Auf. We hate alike: | Whereof we have ta'en good, and good store, Not Afric owns a serpent I abhor Mar. Let the first budger die the other's slave, Halloo me like a hare. Mar. If I fly, Marcius, Within these three hours, Tullus, Alone I fought in your Corioli walls, Auf. Wert thou the Hector That was the whip of your bragg'd progeny, 12 Thou should'st not 'scape me here. They fight, and certain Volsces come to the Exeunt fighting, all driven by MARCIUS. Alarum. A retreat sounded. Flourish. Enter, at Romans. Com. If I should tell thee o'er this thy day's Thou 'dst not believe thy deeds: but I'll report it That, with the fusty plebeians, hate thine honours, Having fully din'd before. Enter TITUS LARTIUS, with his power, from the Lart. pursuit. O general, Here is the steed, we the caparison: Pray now, no more: my mother, 10 Who has a charter to extol her blood, He that has but effected his good will Hath overta'en mine act. of all 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. 40 A long flourish. They all cry, 'MARCIUS! May these same instruments, which you profane, Never sound more! When drums and trumpets shall I' the field prove flatterers, let courts and cities be In acclamations hyperbolical; Com. 50 Too modest are you; More cruel to your good report than grateful 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 Marcius All. Caius Marcius Coriolanus! 63 Flourish. Trumpets sound, and drums. Cor. I will go wash; To the fairness of my power. So, to our tent; Where, ere we do repose us, we will write 72 I shall, my lord. Cor. The gods begin to mock me. I, that now Cor. I sometime lay here in Corioli O! well begg'd. First Sold. He's the devil. Men. In what enormity is Marcius poor in that you two have not in abundance? Bru. He's poor in no one fault, but stored with all. Sic. Especially in pride. Bru. And topping all others in boasting. Men. This is strange now do you two know how you are censured here in the city, I mean of us o' the right-hand file? do you? Sic., Bru. Why, how are we censured? Men. Because you talk of pride now, will you not be angry? Sic., Bru. Well, well, sir; well. Men. Why, 'tis no great matter; for a very little thief of occasion will 10b 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 Marcius for being proud? Bru. We do it not alone, sir. Men. 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 infant-like 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 Auf. Bolder, though not so subtle. My valour's survey of your good selves. O! that you could. poison'd 20 With only suffering stain by him; for him Wash my fierce hand in 's heart. Go you to the city; Learn how 'tis held, and what they are that must First Sold. Will not you go? Auf. I am attended at the cypress grove: 30 'Tis south the city mills, bring me word thither ACT II. I shall, sir, Exeunt. Men. Why, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting, proud, violent, testy magistrates, alias fools, as any in Rome. Sic. Menenius, you are known well enough too. Men. I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiberin't; said to be something imperfect in favouring 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 mymalice in my breath. Meeting two such weals-men 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 can't 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 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! Bru. Come, sir, come, we know you well enough. Men. You know neither me, yourselves, nor any thing. You are ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs: you wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orangewife and a fosset-seller, and then rejouru the controversy of three-pence 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. 84 Bru. Come, come, you are well understood to be a perfecter giber for the table than a necessary bencher in the Capitol. Men. 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 hon ourable a grave as to stuff a botcher's cushion, or to be entombed in an ass's pack-saddle. Yet you must be saying Marcius 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 den 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. 102 BRUTUS and SICINIUS go 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? Vol. Honourable Menenius, my boy Marcius approaches; for the love of Juno, let's go. Men. Ha! Marcius coming home? Vol. Ay, worthy Menenius; and with most Men. So do I too, if it be not too much. Brings a' victory in his pocket? The wounds become him. Vol. On's brows, Menenius; he comes the third time home with the oaken garland. Men. Has he disciplined Aufidius soundly? Vol. Titus Lartius writes they fought together, but Aufidius got off. Men. 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 Corioli, and the gold that's in them. Is the senate possessed of this? 143 Vol. Good ladies, let's go. Yes, yes, yes; the senate has letters from the general, wherein Vol. I' the shoulder and i' the 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' the body. Men. One i' the neck, and two i' the thigh, there's nine that I know. Vol. He had, before this last expedition, twenty-five wounds upon him. Men. Now it's twenty-seven: every gash was an enemy's grave, A shout and flourish. Hark! the trumpets. 170 Pray now, no more. Com. Cor. Look, sir, your mother! You have, I know, petition'd all the gods Vol. 0! Kneels. My gentle Marcius, worthy Caius, and My gracious silence, hail! Would'st thou have laugh'd had I come coffin'd home, 190 And I could laugh; I am light, and heavy. | Appear i' the market-place, nor on him put Welcome! A curse begin at very root on 's heart The napless vesture of humility; 'Tis right. Bru. It was his word. Oh! he would miss it rather 250 Than carry it but by the suit o' the gentry to him Be grafted to your relish. Yet welcome, warriors! And the desire of the nobles. The faults of fools but folly. Com. We.call a nettle but a nettle, and Ever right. Cor. Menenius, ever, ever. Her. Give way there, and go on! Cor. To VOLUMNIA and VIRGILIA. Your A sure destruction. To see inherited my very wishes, And the buildings of my fancy: only Sic. It shall be to him then as our good wills, Dispropertied their freedoms; holding them, There's one thing wanting, which I doubt not In human action and capacity, Their nicely-gawded cheeks, to the wanton spoil As to Jove's statue, and the commons made Of Phœbus' burning kisses: such a pother I warrant him consul. 231 shouts: I never saw the like. Bru. On the sudden, And carry with us ears and eyes for the time, Then our office may, During his power, go sleep. Sic. He cannot temperately transport his honours From where he should begin and end, but will Lose those he hath won. Bru. In that there's comfort. Sic. Doubt not the commoners, for whom we stand, 240 But they upon their ancient malice will honours, Which that he'll give them, make I as little question As he is proud to do 't. Bru. I heard him swear, Were he to stand for consul, never would he But hearts for the event. Sic. Have with you. Exeunt. SCENE II. The Same. The Capitol. Enter two Officers, to lay cushions. First Off. Come, come; they are almost here. How many stand for consulships? Second Off. Three, they say; but 'tis thought of every one Coriolanus will carry it. First Off. That's a brave fellow; but he's people. vengeance proud, and loves not the common Second Off. Faith, there have 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. 17 First Off. 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 Off. 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 honours 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 Off. No more of him; he's a worthy man: make way, they are coming. 40 Exit. Masters o' the people, Your multiplying spawn how can he flatter, That's thousand to one good one, when you now see He bad rather venture all his limbs for honour Cominius. Com. I shall lack voice: the deeds of Coriolanus Should not be utter'd feebly. It is held 50 With honours like himself. The man I speak of cannot in the world 90 First Sen. Speak, good Cominius: Leave nothing out for length, and make us think And in the brunt of seventeen battles since last, Than we to stretch it out. To the Tribunes. Before and in Corioli, let me say, Where it did mark, it took; from face to foot |