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 unbarbèd 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 mould of Martius they to dust should grind it
And throw’t against the wind. To th’ market-place.
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 honour 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 dishonour
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 sucked’st it from me,
But owe thy pride thyself.
CORIOLANUS
Pray be content.
Mother, I am going to the market-place.
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.
Exit Volumnia
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 honour.
MENENIUS Ay, but mildly.
CORIOLANUS Well, mildly be it, then—mitd)y.
Exeunt
3.3 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 Antiats
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 favoured 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 ⌈to the Aedile⌉ Go about it.
⌈Exit Aedile⌉
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 other ⌈Senators and Patricians⌉
SICINIUS Well, here he comes.
MENENIUS (to Coriolanus) Calmly, I do beseech you.
CORIOLANUS
Ay, as an hostler that for th’ poorest piece
Will bear the knave by th’ volume.—Th‘honoured
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 Citizens
SICINIUS
Draw near, ye people.
AEDILE List to your tribunes. Audience!
Peace, I say.
CORIOLANUS First, hear me speak.
SICINIUS and BRUTUS 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 briers,
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 dishonoured that the very hour
You take it off again?
SICINUS 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,
F
or which you are a traitor to the people.
CORIOLANUS
How, traitor?
MENENIUS Nay, temperatety—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 ⌈THE CITIZENS⌉ ⌉ 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
Inveighed 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
E’en 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 ⌈THE CITIZENS⌉ 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 ⌈THE CITIZENS⌉ 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 rumour 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.
Exeunt Coriolanus, Cominius, and Menenius, with the rest of the Patricians. The Citizens all shout, and throw up their caps
AEDILE
The people’s enemy is gone, is gone.
ALL THE CITIZENS
Our enemy is banished, he is gone. Hoo-oo!
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 THE CITIZENS
Come, come, let’s see him out at gates. Come.
The gods preserve our noble tribunes! Come. Exeunt
4.1 Enter Coriolanus, Volumnia, Virgilia, Menenius, and 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 labours 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 will thou go? Take good Cominius
With thee a while. 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 ye well.
Thou hast years upon thee, and tho
u 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.
Exeunt
4.2 Enter the two tribunes, Sicinius and Brutus, with the Aedile
SICINIUS (to the Aedile)
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 (to the Aedile) Bid them home.
Say their great enemy is gone, and they
Stand in their ancient strength.
BRUTUS
Dismiss them home.
Exit Aedile
Enter Volumnia, Virgilia, ⌈weeping,⌉ and Menenius
Here comes his mother.
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! Th‘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. Will you be gone?
VIRGILIA (to the tribunes)
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
The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works Page 356
