And stand upon my common part with those
That have beheld the doing.
A long flourish. They all cry ‘Marcius! Marcius!’ cast up their caps and lances: Cominius and Lartius stand bare
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
Made all of false-faced soothing!
When steel grows soft as the parasite’s silk,
Let him be made a coverture for the wars!
No more, I say! For that I have not wash’d
My nose that bled, or foil’d 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 Marcius
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 Corioli, call him,
With all the applause and clamour of the host,
Caius Marcius Coriolanus! Bear
The addition nobly ever!
Flourish. Trumpets sound, and drums
All
Caius Marcius 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 the 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 Corioli 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 Corioli
At a poor man’s house; he used me kindly:
He cried to me; I saw him prisoner;
But then Aufidius was with in my view,
And wrath o’erwhelm’d my pity: I request you
To give my poor host freedom.
Cominius
O, well begg’d!
Were he the butcher of my son, he should
Be free as is the wind. Deliver him, Titus.
Lartius
Marcius, 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 look’d to: come.
Exeunt
SCENE X. THE CAMP OF THE VOLSCES.
A flourish. Cornets. Enter Tullus Aufidius, bloody, with two or three Soldiers
Aufidius
The town is ta’en!
First Soldier
’Twill be deliver’d 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’ the part that is at mercy? Five times, Marcius,
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 the elements,
If e’er again I meet him beard to beard,
He’s mine, or I am his: mine emulation
Hath not that honour 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.
First Soldier
He’s the devil.
Aufidius
Bolder, though not so subtle. My valour’s poison’d
With only suffering 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 Marcius: 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 the city;
Learn how ’tis held; and what they are that must
Be hostages for Rome.
First 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.
First Soldier
I shall, sir.
Exeunt
ACT II
SCENE I. ROME. A PUBLIC PLACE.
Enter Menenius with the two Tribunes of the people, Sicinius and Brutus.
Menenius
The augurer tells me we shall have news to-night.
Brutus
Good or bad?
Menenius
Not according to the prayer of the people, for they love not Marcius.
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 Marcius.
Brutus
He’s a lamb indeed, that baes 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 Marcius 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’ the 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 Marcius 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 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 survey of your good selves! O that you could!
Brutus
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 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 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 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 barm 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 any thing. 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 fosset-seller; and then rejourn 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.
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 honourable 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 predecessors since Deucalion, though peradventure some of the best of ’em were hereditary hangmen. God-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.
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?
Volumnia
Honourable Menenius, my boy Marcius approaches; for the love of Juno, let’s go.
Menenius
Ha! Marcius coming home!
Volumnia
Ay, worthy Menenius; and with most prosperous approbation.
Menenius
Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee. Hoo!
Marcius coming home!
Volumnia
Virgilia
Nay,’tis true.
Volumnia
Look, here’s a letter from him: 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 a’ 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 Corioli, 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, wow.
Menenius
True! I’ll be sworn they are true.
Where is he wounded?
To the Tribunes
God save your good worships! Marcius is coming home: he has more cause to be proud. Where is he wounded?
Volumnia
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.
Menenius
One i’ the neck, and two i’ the 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 Marcius: 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. Trumpets sound. Enter Cominius the general, and Titus Lartius; between them, Coriolanus, crowned with an oaken garland; with Captains and Soldiers, and a Herald
Herald
Know, Rome, that all alone Marcius did fight
Within Corioli gates: where he hath won,
With fame, a name to Caius Marcius; these
In honour follows Coriolanus.
Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!
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, petition’d all the gods
For my prosperity!
Kneels
Volumnia
Nay, my good soldier, up;
My gentle Marcius, worthy Caius, and
By deed-achieving honour newly named,—
What is it?— Coriolanus must I call thee?—
But O, thy wife!
Coriolanus
My gracious silence, hail!
Wouldst thou have laugh’d had I come coffin’d home,
That weep’st to see me triumph? Ay, my dear,
Such eyes the widows in Corioli 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 ye’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 honours.
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. Cornets. Exeunt 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,
Clambering the walls to eye him: stalls, bulks, windows,
Are smother’d up, leads fill’d, 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: or veil’d dames
Commit the war of white and damask in
Their nicely-gawded cheeks to the wanton spoil
Of Phoebus’ burning kisses: such a pother
As if that whatsoever god who leads him
Were slily crept into his human powers
Complete Plays, The Page 139
