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 THE CITIZENS
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. ‘Agèd 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 (to the Citizens) 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 (to the Citizens) 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 (to the Citizens) 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 judgement?
SICINIUS (to the Citizens) 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 (to the Citizens) Let them assemble,
And on a safer judgement 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 (to the Citizens) Lay
A fault on us your tribunes, that we laboured
No impediment between, but that you must
Cast your election on him.
SICINIUS (to the Citizens) 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 (to the Citizens)
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 (to the Citizens) One thus descended,
That hath beside 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 (to the Citizens) 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.
⌈A CITIZEN⌉ We will so.
⌈ANOTHER CITIZEN⌉ Almost all
Repent in their election.
Exeunt Citizens
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.
Exeunt
3.1 Cornetts. Enter Coriolanus, Menenius, all the gentry; Cominius, 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 raid
Upon’s again.
COMINIUS They are worn, lord consul, so
That we shall hardly in our ages see
Their banners wave again.
CORIOLANUS (to Lartius) 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 l
ord.
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’ market-place.
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,
Scandalled the suppliants for the people, called them
Time-pleasers, 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?
⌈CORIOLANUS⌉
You are like to do such business.
BRUTUS Not unlike
Each way to better yours.
CORIOLANUS
Why then should I be consul? By yon 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 enquire 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 dishonoured 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 meinie,
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 ploughed for, sowed, and
scattered
By mingling them with us, the honoured 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 impotence; 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, no
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’ market-place.
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
<
br /> Most valour, 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 dishonour
Mangles true judgement, 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
He’s said enough.
SICINIUS
He’s 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, hotEnter an Aedile
Let him be apprehended.
SICINIUS
Go call the people,
⌈Exit Aedile
(To Coriolanus) in whose name myself
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works Page 354
