
That's the utmost of your having. Back!

MENENIUS  Nay, but fellow, fellow--

[Enter Coriolanus with Aufidius.]


CORIOLANUS  What's the matter?

MENENIUS [to First Watch]  Now, you companion, I'll
say an errand for you. You shall know now that I
am in estimation; you shall perceive that a Jack
guardant cannot office me from my son Coriolanus.
Guess but by my entertainment with him
if thou stand'st not i' th' state of hanging or of some
death more long in spectatorship and crueler in
suffering; behold now presently, and swoon for
what's to come upon thee. [(To Coriolanus.)] The
glorious gods sit in hourly synod about thy particular
prosperity and love thee no worse than thy old
father Menenius does! O my son, my son! [(He
weeps.)] Thou art preparing fire for us; look thee,
here's water to quench it. I was hardly moved to
come to thee; but being assured none but myself
could move thee, I have been blown out of your
gates with sighs, and conjure thee to pardon Rome
and thy petitionary countrymen. The good gods
assuage thy wrath and turn the dregs of it upon
this varlet here, this, who, like a block, hath denied
my access to thee.

CORIOLANUS  Away!

MENENIUS  How? Away?

CORIOLANUS
Wife, mother, child, I know not. My affairs
Are servanted to others. Though I owe
My revenge properly, my remission lies
In Volscian breasts. That we have been familiar,
Ingrate forgetfulness shall poison rather
Than pity note how much. Therefore, begone.
Mine ears against your suits are stronger than
Your gates against my force. Yet, for I loved thee,
Take this along; I writ it for thy sake,
[He gives Menenius a paper.]
And would have sent it. Another word, Menenius,
I will not hear thee speak.--This man, Aufidius,
Was my beloved in Rome; yet thou behold'st.

AUFIDIUS  You keep a constant temper.	[They exit.]
[The Guard and Menenius remain.]

FIRST WATCH  Now, sir, is your name Menenius?

SECOND WATCH  'Tis a spell, you see, of much power. You
know the way home again.

FIRST WATCH  Do you hear how we are shent for keeping
your Greatness back?

SECOND WATCH  What cause do you think I have to
swoon?

MENENIUS  I neither care for th' world nor your general.
For such things as you, I can scarce think
there's any, you're so slight. He that hath a will to
die by himself fears it not from another. Let your
general do his worst. For you, be that you are,
long; and your misery increase with your age! I say
to you, as I was said to, away!	[He exits.]

FIRST WATCH  A noble fellow, I warrant him.

SECOND WATCH  The worthy fellow is our general. He's
the rock, the oak not to be wind-shaken.
[Watch exit.]

Scene 3
=======
[Enter Coriolanus and Aufidius.]


CORIOLANUS
We will before the walls of Rome tomorrow
Set down our host. My partner in this action,
You must report to th' Volscian lords how plainly
I have borne this business.

AUFIDIUS  Only their ends
You have respected, stopped your ears against
The general suit of Rome, never admitted
A private whisper, no, not with such friends
That thought them sure of you.

CORIOLANUS  This last old man,
Whom with a cracked heart I have sent to Rome,
Loved me above the measure of a father,
Nay, godded me indeed. Their latest refuge
Was to send him, for whose old love I have--
Though I showed sourly to him--once more offered
The first conditions, which they did refuse
And cannot now accept, to grace him only
That thought he could do more. A very little
I have yielded to. Fresh embassies and suits,
Nor from the state nor private friends, hereafter
Will I lend ear to.	[Shout within.]
Ha? What shout is this?
Shall I be tempted to infringe my vow
In the same time 'tis made? I will not.

[Enter Virgilia, Volumnia, Valeria, young Martius,
with Attendants.]

My wife comes foremost, then the honored mold
Wherein this trunk was framed, and in her hand
The grandchild to her blood. But out, affection!
All bond and privilege of nature, break!
Let it be virtuous to be obstinate.	[Virgilia curtsies.]
What is that curtsy worth? Or those doves' eyes,
Which can make gods forsworn? I melt and am not
Of stronger earth than others.	[Volumnia bows.]
My mother bows,
As if Olympus to a molehill should
In supplication nod; and my young boy
Hath an aspect of intercession which
Great Nature cries "Deny not!" Let the Volsces
Plow Rome and harrow Italy, I'll never
Be such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand
As if a man were author of himself,
And knew no other kin.

VIRGILIA  My lord and husband.

CORIOLANUS
These eyes are not the same I wore in Rome.

VIRGILIA
The sorrow that delivers us thus changed
Makes you think so.

CORIOLANUS  Like a dull actor now,
I have forgot my part, and I am out,
Even to a full disgrace. Best of my flesh,
Forgive my tyranny, but do not say
For that "Forgive our Romans."	[They kiss.]
O, a kiss
Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge!
Now, by the jealous queen of heaven, that kiss
I carried from thee, dear, and my true lip
Hath virgined it e'er since. You gods! I prate
And the most noble mother of the world
Leave unsaluted. Sink, my knee, i' th' earth;	[Kneels.]
Of thy deep duty more impression show
Than that of common sons.

VOLUMNIA  O, stand up blest,
[He rises.]
Whilst with no softer cushion than the flint
I kneel before thee and unproperly
Show duty, as mistaken all this while
Between the child and parent.	[She kneels.]

CORIOLANUS  What's this?
Your knees to me? To your corrected son?
[He raises her up.]
Then let the pebbles on the hungry beach
Fillip the stars! Then let the mutinous winds
Strike the proud cedars 'gainst the fiery sun,
Murdering 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, [presenting young Martius]
This is a poor epitome of yours,
Which by th' interpretation of full time
May show like all yourself.

CORIOLANUS, [to young Martius]  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 seamark standing every flaw
And saving those that eye thee.

VOLUMNIA, [to young Martius]  Your knee, sirrah.
[He kneels.]

CORIOLANUS  That's my brave boy!

VOLUMNIA
Even he, your wife, this lady, and myself
Are suitors to you.	[Young Martius rises.]

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 anything;
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 naught from Rome in private. [He sits.] 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 barr'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 cannot 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.

YOUNG MARTIUS  He 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.	[He rises.]

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 honor. No, our suit
Is that you reconcile them, while the Volsces
May say "This mercy we have showed," the Romans
"This we received," 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 dogged with curses,
Whose chronicle thus writ: "The man was noble,
But with his last attempt he wiped it out,
Destroyed his country, and his name remains
To th' ensuing age abhorred." Speak to me, son.
Thou hast affected the fine strains of honor
To imitate the graces of the gods,
To tear with thunder the wide cheeks o' th' air
And yet to charge thy sulfur with a bolt
That should but rive an oak. Why dost not speak?
Think'st thou it honorable for a noble man
Still to remember wrongs?--Daughter, speak you.
He cares not for your weeping.--Speak thou, boy.
Perhaps thy childishness will move him more
Than can our reasons.--There's no man in the world
More bound to 's mother, yet here he lets me prate
Like one i' th' stocks. Thou hast never in thy life
Showed thy dear mother any courtesy
When she, poor hen, fond of no second brood,
Has clucked thee to the wars and safely home,
Loaden with honor. Say my request's unjust
And spurn me back; but if it be not so,
Thou art not honest, and the gods will plague thee
That thou restrain'st from me the duty which
To a mother's part belongs.--He turns away.--
Down, ladies! Let us shame him with our knees.
To his surname Coriolanus 'longs more pride
Than pity to our prayers. Down! An end.
[They kneel.]
This is the last. So, we will home to Rome
And die among our neighbors.--Nay, behold 's.
This boy that cannot tell what he would have,
But kneels and holds up hands for fellowship,
Does reason our petition with more strength
Than thou hast to deny 't.--Come, let us go.
[They rise.]
This fellow had a Volscian to his mother,
His wife is in Corioles, and his child
Like him by chance.--Yet give us our dispatch.
I am hushed until our city be afire,
And then I'll speak a little.
[He holds her by the hand, silent.]

CORIOLANUS  O mother, mother!
What have you done? Behold, the heavens do ope,
The gods look down, and this unnatural scene
They laugh at. O, my mother, mother, O!
You have won a happy victory to Rome,
But, for your son--believe it, O, believe it!--
Most dangerously you have with him prevailed,
If not most mortal to him. But let it come.--
Aufidius, though I cannot make true wars,
I'll frame convenient peace. Now, good Aufidius,
Were you in my stead, would you have heard
A mother less? Or granted less, Aufidius?

AUFIDIUS
I was moved withal.

CORIOLANUS  I dare be sworn you were.
And, sir, it is no little thing to make
Mine eyes to sweat compassion. But, good sir,
What peace you'll make advise me. For my part,
I'll not to Rome. I'll back with you; and pray you,
Stand to me in this cause.--O mother!--Wife!
[He speaks with them aside.]

AUFIDIUS, [aside]
I am glad thou hast set thy mercy and thy honor
At difference in thee. Out of that I'll work
Myself a former fortune.

CORIOLANUS, [to the Women]  Ay, by and by;
But we will drink together, and you shall bear
A better witness back than words, which we,
On like conditions, will have countersealed.
Come, enter with us. Ladies, you deserve
To have a temple built you. All the swords
In Italy, and her confederate arms,
Could not have made this peace.
[They exit.]

Scene 4
=======
[Enter Menenius and Sicinius.]


MENENIUS  See you yond coign o' th' Capitol, yond
cornerstone?

SICINIUS  Why, what of that?

MENENIUS  If it be possible for you to displace it with
your little finger, there is some hope the ladies of
Rome, especially his mother, may prevail with
him. But I say there is no hope in 't. Our throats
are sentenced and stay upon execution.

SICINIUS  Is 't possible that so short a time can alter the
condition of a man?

MENENIUS  There is differency between a grub and a
butterfly, yet your butterfly was a grub. This Martius
is grown from man to dragon. He has wings;
he's more than a creeping thing.

SICINIUS  He loved his mother dearly.

MENENIUS  So did he me; and he no more remembers
his mother now than an eight-year-old horse. The
tartness of his face sours ripe grapes. When he
walks, he moves like an engine, and the ground
shrinks before his treading. He is able to pierce a
corslet with his eye, talks like a knell, and his hum
is a battery. He sits in his state as a thing made for
Alexander. What he bids be done is finished with
his bidding. He wants nothing of a god but eternity
and a heaven to throne in.

SICINIUS  Yes, mercy, if you report him truly.

MENENIUS  I paint him in the character. Mark what
mercy his mother shall bring from him. There is
no more mercy in him than there is milk in a male
tiger. That shall our poor city find, and all this is
long of you.

SICINIUS  The gods be good unto us.

MENENIUS  No, in such a case the gods will not be good
unto us. When we banished him, we respected not
them; and he returning to break our necks, they
respect not us.

[Enter a Messenger.]


MESSENGER, [to Sicinius]
Sir, if you'd save your life, fly to your house.
The plebeians have got your fellow tribune
And hale him up and down, all swearing if
The Roman ladies bring not comfort home,
They'll give him death by inches.

[Enter another Messenger.]


SICINIUS  What's the news?

SECOND MESSENGER
Good news, good news! The ladies have prevailed.
The Volscians are dislodged and Martius gone.
A merrier day did never yet greet Rome,
No, not th' expulsion of the Tarquins.

SICINIUS  Friend,
Art thou certain this is true? Is 't most certain?

SECOND MESSENGER
As certain as I know the sun is fire.
Where have you lurked that you make doubt of it?
Ne'er through an arch so hurried the blown tide
As the recomforted through th' gates. Why, hark you!

[Trumpets, hautboys, drums beat, all together.]


The trumpets, sackbuts, psalteries, and fifes,
Tabors and cymbals, and the shouting Romans
Make the sun dance. Hark you!	[A shout within.]

MENENIUS  This is good news.
I will go meet the ladies. This Volumnia
Is worth of consuls, senators, patricians
A city full; of tribunes such as you
A sea and land full. You have prayed well today.
This morning for ten thousand of your throats
I'd not have given a doit. Hark, how they joy!
[Sound still with the shouts.]

SICINIUS, [to Second Messenger]  First, the gods bless
you for your tidings; next, accept my thankfulness.

SECOND MESSENGER
Sir, we have all great cause to give great thanks.

SICINIUS  They are near the city?

SECOND MESSENGER  Almost at point to enter.

SICINIUS  We'll meet them, and help the joy.
[They exit.]

Scene 5
=======
[Enter two Senators, with Ladies (Volumnia, Virgilia,
Valeria) passing over the stage, with other Lords.]


SENATOR
Behold our patroness, the life of Rome!
Call all your tribes together, praise the gods,
And make triumphant fires. Strew flowers before
them,
Unshout the noise that banished Martius,
Repeal him with the welcome of his mother.
Cry "Welcome, ladies, welcome!"

ALL  Welcome, ladies, welcome!
[A flourish with drums and trumpets.]
[They exit.]

Scene 6
=======
[Enter Tullus Aufidius, with Attendants.]


AUFIDIUS
Go tell the lords o' th' city I am here.
Deliver them this paper.	[(He gives them a paper.)]
Having read it,
Bid them repair to th' marketplace, where I,
Even in theirs and in the commons' ears,
Will vouch the truth of it. Him I accuse
The city ports by this hath entered and
Intends t' appear before the people, hoping
To purge himself with words. Dispatch.
[The Attendants exit.]

[Enter three or four Conspirators of Aufidius's faction.]

Most welcome!

FIRST CONSPIRATOR
How is it with our general?

AUFIDIUS  Even so
As with a man by his own alms empoisoned
And with his charity slain.

SECOND CONSPIRATOR  Most noble sir,
If you do hold the same intent wherein
You wished us parties, we'll deliver you
Of your great danger.

AUFIDIUS  Sir, I cannot tell.
We must proceed as we do find the people.

THIRD CONSPIRATOR
The people will remain uncertain whilst
'Twixt you there's difference, but the fall of either
Makes the survivor heir of all.

AUFIDIUS  I know it,
And my pretext to strike at him admits
A good construction. I raised him, and I pawned
Mine honor for his truth, who, being so heightened,
He watered his new plants with dews of flattery,
Seducing so my friends; and to this end,
He bowed his nature, never known before
But to be rough, unswayable, and free.

THIRD CONSPIRATOR  Sir, his stoutness
When he did stand for consul, which he lost
By lack of stooping--

AUFIDIUS  That I would have spoke of.
Being banished for 't, he came unto my hearth,
Presented to my knife his throat. I took him,
Made him joint servant with me, gave him way
In all his own desires; nay, let him choose
Out of my files, his projects to accomplish,
My best and freshest men; served his designments
In mine own person; holp to reap the fame
Which he did end all his; and took some pride
To do myself this wrong; till at the last
I seemed his follower, not partner; and
He waged me with his countenance as if
I had been mercenary.

FIRST CONSPIRATOR  So he did, my lord.
The army marvelled at it, and, in the last,
When he had carried Rome and that we looked
For no less spoil than glory--

AUFIDIUS  There was it
For which my sinews shall be stretched upon him.
At a few drops of women's rheum, which are
As cheap as lies, he sold the blood and labor
Of our great action. Therefore shall he die,
And I'll renew me in his fall. But hark!

[Drums and trumpets sounds, with great shouts
of the people.]



FIRST CONSPIRATOR
Your native town you entered like a post
And had no welcomes home, but he returns
Splitting the air with noise.

SECOND CONSPIRATOR  And patient fools,
Whose children he hath slain, their base throats tear
With giving him glory.

THIRD CONSPIRATOR  Therefore at your vantage,
Ere he express himself or move the people
With what he would say, let him feel your sword,
Which we will second. When he lies along,
After your way his tale pronounced shall bury
His reasons with his body.

AUFIDIUS  Say no more.

[Enter the Lords of the city.]

Here come the lords.

ALL LORDS
You are most welcome home.

AUFIDIUS  I have not deserved it.
But, worthy lords, have you with heed perused
What I have written to you?

ALL LORDS  We have.

FIRST LORD  And grieve to hear 't.
What faults he made before the last, I think
Might have found easy fines, but there to end
Where he was to begin and give away
The benefit of our levies, answering us
With our own charge, making a treaty where
There was a yielding--this admits no excuse.

[Enter Coriolanus marching with Drum and Colors, the
Commoners being with him.]


AUFIDIUS  He approaches. You shall hear him.

CORIOLANUS
Hail, lords! I am returned your soldier,
No more infected with my country's love
Than when I parted hence, but still subsisting
Under your great command. You are to know
That prosperously I have attempted, and
With bloody passage led your wars even to
The gates of Rome. Our spoils we have brought
home
Doth more than counterpoise a full third part
The charges of the action. We have made peace
With no less honor to the Antiates
Than shame to th' Romans, and we here deliver,
Subscribed by' th' Consuls and patricians,
Together with the seal o' th' Senate, what
We have compounded on.
[He offers the lords a paper.]

AUFIDIUS  Read it not, noble lords,
But tell the traitor in the highest degree
He hath abused your powers.

CORIOLANUS  "Traitor"? How now?

AUFIDIUS  Ay, traitor, Martius.

CORIOLANUS  Martius?

AUFIDIUS
Ay, Martius, Caius Martius. Dost thou think
I'll grace thee with that robbery, thy stol'n name
Coriolanus, in Corioles?
You lords and heads o' th' state, perfidiously
He has betrayed your business and given up
For certain drops of salt your city Rome--
I say your city--to his wife and mother,
Breaking his oath and resolution like
A twist of rotten silk, never admitting
Counsel o' th' war, but at his nurse's tears
He whined and roared away your victory,
That pages blushed at him and men of heart
Looked wond'ring each at other.

CORIOLANUS  Hear'st thou, Mars?

AUFIDIUS  Name not the god, thou boy of tears.

CORIOLANUS  Ha?

AUFIDIUS  No more.

CORIOLANUS
Measureless liar, thou hast made my heart
Too great for what contains it. "Boy"? O slave!--
Pardon me, lords, 'tis the first time that ever
I was forced to scold. Your judgments, my grave
lords,
Must give this cur the lie; and his own notion--
Who wears my stripes impressed upon him, that
Must bear my beating to his grave--shall join
To thrust the lie unto him.

FIRST LORD  Peace, both, and hear me speak.

CORIOLANUS
Cut me to pieces, Volsces. Men and lads,
Stain all your edges on me. "Boy"? False hound!
If you have writ your annals true, 'tis there
That like an eagle in a dovecote, I
Fluttered your Volscians in Corioles,
Alone I did it. "Boy"!

AUFIDIUS  Why, noble lords,
Will you be put in mind of his blind fortune,
Which was your shame, by this unholy braggart,
'Fore your own eyes and ears?

ALL CONSPIRATORS  Let him die for 't.

ALL PEOPLE  Tear him to pieces! Do it presently! He
killed my son! My daughter! He killed my cousin
Marcus! He killed my father!

SECOND LORD  Peace, ho! No outrage! Peace!
The man is noble, and his fame folds in
This orb o' th' Earth. His last offenses to us
Shall have judicious hearing. Stand, Aufidius,
And trouble not the peace.

CORIOLANUS, [drawing his sword]  O, that I had him,
With six Aufidiuses, or more, his tribe,
To use my lawful sword.

AUFIDIUS  Insolent villain!

ALL CONSPIRATORS  Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill him!

[Draw the Conspirators, and kills Martius, who falls.
Aufidius stands on him.]



LORDS  Hold, hold, hold, hold!

AUFIDIUS
My noble masters, hear me speak.

FIRST LORD  O Tullus!

SECOND LORD
Thou hast done a deed whereat valor will weep.

THIRD LORD
Tread not upon him.--Masters, all be quiet.--
Put up your swords.

AUFIDIUS
My lords, when you shall know--as in this rage,
Provoked by him, you cannot--the great danger
Which this man's life did owe you, you'll rejoice
That he is thus cut off. Please it your Honors
To call me to your senate, I'll deliver
Myself your loyal servant or endure
Your heaviest censure.

FIRST LORD  Bear from hence his body,
And mourn you for him. Let him be regarded
As the most noble corse that ever herald
Did follow to his urn.

SECOND LORD  His own impatience
Takes from Aufidius a great part of blame.
Let's make the best of it.

AUFIDIUS  My rage is gone,
And I am struck with sorrow.--Take him up.
Help, three o' th' chiefest soldiers; I'll be one.--
Beat thou the drum that it speak mournfully.--
Trail your steel pikes. Though in this city he
Hath widowed and unchilded many a one,
Which to this hour bewail the injury,
Yet he shall have a noble memory.
Assist.
[They exit bearing the body of Martius.
A dead march sounded.]