The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 95
Tie leaden pounds to’s heels. Proceed by process,
Lest parties, as he is belov’d, break out
And sack great Rome with Romans.
BRUTUS If it were so!
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SICINIUS What do ye talk?
Have we not had a taste of his obedience?
Our aediles smote? ourselves resisted? Come.
MENENIUS Consider this: he has been bred i’th’ wars
Since a could draw a sword, and is ill school’d
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In bolted language; meal and bran together
He throws without distinction. Give me leave,
I’ll go to him, and undertake to bring him
Where he shall answer by a lawful form –
In peace – to his utmost peril.
1 SENATOR Noble tribunes,
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It is the humane way. The other course
Will prove too bloody, and the end of it
Unknown to the beginning.
SICINIUS Noble Menenius,
Be you then as the people’s officer.
Masters, lay down your weapons.
BRUTUS Go not home.
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SICINIUS
Meet on the market-place: we’ll attend to you there,
Where, if you bring not Martius, we’ll proceed
In our first way.
MENENIUS I’ll bring him to you.
[to the Senators] Let me desire your company. He
must come,
Or what is worst will follow.
1 SENATOR Pray you, let’s to him.
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Exeunt.
3.2 Enter CORIOLANUS with Nobles.
CORIOLANUS
Let them pull all about mine ears, present me
Death on the wheel, or at wild horses’ heels,
Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock,
That the precipitation might down stretch
Below the beam of sight: yet will I still
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Be thus to them.
Enter VOLUMNIA.
PATRICIAN You do the nobler.
CORIOLANUS I muse my mother
Does not approve me further, who was wont
To call them woollen vassals, things created
To buy and sell with groats, to show bare heads
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In congregations, to yawn, be still, and wonder,
When one but of my ordinance stood up
To speak of peace or war. I talk of you.
Why did you wish me milder? Would you have me
False to my nature? Rather say I play
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The man I am.
VOLUMNIA O sir, sir, sir.
I would have had you put your power well on
Before you had worn it out.
CORIOLANUS Let go.
VOLUMNIA
You might have been enough the man you are,
With striving less to be so: lesser had been
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The thwartings of your dispositions, if
You had not show’d them how ye were dispos’d,
Ere they lack’d power to cross you.
CORIOLANUS Let them hang.
VOLUMNIA Ay, and burn too.
Enter MENENIUS with the Senators.
MENENIUS
Come, come, you have been too rough, something too
rough.
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You must return and mend it.
1 SENATOR There’s no remedy,
Unless by not so doing, our good city
Cleave in the midst, and perish.
VOLUMNIA Pray be counsell’d;
I have a heart as little apt as yours,
But yet a brain that leads my use of anger
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To better vantage.
MENENIUS Well said, noble woman.
Before he should thus stoop to th’ herd, but that
The violent fit o’th’ time craves it as physic
For the whole state, I would put mine armour on,
Which I can scarcely bear.
CORIOLANUS What must I do?
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MENENIUS Return to th’ tribunes.
CORIOLANUS Well, what then? what then?
MENENIUS Repent what you have spoke.
CORIOLANUS For them? I cannot do it to the gods,
Must I then do’t to them?
VOLUMNIA You are too absolute.
Though therein you can never be too noble,
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But when extremities speak. I have heard you say,
Honour and policy, like unsever’d friends,
I’th’ war do grow together: grant that, and tell me,
In peace what each of them by th’other lose
That they combine not there.
CORIOLANUS Tush, tush!
MENENIUS A good demand.
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VOLUMNIA If it be honour in your wars to seem
The same you are not, which, for your best ends
You adopt your policy, how is it less or worse
That it shall hold companionship in peace
With honour, as in war, since that to both
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It stands in like request?
CORIOLANUS Why force you this?
VOLUMNIA Because that now it lies you on to speak
To th’ people; not by your own instruction,
Nor by th’matter which your heart prompts you,
But with such words that are but roted in
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Your tongue, though but bastards and syllables
Of no allowance to your bosom’s truth.
Now, this no more dishonours you at all,
Than to take in a town with gentle words
Which else would put you to your fortune and
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The hazard of much blood.
I would dissemble with my nature where
My fortunes and my friends at stake requir’d
I should do so in honour. I am in this
Your wife, your son, these senators, the nobles;
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And you will rather show our general louts
How you can frown, than spend a fawn upon ’em
For the inheritance of their loves and safeguard
Of what that want might ruin.
MENENIUS Noble lady!
Come, go with us; speak fair; you may salve so
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Not what is dangerous present, but the loss
Of what is past.
VOLUMNIA I prithee now, my son,
Go to them, with this bonnet in thy hand,
And thus far having stretch’d it – here be with
them –
Thy knee bussing the stones – for in such business
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Action is eloquence, and the eyes of th’ignorant
More learned than the ears – waving thy head,
Which often, thus, correcting thy stout heart,
Now humble as the ripest mulberry
That will not hold the handling; or say to them,
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Thou art their soldier, and being bred in broils,
Hast not the soft way which, thou dost confess,
Were fit for thee to use, as they to claim,
In asking their good loves; but thou wilt frame
Thyself, forsooth, hereafter theirs, so far
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As thou hast power and person.
MENENIUS This but done,
Even as she speaks, why, their hearts were yours:
For they have pardons, being ask’d, as free
As words to little purpose.
VOLUMNIA Prithee now,
Go, and be rul’d; although I know thou hadst rather
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Follow thine enemy in a fiery gulf
Than flatter him in a bower.
Enter COMINIUS.
Here is Cominius.
COMINIUS
I have
been i’th’ market place; and, sir, ’tis fit
You make strong party, or defend yourself
By calmness or by absence. All’s in anger.
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MENENIUS Only fair speech.
COMINIUS I think ’twill serve, if he
Can thereto frame his spirit.
VOLUMNIA He must, and will:
Prithee now, say you will, and go about it.
CORIOLANUS
Must I go show them my unbarb’d sconce? Must I
With my base tongue give to my noble heart
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A lie that it must bear? Well, I will do’t:
Yet were there but this single plot to lose,
This mould of Martius, they to dust should grind it
And throw’t against the wind. To th’ market-place!
You have put me now to such a part which never
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I shall discharge to th’ life.
COMINIUS Come, come, we’ll prompt you.
VOLUMNIA I prithee now, sweet son, as thou hast said
My praises made thee first a soldier, so,
To have my praise for this, perform a part
Thou hast not done before.
CORIOLANUS Well, I must do’t.
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Away my disposition, and possess me
Some harlot’s spirit! My throat of war be turn’d,
Which choired with my drum, into a pipe
Small as an eunuch, or the virgin voice
That babies lull asleep! The smiles of knaves
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Tent in my cheeks, and schoolboys’ tears take up
The glasses of my sight! A beggar’s tongue
Make motion through my lips, and my arm’d knees
Who bow’d but in my stirrup, bend like his
That hath receiv’d an alms! I will not do’t,
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Lest I surcease to honour mine own truth,
And by my body’s action teach my mind
A most inherent baseness.
VOLUMNIA At thy choice then:
To beg of thee it is my more dishonour
Than thou of them. Come all to ruin; let
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Thy mother rather feel thy pride than fear
Thy dangerous stoutness, for I mock at death
With as big heart as thou. Do as thou list.
Thy valiantness was mine, thou suck’st it from me,
But owe thy pride thyself.
CORIOLANUS Pray be content.
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Mother, I am going to the market-place:
Chide me no more. I’ll mountebank their loves,
Cog their hearts from them, and come home belov’d
Of all the trades in Rome. Look, I am going.
Commend me to my wife. I’ll return consul,
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Or never trust to what my tongue can do
I’th’way of flattery further.
VOLUMNIA Do your will. Exit.
COMINIUS
Away! The tribunes do attend you: arm yourself
To answer mildly; for they are prepar’d
With accusations, as I hear, more strong
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Than are upon you yet.
CORIOLANUS The word is ‘mildly’. Pray you, let us go.
Let them accuse me by invention: I
Will answer in mine honour.
MENENIUS Ay, but mildly.
CORIOLANUS Well, mildly be it then. Mildly!
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Exeunt.
3.3 Enter SICINIUS and BRUTUS.
BRUTUS In this point charge him home, that he affects
Tyrannical power. If he evade us there,
Enforce him with his envy to the people,
And that the spoil got on the Antiates
Was ne’er distributed.
Enter an Aedile.
What, will he come?
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AEDILE He’s coming.
BRUTUS How accompanied?
AEDILE With old Menenius, and those senators
That always favour’d him.
SICINIUS Have you a catalogue
Of all the voices that we have procur’d,
Set down by th’ poll?
AEDILE I have: ’tis ready.
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SICINIUS Have you collected them by tribes?
AEDILE I have.
SICINIUS Assemble presently the people hither:
And when they hear me say, ‘It shall be so
I’th’ right and strength o’th’ commons,’ be it either