The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 93
And his old hate unto you. Besides, forget not
With what contempt he wore the humble weed,
How in his suit he scorn’d you; but your loves,
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Thinking upon his services, took from you
Th’apprehension of his present portance,
Which most gibingly, ungravely, he did fashion
After the inveterate hate he bears you.
BRUTUS Lay
A fault on us, your tribunes: that we labour’d,
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No impediment between, but that you must
Cast your election on him.
SICINIUS Say you chose him
More after our commandment than as guided
By your own true affections; and that your minds
Pre-occupied with what you rather must do,
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Than what you should, made you against the grain
To voice him consul. Lay the fault on us.
BRUTUS Ay, spare us not. Say we read lectures to you,
How youngly he began to serve his country,
How long continued, and what stock he springs of –
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The noble house o’th’ Martians: from whence came
That Ancus Martius, Numa’s daughter’s son,
Who after great Hostilius here was king;
Of the same house Publius and Quintus were,
That our best water brought by conduits hither;
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And Censorinus that was so surnam’d
And nobly named so, twice being censor,
Was his great ancestor.
SICINIUS One thus descended,
That hath beside well in his person wrought,
To be set high in place, we did commend
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To your remembrances; but you have found,
Scaling his present bearing with his past,
That he’s your fixed enemy, and revoke
Your sudden approbation.
BRUTUS Say you ne’er had done’t –
Harp on that still – but by our putting on;
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And presently, when you have drawn your number,
Repair to th’ Capitol.
ALL We will so: almost all
Repent in their election. Exeunt Plebeians.
BRUTUS Let them go on;
This mutiny were better put in hazard
Than stay, past doubt, for greater.
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If, as his nature is, he fall in rage
With their refusal, both observe and answer
The vantage of his anger.
SICINIUS To th’ Capitol, come:
We will be there before the stream o’th’people;
And this shall seem, as partly ’tis, their own,
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Which we have goaded onward. Exeunt.
3.1 Cornets. Enter CORIOLANUS, MENENIUS, all the gentry. COMINIUS, TITUS LARTIUS and other Senators.
CORIOLANUS
Tullus Aufidius then had made new head?
LARTIUS
He had, my lord; and that it was which caus’d
Our swifter composition.
CORIOLANUS So then the Volsces stand but as at first,
Ready when time shall prompt them to make road
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Upon’s again.
COMINIUS They are worn, lord consul, so,
That we shall hardly in our ages see
Their banners wave again.
CORIOLANUS Saw you Aufidius?
LARTIUS On safeguard he came to me, and did curse
Against the Volsces for they had so vilely
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Yielded the town: he is retir’d to Antium.
CORIOLANUS Spoke he of me?
LARTIUS He did, my lord.
CORIOLANUS How? What?
LARTIUS How often he had met you, sword to sword;
That of all things upon the earth he hated
Your person most; that he would pawn his fortunes
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To hopeless restitution, so he might
Be call’d your vanquisher.
CORIOLANUS At Antium lives he?
LARTIUS At Antium.
CORIOLANUS I wish I had a cause to seek him there,
To oppose his hatred fully. Welcome home.
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Enter SICINIUS and BRUTUS.
Behold, these are the tribunes of the people,
The tongues o’th’ common mouth. I do despise
them:
For they do prank them in authority,
Against all noble sufferance.
SICINIUS Pass no further.
CORIOLANUS Ha! what is that?
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BRUTUS It will be dangerous to go on. No further.
CORIOLANUS What makes this change?
MENENIUS The matter?
COMINIUS
Hath he not pass’d the noble and the common?
BRUTUS Cominius, no.
CORIOLANUS Have I had children’s voices?
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1 SENATOR
Tribunes, give way: he shall to th’ market-place.
BRUTUS The people are incens’d against him.
SICINIUS Stop,
Or all will fall in broil.
CORIOLANUS Are these your herd?
Must these have voices, that can yield them now
And straight disclaim their tongues? What are your
offices?
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You being their mouths, why rule you not their
teeth?
Have you not set them on?
MENENIUS Be calm, be calm.
CORIOLANUS It is a purpos’d thing, and grows by plot,
To curb the will of the nobility:
Suffer’t, and live with such as cannot rule,
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Nor ever will be rul’d.
BRUTUS Call’t not a plot.
The people cry you mock’d them; and of late,
When corn was given them gratis, you repin’d,
Scandal’d the suppliants for the people, call’d them
Time-pleasers, flatterers, foes to nobleness.
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CORIOLANUS Why, this was known before.
BRUTUS Not to them all.
CORIOLANUS Have you inform’d them sithence?
BRUTUS How! I inform them!
COMINIUS You are like to do such business.
BRUTUS Not unlike
Each way to better yours.
CORIOLANUS
Why then should I be consul? By yond clouds,
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Let me deserve so ill as you, and make me
Your fellow tribune.
SICINIUS You show too much of that
For which the people stir. If you will pass
To where you are bound, you must inquire your way,
Which you are out of, with a gentler spirit,
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Or never be so noble as a consul,
Nor yoke with him for tribune.
MENENIUS Let’s be calm.
COMINIUS
The people are abus’d; set on. This palt’ring
Becomes not Rome; nor has Coriolanus
Deserv’d this so dishonour’d rub, laid falsely
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I’th’ plain way of his merit.
CORIOLANUS Tell me of corn!
This was my speech, and I will speak’t again.
MENENIUS Not now, not now.
1 SENATOR Not in this heat, sir, now.
CORIOLANUS Now as I live, I will. My nobler friends,
I crave their pardons.
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For the mutable, rank-scented meinie, let them
Regard me as I do not flatter, and
Therein behold themselves. I say again,
In soothing them, we nourish ’gainst our senate
The cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition,
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Which we ourselves have plough�
�d for, sow’d and
scatter’d,
By mingling them with us, the honour’d number
Who lack not virtue, no, nor power, but that
Which they have given to beggars.
MENENIUS Well, no more.
1 SENATOR No more words, we beseech you.
CORIOLANUS How? no more!
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As for my country I have shed my blood,
Not fearing outward force, so shall my lungs
Coin words till their decay, against those measles
Which we disdain should tetter us, yet sought
The very way to catch them.
BRUTUS You speak o’th’ people
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As if you were a god to punish, not
A man of their infirmity.
SICINIUS ’ ’Twere well
We let the people know’t.
MENENIUS What, what? His choler?
CORIOLANUS Choler!
Were I as patient as the midnight sleep,
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By Jove, ’twould be my mind!
SICINIUS It is a mind
That shall remain a poison where it is,
Not poison any further.
CORIOLANUS Shall remain!
Hear you this Triton of the minnows? Mark you
His absolute ‘shall’?
COMINIUS ’Twas from the canon.
CORIOLANUS ‘Shall!’
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O good but most unwise patricians: why,
You grave but reckless senators, have you thus
Given Hydra here to choose an officer,
That with his peremptory ‘shall’, being but
The horn and noise o’th’ monster’s, wants not spirit
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To say he’ll turn your current in a ditch
And make your channel his? If he have power,
Then vail your ignorance; if none, awake
Your dangerous lenity. If you are learn’d
Be not as common fools; if you are not,
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Let them have cushions by you. You are plebeians
If they be senators; and they are no less
When, both your voices blended, the great’st taste
Most palates theirs. They choose their magistrate,
And such a one as he, who puts his ‘shall’,
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His popular ‘shall’, against a graver bench
Than ever frown’d in Greece. By Jove himself,
It makes the consuls base; and my soul aches
To know, when two authorities are up,
Neither supreme, how soon confusion
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May enter ’twixt the gap of both, and take
The one by th’other.
COMINIUS Well, on to th’ market place.
CORIOLANUS Whoever gave that counsel, to give forth
The corn o’th’ storehouse gratis, as ’twas us’d
Sometime in Greece –
MENENIUS Well, well, no more of that.
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CORIOLANUS
Though there the people had more absolute power –
I say they nourish’d disobedience, fed
The ruin of the state.
BRUTUS Why shall the people give
One that speaks thus their voice?
CORIOLANUS I’ll give my reasons
More worthier than their voices. They know the corn
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Was not our recompense, resting well assur’d
They ne’er did service for’t; being press’d to the war,
Even when the navel of the state was touch’d,
They would not thread the gates: this kind of service
Did not deserve corn gratis. Being i’th’ war,
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Their mutinies and revolts, wherein they show’d
Most valour, spoke not for them. Th’accusation
Which they have often made against the senate,
All cause unborn, could never be the native
Of our so frank donation. Well, what then?
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How shall this bosom multiplied digest
The senate’s courtesy? Let deeds express
What’s like to be their words, ‘We did request it,
We are the greater poll, and in true fear
They gave us our demands.’ Thus we debase
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The nature of our seats, and make the rabble
Call our cares fears; which will in time
Break ope the locks o’th’ senate, and bring in