The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 89
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And, gladly quak’d, hear more; where the dull
tribunes,
That with the fusty plebeians hate thine honours,
Shall say against their hearts, ‘We thank the gods
Our Rome hath such a soldier.’
Yet cam’st thou to a morsel of this feast,
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Having fully din’d before.
Enter TITUS LARTIUS, with his power, from the pursuit.
LARTIUS O general,
Here is the steed, we the caparison:
Hadst thou beheld –
MARTIUS Pray now, no more. My mother,
Who has a charter to extol her blood,
When she does praise me, grieves me. I have done
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As you have done, that’s what I can; induc’d
As you have been, that’s for my country.
He that has but effected his good will
Hath overta’en mine act.
COMINIUS You shall not be
The grave of your deserving; Rome must know
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The value of her own. ’Twere a concealment
Worse than a theft, no less than a traducement,
To hide your doings, and to silence that
Which, to the spire and top of praises vouch’d,
Would seem but modest. Therefore I beseech you –
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In sign of what you are, not to reward
What you have done – before our army hear me.
MARTIUS
I have some wounds upon me, and they smart
To hear themselves remember’d.
COMINIUS Should they not,
Well might they fester ’gainst ingratitude,
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And tent themselves with death. Of all the horses –
Whereof we have ta’en good, and good store – of all
The treasure in this field achiev’d and city,
We render you the tenth; to be ta’en forth,
Before the common distribution, at
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Your only choice.
MARTIUS I thank you, general;
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.
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[A long flourish. They all cry, ‘ Martius! Martius!’, cast
up their caps and lances. Cominius and Lartius stand
bare.]
May these same instruments, which you profane,
Never sound more! When drums and trumpets shall
I’th’ field prove flatterers, let courts and cities be
Made all of false-fac’d soothing! When steel grows
Soft as the parasite’s silk, let him be made
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An ovator for th’ 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,
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As if I lov’d my little should be dieted
In praises sauc’d 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 incens’d, we’ll put you
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(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 Martius
Wears this war’s garland: in token of the which,
My noble steed, known to the camp, I give him,
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With all his trim belonging; and from this time,
For what he did before Corioles, call him,
With all th’applause and clamour of the host,
Martius Caius Coriolanus!
Bear th’addition nobly ever!
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[Flourish. Trumpets sound, and drums.]
ALL Martius Caius 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,
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To th’ 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 Corioles back: send us to Rome
The best, with whom we may articulate
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For their own good and ours.
LARTIUS I shall, my lord.
CORIOLANUS
The gods begin to mock me: I, that now
Refus’d 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 Corioles,
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At a poor man’s house: he us’d me kindly.
He cried to me. I saw him prisoner.
But then Aufidius was within my view,
And wrath o’erwhelm’d my pity. I request you
To give my poor host freedom.
COMINIUS Oh well begg’d!
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Were he the butcher of my son, he should
Be free as is the wind. Deliver him, Titus.
LARTIUS Martius, 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.
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The blood upon your visage dries, ’tis time
It should be look’d to. Come. Exeunt.
1.10 A flourish. Cornets. Enter TULLUS AUFIDIUS, bloody, with two or three Soldiers.
AUFIDIUS The town is ta’en!
1 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?
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What good condition can a treaty find
I’th’ part that is at mercy? Five times, Martius,
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 th’elements,
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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,
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Or wrath or craft may get him.
1 SOLDIER He’s the devil.
AUFIDIUS
Bolder, though not so subtle. My valour’s poison’d
With only suff ’ring stain by him: for him
Shall fly out of itself. Nor sleep, nor sanctuary,
Being naked, sick; nor fane, nor Capitol,
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The prayers of priests, nor times of sacrifice –
Embarquements all of fury – shall lift up
Their rotten privilege and custom ’gainst
My hate to Martius. Where I find him, were it
At home, upon my brother’s guard, even there,
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Against the hospitable canon, would I
Wash my fierce hand in’s heart. Go you to th’ city;
Learn how ’tis held, and what they are that must
Be hostages for Rome.
1 SOLDIER Will not you go?
AUFIDIUS
I am attended at the cypress grove. I pray you –
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’Tis sout
h the city mills – bring me word thither
How the world goes, that to the pace of it
I may spur on my journey.
1 SOLDIER I shall, sir. Exeunt.
2.1 Enter MENENIUS with the two tribunes of the people, SICINIUS and BRUTUS.
MENENIUS The augurer tells me we shall have news
tonight.
BRUTUS Good or bad?
MENENIUS Not according to the prayer of the people,
for they love not Martius.
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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 Martius.
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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.
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MENENIUS In what enormity is Martius 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.
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MENENIUS This is strange now. Do you two know how
you are censured here in the city, I mean of us o’th’
right-hand file? Do you?
BOTH Why, how are we censured?
MENENIUS Because you talk of pride now – will you not
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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
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angry at your pleasures; at the least, if you take it as a
pleasure to you in being so. You blame Martius for
being proud.
BRUTUS We do it not alone, sir.
MENENIUS I know you can do very little alone, for your
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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
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you could!
BOTH What then, sir?
MENENIUS Why, then you should discover a brace of
unmeriting, proud, violent, testy magistrates (alias
fools) as any in Rome.
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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
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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
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me touch my palate adversely, I make a crooked face at
it. I can 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
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men, yet they lie deadly that tell 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?
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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 faucet-
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seller, and then rejourn the controversy of threepence
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
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roaring for a chamber-pot, dismiss the controversy
bleeding, the more entangled by your hearing. All