The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 98
but for disturbing the lords within. [Retires.]
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AUFIDIUS
Whence com’st thou? What wouldst thou? thy name?
Why speak’st not? Speak, man: what’s thy name?
CORIOLANUS [unmuffling] If, Tullus,
Not yet thou know’st me, and, seeing me, dost not
Think me for the man I am, necessity
Commands me name myself.
AUFIDIUS What is thy name?
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[Servants retire.]
CORIOLANUS A name unmusical to the Volscians’ ears,
And harsh in sound to thine.
AUFIDIUS Say, what’s thy name?
Thou hast a grim appearance, and thy face
Bears a command in’t. Though thy tackle’s torn,
Thou show’st a noble vessel. What’s thy name?
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CORIOLANUS
Prepare thy brow to frown: know’st thou me yet?
AUFIDIUS I know thee not! Thy name?
CORIOLANUS
My name is Caius Martius, who hath done
To thee particularly, and to all the Volsces,
Great hurt and mischief: thereto witness may
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My surname, Coriolanus. The painful service,
The extreme dangers, and the drops of blood
Shed for my thankless country, are requited
But with that surname: a good memory
And witness of the malice and displeasure
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Which thou should’st bear me. Only that name
remains.
The cruelty and envy of the people,
Permitted by our dastard nobles, who
Have all forsook me, hath devour’d the rest;
And suffer’d me by th’ voice of slaves to be
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Whoop’d out of Rome. Now this extremity
Hath brought me to thy hearth, not out of hope
(Mistake me not) to save my life: for if
I had fear’d death, of all the men i’th’ world
I would have ’voided thee; but in mere spite
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To be full quit of those my banishers,
Stand I before thee here. Then if thou hast
A heart of wreak in thee, that wilt revenge
Thine own particular wrongs, and stop those maims
Of shame seen through thy country, speed thee
straight,
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And make my misery serve thy turn: so use it
That my revengeful services may prove
As benefits to thee, for I will fight
Against my canker’d country with the spleen
Of all the under fiends. But if so be
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Thou dar’st not this, and that to prove more fortunes
Th’art tir’d, then, in a word, I also am
Longer to live most weary, and present
My throat to thee and to thy ancient malice;
Which not to cut would show thee but a fool,
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Since I have ever follow’d thee with hate,
Drawn tuns of blood out of thy country’s breast,
And cannot live but to thy shame, unless
It be to do thee service.
AUFIDIUS O Martius, Martius!
Each word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my
heart
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A root of ancient envy. If Jupiter
Should from yond cloud speak divine things
And say ‘’Tis true’, I’d not believe them more
Than thee, all-noble Martius. Let me twine
Mine arms about that body, where against
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My grained ash an hundred times hath broke,
And scarr’d the moon with splinters. Here I clip
The anvil of my sword, and do contest
As hotly and as nobly with thy love
As ever in ambitious strength I did
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Contend against thy valour. Know thou first,
I lov’d the maid I married; never man
Sigh’d truer breath; but that I see thee here,
Thou noble thing, more dances my rapt heart
Than when I first my wedded mistress saw
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Bestride my threshold. Why, thou Mars! I tell thee
We have a power on foot; and I had purpose
Once more to hew thy target from thy brawn,
Or lose mine arm for’t. Thou hast beat me out
Twelve several times, and I have nightly since
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Dreamt of encounters ’twixt thyself and me –
We have been down together in my sleep,
Unbuckling helms, fisting each other’s throat –
And wak’d half dead with nothing. Worthy Martius,
Had we no other quarrel else to Rome, but that
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Thou art thence banish’d, we would muster all
From twelve to seventy, and pouring war
Into the bowels of ungrateful Rome,
Like a bold flood o’erbear’t. O come, go in,
And take our friendly senators by’th’ hands
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Who now are here, taking their leaves of me
Who am prepar’d against your territories,
Though not for Rome itself.
CORIOLANUS You bless me, gods!
AUFIDIUS
Therefore, most absolute sir, if thou wilt have
The leading of thine own revenges, take
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Th’one half of my commission, and set down
As best thou art experienc’d, since thou know’st
Thy country’s strength and weakness, thine own
ways:
Whether to knock against the gates of Rome,
Or rudely visit them in parts remote,
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To fright them, ere destroy. But come in.
Let me commend thee first to those that shall
Say yea to thy desires. A thousand welcomes!
And more a friend than e’er an enemy –
Yet, Martius, that was much! Your hand: most
welcome! Exeunt Coriolanus and Aufidius.
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[The two Servingmen come forward.]
1 SERVINGMAN Here’s a strange alteration!
2 SERVINGMAN By my hand, I had thought to have
strucken him with a cudgel; and yet my mind gave
me his clothes made a false report of him.
1 SERVINGMAN What an arm he has! He turned me
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about with his finger and his thumb, as one would set
up a top.
2 SERVINGMAN Nay, I knew by his face that there was
something in him. He had, sir, a kind of face,
methought – I cannot tell how to term it.
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1 SERVINGMAN He had so, looking as it were – would I
were hanged, but I thought there was more in him
than I could think.
2 SERVINGMAN So did I, I’ll be sworn. He is simply the
rarest man i’th’ world.
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1 SERVINGMAN I think he is: but a greater soldier than
he, you wot on.
2 SERVINGMAN Who? my master?
1 SERVINGMAN Nay, it’s no matter for that.
2 SERVINGMAN Worth six on him.
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1 SERVINGMAN Nay, not so neither: but I take him to be
the greater soldier.
2 SERVINGMAN Faith, look you, one cannot tell how to
say that: for the defence of a town our general is
excellent.
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1 SERVINGMAN Ay, and for an assault too.
Enter the Third Servingman.
3 SERVINGMAN O slaves, I can tell you news, news you
rascals.
1, 2 SERVINGMEN What, what, what? Let’s partak
e.
3 SERVINGMAN I would not be a Roman of all nations; I
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had as lief be a condemned man.
1, 2 SERVINGMEN Wherefore? Wherefore?
3 SERVINGMAN Why, here’s he that was wont to thwack
our general, Caius Martius.
1 SERVINGMAN Why do you say ‘thwack our general’?
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3 SERVINGMAN I do not say ‘thwack our general’; but he
was always good enough for him.
2 SERVINGMAN Come, we are fellows and friends: he was
ever too hard for him; I have heard him say so
himself.
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1 SERVINGMAN He was too hard for him directly, to say
the truth on’t: before Corioles he scotched him and
notched him like a carbonado.
2 SERVINGMAN And he had been cannibally given, he
might have broiled and eaten him too.
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1 SERVINGMAN But more of thy news.
3 SERVINGMAN Why, he is so made on here within as if
he were son and heir to Mars; set at upper end o’th’
table; no question asked him by any of the senators but
they stand bald before him. Our general himself
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makes a mistress of him, sanctifies himself with’s
hand, and turns up the white o’th’ eye to his
discourse. But the bottom of the news is, our general
is cut i’th’ middle, and but one half of what he was
yesterday; for the other has half, by the entreaty and
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grant of the whole table. He’ll go, he says, and sowl the
porter of Rome gates by th’ears. He will mow all down
before him, and leave his passage polled.
2 SERVINGMAN And he’s as like to do’t as any man I can
imagine.
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3 SERVINGMAN Do’t? He will do’t: for look you, sir, he
has as many friends as enemies; which friends, sir, as it
were, durst not, look you sir, show themselves, as we
term it, his friends, whilst he’s in directitude.
1 SERVINGMAN Directitude! What’s that?
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3 SERVINGMAN But when they shall see, sir, his crest up
again, and the man in blood, they will out of their
burrows, like conies after rain, and revel all with
him.
1 SERVINGMAN But when goes this forward?
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3 SERVINGMAN Tomorrow, today, presently; you shall
have the drum struck up this afternoon. ’Tis as it were
a parcel of their feast, and to be executed ere they wipe
their lips.
2 SERVINGMAN Why, then we shall have a stirring world
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again. This peace is nothing but to rust iron, increase
tailors, and breed ballad-makers.
1 SERVINGMAN Let me have war, say I. It exceeds peace
as far as day does night: it’s sprightly walking, audible,
and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy;
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mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more
bastard children than war’s a destroyer of
men.
2 SERVINGMAN ’Tis so, and as wars, in some sort, may
be said to be a ravisher, so it cannot be denied but
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peace is a great maker of cuckolds.
1 SERVINGMAN Ay, and it makes men hate one another.
3 SERVINGMAN Reason: because they then less need one
another. The wars for my money. I hope to see
Romans as cheap as Volscians. They are rising, they
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are rising.
1, 2 SERVINGMEN In, in, in, in! Exeunt.
4.6 Enter the two tribunes, SICINIUS and BRUTUS.
SICINIUS
We hear not of him, neither need we fear him;
His remedies are tame i’th’ present peace
And quietness of the people, which before
Were in wild hurry. Here do we make his friends
Blush that the world goes well; who rather had,
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Though they themselves did suffer by’t, behold
Dissentious numbers pest’ring streets, than see
Our tradesmen singing in their shops and going
About their functions friendly.
BRUTUS We stood to’t in good time.
Enter MENENIUS.
Is this Menenius?
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SICINIUS ’Tis he, ’tis he. Oh, he is grown most kind
Of late. Hail, sir!
MENENIUS Hail to you both!
SICINIUS Your Coriolanus is not much miss’d
But with his friends: the commonwealth doth stand,