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
This is a poor epitome of yours,
Which by the interpretation of full time
May show like all yourself.
Coriolanus
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’ the wars
Like a great sea-mark, standing every flaw,
And saving those that eye thee!
Volumnia
Your knee, sirrah.
Coriolanus
That’s my brave boy!
Volumnia
Even he, your wife, this lady, and myself,
Are suitors to you.
Coriolanus
I beseech you, peace:
Or, if you’ld 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
To ally my rages and revenges with
Your colder reasons.
Volumnia
O, no more, no more!
You have said you will not grant us any thing;
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 nought from Rome in private. 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 thorough 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 Marcius
A’ 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.
Rising
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 honour: no; our suit
Is that you reconcile them: while the Volsces
May say ‘This mercy we have show’d;’ 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 dogg’d with curses;
Whose chronicle thus writ: ‘The man was noble,
But with his last attempt he wiped it out;
Destroy’d his country, and his name remains
To the ensuing age abhorr’d.’ Speak to me, son:
Thou hast affected the fine strains of honour,
To imitate the graces of the gods;
To tear with thunder the wide cheeks o’ the air,
And yet to charge thy sulphur with a bolt
That should but rive an oak. Why dost not speak?
Think’st thou it honourable 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’ the stocks. Thou hast never in thy life
Show’d thy dear mother any courtesy,
When she, poor hen, fond of no second brood,
Has cluck’d thee to the wars and safely home,
Loaden with honour. 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;
This is the last: so we will home to Rome,
And die among our neighbours. Nay, behold ’s:
This boy, that cannot tell what he would have
But kneels and holds up bands for fellowship,
Does reason our petition with more strength
Than thou hast to deny ’t. Come, let us go:
This fellow had a Volscian to his mother;
His wife is in Corioli and his child
Like him by chance. Yet give us our dispatch:
I am hush’d until our city be a-fire,
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 prevail’d,
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<
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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!
Aufidius
[Aside] I am glad thou hast set thy mercy and thy honour
At difference in thee: out of that I’ll work
Myself a former fortune.
The Ladies make signs to Coriolanus
Coriolanus
Ay, by and by;
To Volumnia, Virgilia, & c
But we will drink together; and you shall bear
A better witness back than words, which we,
On like conditions, will have counter-seal’d.
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.
Exeunt
SCENE IV. ROME. A PUBLIC PLACE.
Enter Menenius and Sicinius
Menenius
See you yond coign o’ the Capitol, yond corner-stone?
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 Marcius 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
Sir, if you’ld 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 a second Messenger
Sicinius
What’s the news?
Second Messenger
Good news, good news; the ladies have prevail’d,
The Volscians are dislodged, and Marcius gone:
A merrier day did never yet greet Rome,
No, not the expulsion of the Tarquins.
Sicinius
Friend,
Art thou certain this is true? is it most certain?
Second Messenger
As certain as I know the sun is fire:
Where have you lurk’d, that you make doubt of it?
Ne’er through an arch so hurried the blown tide,
As the recomforted through the gates. Why, hark you!
Trumpets; hautboys; drums beat; all together
The trumpets, sackbuts, psalteries and fifes,
Tabours 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 pray’d well to-day:
This morning for ten thousand of your throats
I’d not have given a doit. Hark, how they joy!
Music still, with shouts
Sicinius
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 will meet them,
And help the joy.
Exeunt
SCENE V. THE SAME. A STREET NEAR THE GATE.
Enter two Senators with Volumnia, Virgilia, Valeria, & c. passing over the stage, followed by Patricians and others
First 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 banish’d Marcius,
Repeal him with the welcome of his mother;
Cry ‘Welcome, ladies, welcome!’
All
Welcome, ladies, Welcome!
A flourish with drums and trumpets. Exeunt
SCENE VI. ANTIUM. A PUBLIC PLACE.
Enter Tullus Aufidius, with Attendants
Aufidius
Go tell the lords o’ the city I am here:
Deliver them this paper: having read it,
Bid them repair to the market place; 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 enter’d and
Intends to appear before the people, hoping
To purge herself with words: dispatch.
Exeunt Attendants
Enter three or four Conspirators of Aufidius’ faction
Most welcome!
First Conspirator
How is it with our general?
Aufidius
Even so
As with a man by his own alms empoison’d,
And with his charity slain.
Second Conspirator
Most noble sir,
If you do hold the same intent wherein
You wish’d 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 pawn’d
Mine honour for his truth: who being so heighten’d,
He water’d his new plants with dews of flattery,
Seducing so my friends; and, to this end,
He bow’d 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 spok
e of:
Being banish’d 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 seem’d 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 marvell’d at it, and, in the last,
When he had carried Rome and that we look’d
For no less spoil than glory,—
Aufidius
There was it:
For which my sinews shall be stretch’d upon him.
At a few drops of women’s rheum, which are
As cheap as lies, he sold the blood and labour
Of our great action: therefore shall he die,
And I’ll renew me in his fall. But, hark!
Drums and trumpets sound, with great shouts of the People
First Conspirator
Your native town you enter’d 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:
Here come the lords.
Enter the Lords of the city
All The 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?
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.
Aufidius
He approaches: you shall hear him.
Enter Coriolanus, marching with drum and colours; commoners being with him
Coriolanus
Hail, lords! I am return’d your soldier,
Complete Plays, The Page 147
