The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 91
And carry with us ears and eyes for th’ time,
But hearts for the event.
SICINIUS Have with you. Exeunt.
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2.2 Enter two Officers, to lay cushions, as it were in the Capitol.
1 OFFICER Come, come, they are almost here. How
many stand for consulships?
2 OFFICER Three, they say; but ’tis thought of everyone
Coriolanus will carry it.
1 OFFICER That’s a brave fellow; but he’s vengeance
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proud, and loves not the common people.
2 OFFICER ’Faith, there hath been many great men that
have flattered the people, who ne’er loved them; and
there be many that they have loved, they know not
wherefore: so that if they love they know not why, they
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hate upon no better a ground. Therefore, for
Coriolanus neither to care whether they love or hate
him manifests the true knowledge he has in their
disposition, and out of his noble carelessness lets them
plainly see’t.
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1 OFFICER If he did not care whether he had their love
or no, he waved indifferently ’twixt doing them
neither good nor harm; but he seeks their hate with
greater devotion than they can render it him, and
leaves nothing undone that may fully discover him
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their opposite. Now to seem to affect the malice and
displeasure of the people is as bad as that which he
dislikes, to flatter them for their love.
2 OFFICER He hath deserved worthily of his country;
and his ascent is not by such easy degrees as those
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who, having been supple and courteous to the
people, bonneted, without any further deed to have
them at all into their estimation and report; but he
hath so planted his honours in their eyes and his
actions in their hearts, that for their tongues to be
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silent and not confess so much were a kind of
ingrateful injury. To report otherwise were a malice
that, giving itself the lie, would pluck reproof and
rebuke from every ear that heard it.
1 OFFICER No more of him; he’s a worthy man: make
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way, they are coming.
A sennet. Enter the patricians, and the tribunes of the people, lictors before them; CORIOLANUS, MENENIUS, COMINIUS the Consul. SICINIUS and BRUTUS take their places by themselves; Coriolanus stands.
MENENIUS Having determin’d of the Volsces, and
To send for Titus Lartius, it remains,
As the main point of this our after-meeting,
To gratify his noble service that
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Hath thus stood for his country. Therefore, please
you,
Most reverend and grave elders, to desire
The present consul, and last general
In our well-found successes, to report
A little of that worthy work perform’d
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By Martius Caius Coriolanus, whom
We met here, both to thank and to remember,
With honours like himself. [Coriolanus sits.]
1 SENATOR Speak, good Cominius.
Leave nothing out for length, and make us think
Rather our state’s defective for requital
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Than we to stretch it out.
[to the tribunes] Masters o’th’ people,
We do request your kindest ears, and after
Your loving motion toward the common body,
To yield what passes here.
SICINIUS We are convented
Upon a pleasing treaty, and have hearts
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Inclinable to honour and advance
The theme of our assembly.
BRUTUS Which the rather
We shall be bless’d to do, if he remember
A kinder value of the people than
He hath hereto priz’d them at.
MENENIUS That’s off, that’s off!
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I would you rather had been silent. Please you
To hear Cominius speak?
BRUTUS Most willingly;
But yet my caution was more pertinent
Than the rebuke you give it.
MENENIUS He loves your people,
But tie him not to be their bedfellow.
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Worthy Cominius, speak.
[Coriolanus rises, and offers to go away.]
Nay, keep your place.
1 SENATOR Sit, Coriolanus: never shame to hear
What you have nobly done.
CORIOLANUS Your honours’ pardon:
I had rather have my wounds to heal again
Than hear say how I got them.
BRUTUS Sir, I hope
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My words disbench’d you not?
CORIOLANUS No, sir; yet oft,
When blows have made me stay, I fled from words.
You sooth’d not, therefore hurt not: but your people,
I love them as they weigh –
MENENIUS Pray now, sit down.
CORIOLANUS
I had rather have one scratch my head i’th’ sun
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When the alarum were struck, than idly sit
To hear my nothings monster’d. Exit Coriolanus.
MENENIUS Masters of the people,
Your multiplying spawn how can he flatter –
That’s thousand to one good one – when you now
see
He had rather venture all his limbs for honour
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Than one on’s ears to hear it? Proceed, Cominius.
COMINIUS I shall lack voice: the deeds of Coriolanus
Should not be utter’d feebly. It is held
That valour is the chiefest virtue and
Most dignifies the haver: if it be,
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The man I speak of cannot in the world
Be singly counter-pois’d. At sixteen years,
When Tarquin made a head for Rome, he fought
Beyond the mark of others; our then dictator,
Whom with all praise I point at, saw him fight,
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When with his Amazonian chin he drove
The bristled lips before him; he bestrid
An o’erpress’d Roman, and i’th’ consul’s view
Slew three opposers; Tarquin’s self he met
And struck him on his knee. In that day’s feats,
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When he might act the woman in the scene,
He prov’d best man i’th’ field, and for his meed
Was brow-bound with the oak. His pupil age
Man-enter’d thus, he waxed like a sea,
And in the brunt of seventeen battles since
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He lurch’d all swords of the garland. For this last,
Before and in Corioles, let me say
I cannot speak him home. He stopp’d the fliers,
And by his rare example made the coward
Turn terror into sport; as weeds before
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A vessel under sail, so men obey’d
And fell below his stem: his sword, death’s stamp,
Where it did mark, it took; from face to foot
He was a thing of blood, whose every motion
Was tim’d with dying cries: alone he enter’d
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The mortal gate of th’ city, which he painted
With shunless destiny, aidless came off,
And with a sudden reinforcement struck
Corioles like a planet. Now all’s his;
When by and by the din of war gan pierce
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His ready sense, then straight his doubled spirit
Requicken’d what in flesh was fatigate,
And to the battle came he, where he did
Run reeking o’er the lives of men, as if
’Twere a perpetual spoil; and till we call’d
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BOTH field and city ours, he never stood
To ease his breast with panting.
MENENIUS Worthy man.
1 SENATOR
He cannot but with measure fit the honours
Which we devise him.
COMINIUS Our spoils he kick’d at,
And look’d upon things precious as they were
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The common muck of the world. He covets less
Than misery itself would give, rewards
His deeds with doing them, and is content
To spend the time to end it.
MENENIUS He’s right noble.
Let him be call’d for.
1 SENATOR Call Coriolanus.
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OFFICER He doth appear.
Enter CORIOLANUS.
MENENIUS The senate, Coriolanus, are well pleas’d
To make thee consul.
CORIOLANUS I do owe them still
My life and services.
MENENIUS It then remains
That you do speak to the people.
CORIOLANUS I do beseech you,
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Let me o’erleap that custom; for I cannot
Put on the gown, stand naked, and entreat them
For my wounds’ sake to give their suffrage. Please
you
That I may pass this doing.
SICINIUS Sir, the people
Must have their voices; neither will they bate
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One jot of ceremony.
MENENIUS Put them not to’t.
Pray you go fit you to the custom and
Take to you, as your predecessors have,
Your honour with your form.
CORIOLANUS It is a part
That I shall blush in acting, and might well
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Be taken from the people.
BRUTUS [to Sicinius] Mark you that.
CORIOLANUS To brag unto them, thus I did, and thus,
Show them th’unaching scars which I should hide,
As if I had receiv’d them for the hire
Of their breath only!
MENENIUS Do not stand upon’t.
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We recommend to you, tribunes of the people,
Our purpose to them; and to our noble consul
Wish we all joy and honour.
SENATORS To Coriolanus come all joy and honour!
Flourish cornets. Then exeunt.
[Sicinius and Brutus remain.]
BRUTUS You see how he intends to use the people.
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SICINIUS
May they perceive’s intent! He will require them
As if he did contemn what he requested
Should be in them to give.
BRUTUS Come, we’ll inform them
Of our proceedings here; on th’ market-place
I know they do attend us. Exeunt.
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2.3 Enter seven or eight Citizens.
1 CITIZEN Once, if he do require our voices, we ought
not to deny him.
2 CITIZEN We may, sir, if we will.
3 CITIZEN We have power in ourselves to do it, but it is
a power that we have no power to do. For, if he show
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us his wounds and tell us his deeds, we are to put our
tongues into those wounds and speak for them. So if
he tell us his noble deeds, we must also tell him our
noble acceptance of them. Ingratitude is monstrous,
and for the multitude to be ingrateful, were to make a
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monster of the multitude; of the which we being
members, should bring ourselves to be monstrous
members.
1 CITIZEN And to make us no better thought of, a little
help will serve: for once we stood up about the corn,
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he himself stuck not to call us the many-headed
multitude.
3 CITIZEN We have been called so of many; not that our
heads are some brown, some black, some abram, some
bald, but that our wits are so diversely coloured; and
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truly I think, if all our wits were to issue out of one
skull, they would fly east, west, north, south, and their
consent of one direct way should be at once to all the
points o’th’ compass.
2 CITIZEN Think you so? Which way do you judge my