The crows to peck the eagles.
MENENIUS Come, enough.
BRUTUS Enough, with over-measure.
CORIOLANUS No, take more!
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What may be sworn by, both divine and human,
Seal what I end withal! This double worship,
Where one part does disdain with cause, the other
Insult without all reason: where gentry, title, wisdom,
Cannot conclude but by the yea and no
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Of general ignorance, it must omit
Real necessities, and give way the while
To unstable slightness. Purpose so barr’d, it follows
Nothing is done to purpose. Therefore beseech you –
You that will be less fearful than discreet,
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That love the fundamental part of state
More than you doubt the change on’t; that prefer
A noble life before a long, and wish
To jump a body with a dangerous physic
That’s sure of death without it – at once pluck out
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The multitudinous tongue: let them not lick
The sweet which is their poison. Your dishonour
Mangles true judgement, and bereaves the state
Of that integrity which should becom’t,
Not having the power to do the good it would
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For th’ill which doth control’t.
BRUTUS ’Has said enough.
SICINIUS ’Has spoken like a traitor, and shall answer
As traitors do.
CORIOLANUS Thou wretch, despite o’erwhelm thee!
What should the people do with these bald tribunes?
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On whom depending, their obedience fails
To th’greater bench. In a rebellion,
When what’s not meet, but what must be, was law,
Then were they chosen. In a better hour,
Let what is meet be said it must be meet,
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And throw their power i’th’ dust.
BRUTUS Manifest treason!
SICINIUS This a consul? No!
BRUTUS The aediles, ho!
Enter an Aedile.
Let him be apprehended.
SICINIUS Go call the people; Exit Aedile
in whose name myself
Attach thee as a traitorous innovator,
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A foe to th’ public weal. Obey I charge thee,
And follow to thine answer.
CORIOLANUS Hence, old goat!
ALL PATRICIANS We’ll surety him.
COMINIUS Aged sir, hands off.
CORIOLANUS
Hence rotten thing! or I shall shake thy bones
Out of thy garments.
SICINIUS Help, ye citizens!
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Enter a rabble of Plebeians with the Aediles.
MENENIUS On both sides more respect.
SICINIUS
Here’s he that would take from you all your power.
BRUTUS Seize him, aediles!
ALL PLEBEIANS Down with him! Down with him!
2 SENATOR Weapons, weapons, weapons!
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[They all bustle about Coriolanus.]
ALL Tribunes! Patricians! Citizens! What ho!
Sicinius! Brutus! Coriolanus! Citizens!
Peace, peace, peace! Stay! Hold! Peace!
MENENIUS What is about to be? I am out of breath;
Confusion’s near, I cannot speak. You, tribunes
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To th’ people! Coriolanus, patience!
Speak, good Sicinius!
SICINIUS Hear me, people. Peace!
ALL PLEBEIANS
Let’s hear our tribune. Peace! Speak, speak, speak!
SICINIUS You are at point to lose your liberties:
Martius would have all from you, Martius
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Whom late you have nam’d for consul.
MENENIUS Fie, fie, fie!
This is the way to kindle, not to quench.
2 SENATOR To unbuild the city and to lay all flat.
SICINIUS What is the city but the people?
ALL PLEBEIANS True,
The people are the city.
200
BRUTUS By the consent of all we were establish’d
The people’s magistrates.
ALL PLEBEIANS You so remain.
MENENIUS And so are like to do.
COMINIUS That is the way to lay the city flat,
To bring the roof to the foundation,
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And bury all which yet distinctly ranges
In heaps and piles of ruin.
SICINIUS This deserves death.
BRUTUS Or let us stand to our authority
Or let us lose it: we do here pronounce,
Upon the part o’th’ people, in whose power
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We were elected theirs, Martius is worthy
Of present death.
SICINIUS Therefore lay hold of him.
Bear him to th’ rock Tarpeian, and from thence
Into destruction cast him.
BRUTUS Aediles, seize him!
ALL PLEBEIANS Yield, Martius, yield!
MENENIUS Hear me one word.
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Beseech you, tribunes, hear me but a word.
AEDILE Peace, peace!
MENENIUS
Be that you seem, truly your country’s friend,
And temp’rately proceed to what you would
Thus violently redress.
BRUTUS Sir, those cold ways,
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That seem like prudent helps, are very poisonous
Where the disease is violent. Lay hands upon him,
And bear him to the rock.
[Coriolanus draws his sword.]
CORIOLANUS No, I’ll die here.
There’s some among you have beheld me fighting:
Come, try upon yourselves what you have seen me!
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MENENIUS
Down with that sword! Tribunes, withdraw awhile.
BRUTUS Lay hands upon him.
MENENIUS Help Martius, help!
You that be noble, help him, young and old!
ALL PLEBEIANS Down with him, down with him!
In this mutiny, the tribunes, the aediles and the people
are beat in and exeunt.
MENENIUS Go, get you to your house: be gone, away!
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All will be naught else.
2 SENATOR Get you gone.
CORIOLANUS Stand fast.
We have as many friends as enemies.
MENENIUS Shall it be put to that?
1 SENATOR The gods forbid.
I prithee, noble friend, home to thy house:
Leave us to cure this cause.
MENENIUS For ’tis a sore upon us
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You cannot tent yourself: be gone, beseech you.
COMINIUS Come, sir, along with us.
CORIOLANUS
I would they were barbarians – as they are,
Though in Rome litter’d; not Romans – as they are
not,
Though calv’d i’th’ porch o’th’ Capitol.
MENENIUS Be gone!
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Put not your worthy rage into your tongue.
One time will owe another.
CORIOLANUS On fair ground
I could beat forty of them.
MENENIUS I could myself
Take up a brace o’th’ best of them; yea, the two
tribunes.
COMINIUS But now ’tis odds beyond arithmetic;
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And manhood is call’d foolery when it stands
Against a falling fabric. Will you hence
Before the tag return? Whose rage doth rend
Like interrupted waters, and o’erbear
What they are us’d to bear.
MENENI
US Pray you be gone.
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I’ll try whether my old wit be in request
With those that have but little: this must be patch’d
With cloth of any colour.
COMINIUS Nay, come away.
Exeunt Coriolanus and Cominius, and others.
PATRICIAN This man has marr’d his fortune.
MENENIUS His nature is too noble for the world:
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He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,
Or Jove for’s power to thunder. His heart’s his
mouth:
What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent;
And being angry, does forget that ever
He heard the name of death. [A noise within.]
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Here’s goodly work!
PATRICIAN I would they were abed!
MENENIUS
I would they were in Tiber! What the vengeance,
Could he not speak ’em fair?
Enter BRUTUS and SICINIUS with the rabble again.
SICINIUS Where is this viper
That would depopulate the city and
Be every man himself?
MENENIUS You worthy tribunes –
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SICINIUS He shall be thrown down the Tarpeian rock
With rigorous hands: he hath resisted law,
And therefore law shall scorn him further trial
Than the severity of the public power,
Which he so sets at naught.
1 CITIZEN He shall well know
270
The noble tribunes are the people’s mouths
And we their hands.
ALL PLEBEIANS He shall, sure on’t.
MENENIUS Sir, sir!
SICINIUS Peace!
MENENIUS
Do not cry havoc where you should but hunt
With modest warrant.
SICINIUS Sir, how comes’t that you
275
Have holp to make this rescue?
MENENIUS Hear me speak!
As I do know the consul’s worthiness,
So can I name his faults.
SICINIUS Consul! What consul?
MENENIUS The consul Coriolanus.
BRUTUS He consul!
ALL PLEBEIANS No, no, no, no, no.
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MENENIUS
If, by the tribunes’ leave, and yours, good people,
I may be heard, I would crave a word or two,
The which shall turn you to no further harm
Than so much loss of time.
SICINIUS Speak briefly then:
For we are peremptory to dispatch
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This viperous traitor. To eject him hence
Were but our danger, and to keep him here
Our certain death. Therefore it is decreed
He dies tonight.
MENENIUS Now the good gods forbid
That our renowned Rome, whose gratitude
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Towards her deserved children is enroll’d
In Jove’s own book, like an unnatural dam
Should now eat up her own!
SICINIUS He’s a disease that must be cut away.
MENENIUS Oh, he’s a limb that has but a disease:
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Mortal, to cut it off; to cure it, easy.
What has he done to Rome that’s worthy death?
Killing our enemies, the blood he hath lost
(Which I dare vouch, is more than that he hath
By many an ounce) he dropp’d it for his country;
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And what is left, to lose it by his country
Were to us all that do’t and suffer it
A brand to th’end o’th’ world.
SICINIUS This is clean kam.
BRUTUS Merely awry. When he did love his country,
It honour’d him.
SICINIUS The service of the foot,
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Being once gangren’d, is not then respected
For what before it was.
BRUTUS We’ll hear no more:
Pursue him to his house, and pluck him thence,
Lest his infection, being of catching nature,
Spread further.
MENENIUS One word more, one word.
310
This tiger-footed rage, when it shall find
The harm of unscann’d swiftness will, too late,
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 94