The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 99

by William Shakespeare


  And so would do, were he more angry at it.

  15

  MENENIUS

  All’s well, and might have been much better if

  He could have temporiz’d.

  SICINIUS Where is he, hear you?

  MENENIUS

  Nay, I hear nothing. His mother and his wife

  Hear nothing from him.

  Enter three or four Citizens.

  ALL The gods preserve you both!

  SICINIUS Good den, our neighbours.

  20

  BRUTUS Good den to you all, good den to you all.

  1 CITIZEN

  Ourselves, our wives, and children, on our knees

  Are bound to pray for you both.

  SICINIUS Live, and thrive!

  BRUTUS

  Farewell, kind neighbours. We wish’d Coriolanus

  Had lov’d you as we did.

  ALL Now the gods keep you!

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  BOTH TRIBUNES Farewell, farewell. Exeunt Citizens.

  SICINIUS This is a happier and more comely time

  Than when those fellows ran about the streets

  Crying confusion.

  BRUTUS Caius Martius was

  A worthy officer i’th’ war, but insolent,

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  O’ercome with pride, ambitious past all thinking,

  Self-loving.

  SICINIUS And affecting one sole throne,

  Without assistance.

  MENENIUS I think not so.

  SICINIUS We should by this, to all our lamentation,

  If he had gone forth consul, found it so.

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  BRUTUS

  The gods have well prevented it, and Rome

  Sits safe and still without him.

  Enter an Aedile.

  AEDILE Worthy tribunes,

  There is a slave whom we have put in prison,

  Reports the Volsces with two several powers

  Are enter’d in the Roman territories,

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  And with the deepest malice of the war,

  Destroy what lies before ’em.

  MENENIUS ’Tis Aufidius,

  Who, hearing of our Martius’ banishment,

  Thrusts forth his horns again into the world,

  Which were inshell’d when Martius stood for Rome,

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  And durst not once peep out.

  SICINIUS Come, what talk you

  Of Martius?

  BRUTUS Go see this rumourer whipp’d. It cannot be

  The Volsces dare break with us.

  MENENIUS Cannot be?

  We have record that very well it can,

  50

  And three examples of the like hath been

  Within my age. But reason with the fellow

  Before you punish him, where he heard this,

  Lest you shall chance to whip your information,

  And beat the messenger who bids beware

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  Of what is to be dreaded.

  SICINIUS Tell not me.

  I know this cannot be.

  BRUTUS Not possible.

  Enter a Messenger.

  MESSENGER The nobles in great earnestness are going

  All to the senate-house. Some news is coming

  That turns their countenances.

  SICINIUS ’Tis this slave –

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  Go whip him ’fore the people’s eyes – his raising,

  Nothing but his report.

  MESSENGER Yes, worthy sir,

  The slave’s report is seconded; and more,

  More fearful, is deliver’d.

  SICINIUS What more fearful?

  MESSENGER It is spoke freely out of many mouths,

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  How probable I do not know, that Martius,

  Join’d with Aufidius, leads a power ’gainst Rome,

  And vows revenge as spacious as between

  The young’st and oldest thing.

  SICINIUS This is most likely!

  BRUTUS Rais’d only that the weaker sort may wish

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  Good Martius home again.

  SICINIUS The very trick on’t.

  MENENIUS This is unlikely:

  He and Aufidius can no more atone

  Than violent’st contrariety.

  Enter a Second Messenger.

  2 MESSENGER You are sent for to the senate.

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  A fearful army, led by Caius Martius,

  Associated with Aufidius, rages

  Upon our territories, and have already

  O’erborne their way, consum’d with fire, and took

  What lay before them.

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  Enter COMINIUS.

  COMINIUS

  O, you have made good work.

  MENENIUS What news? What news?

  COMINIUS

  You have holp to ravish your own daughters, and

  To melt the city leads upon your pates,

  To see your wives dishonour’d to your noses –

  MENENIUS What’s the news? What’s the news?

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  COMINIUS Your temples burned in their cement, and

  Your franchises, whereon you stood, confin’d

  Into an auger’s bore.

  MENENIUS Pray now, your news? –

  You have made fair work, I fear me. – Pray, your

  news?

  If Martius should be join’d wi’th’ Volscians –

  COMINIUS If!

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  He is their god. He leads them like a thing

  Made by some other deity than nature,

  That shapes man better; and they follow him

  Against us brats, with no less confidence

  Than boys pursuing summer butterflies,

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  Or butchers killing flies.

  MENENIUS You have made good work,

  You, and your apron-men; you that stood so much

  Upon the voice of occupation and

  The breath of garlic-eaters!

  COMINIUS He’ll shake your Rome about your ears.

  MENENIUS As Hercules

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  Did shake down mellow fruit. You have made fair

  work!

  BRUTUS But is this true, sir?

  COMINIUS Ay, and you’ll look pale

  Before you find it other. All the regions

  Do smilingly revolt, and who resists

  Are mock’d for valiant ignorance,

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  And perish constant fools. Who is’t can blame him?

  Your enemies and his find something in him.

  MENENIUS We are all undone unless

  The noble man have mercy.

  COMINIUS Who shall ask it?

  The tribunes cannot do’t for shame; the people

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  Deserve such pity of him as the wolf

  Does of the shepherds. For his best friends, if they

  Should say, ‘Be good to Rome’, they charg’d him

  even

  As those should do that had deserv’d his hate,

  And therein show’d like enemies.

  MENENIUS ’Tis true!

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  If he were putting to my house the brand

  That should consume it, I have not the face

  To say, ‘Beseech you, cease’. You have made fair

  hands,

  You and your crafts! You have crafted fair!

  COMINIUS You have brought

  A trembling upon Rome, such as was never

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  S’incapable of help.

  BOTH TRIBUNES Say not we brought it.

  MENENIUS

  How? Was’t we? We lov’d him, but, like beasts

  And cowardly nobles, gave way unto your clusters,

  Who did hoot him out o’th’ city.

  COMINIUS But I fear

  They’ll roar him in again. Tullus Aufidius,

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  The second name of men, obeys his po
ints

  As if he were his officer. Desperation

  Is all the policy, strength and defence,

  That Rome can make against them.

  Enter a troop of Citizens.

  MENENIUS Here come the clusters.

  And is Aufidius with him? You are they

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  That made the air unwholesome when you cast

  Your stinking greasy caps in hooting at

  Coriolanus’ exile. Now he’s coming,

  And not a hair upon a soldier’s head

  Which will not prove a whip. As many coxcombs

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  As you threw caps up will he tumble down,

  And pay you for your voices. ’Tis no matter,

  If he could burn us all into one coal,

  We have deserv’d it.

  CITIZENS Faith, we hear fearful news.

  1 CITIZEN For mine own part,

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  When I said banish him, I said ’twas pity.

  2 CITIZEN And so did I.

  3 CITIZEN And so did I; and, to say the truth, so did very

  many of us. That we did we did for the best, and

  though we willingly consented to his banishment, yet

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  it was against our will.

  COMINIUS Y’are goodly things, you voices.

  MENENIUS You have made good work,

  You and your cry. Shall’s to the Capitol?

  COMINIUS O, ay, what else?

  Exeunt Cominius and Menenius.

  SICINIUS Go masters, get you home; be not dismay’d;

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  These are a side that would be glad to have

  This true which they so seem to fear. Go home,

  And show no sign of fear.

  1 CITIZEN The gods be good to us! Come, masters, let’s

  home. I ever said we were i’th’ wrong when we

  155

  banished him.

  2 CITIZEN So did we all. But come, let’s home.

  Exeunt Citizens.

  BRUTUS I do not like this news.

  SICINIUS Nor I.

  BRUTUS Let’s to the Capitol. Would half my wealth

  160

  Would buy this for a lie!

  SICINIUS Pray let’s go. Exeunt.

  4.7 Enter AUFIDIUS with his Lieutenant.

  AUFIDIUS Do they still fly to th’Roman?

  LIEUTENANT

  I do not know what witchcraft’s in him, but

  Your soldiers use him as the grace ’fore meat,

  Their talk at table and their thanks at end;

  And you are darken’d in this action, sir,

  5

  Even by your own.

  AUFIDIUS I cannot help it now,

  Unless, by using means, I lame the foot

  Of our design. He bears himself more proudlier

  Even to my person than I thought he would

  When first I did embrace him. Yet his nature

  10

  In that’s no changeling, and I must excuse

  What cannot be amended.

  LIEUTENANT Yet I wish, sir,

  I mean for your particular, you had not

  Join’d in commission with him; but either

  Have borne the action of yourself, or else

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  To him had left it solely.

  AUFIDIUS I understand thee well, and be thou sure

  When he shall come to his account, he knows not

  What I can urge against him. Although it seems,

  And so he thinks, and is no less apparent

  20

  To th’ vulgar eye, that he bears all things fairly

  And shows good husbandry for the Volscian state,

  Fights dragon-like, and does achieve as soon

  As draw his sword: yet he hath left undone

  That which shall break his neck or hazard mine

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  Whene’er we come to our account.

  LIEUTENANT

  Sir, I beseech you, think you he’ll carry Rome?

  AUFIDIUS All places yields to him ere he sits down,

  And the nobility of Rome are his.

  The senators and patricians love him too;

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  The tribunes are no soldiers, and their people

  Will be as rash in the repeal as hasty

  To expel him thence. I think he’ll be to Rome

  As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it

  By sovereignty of nature. First, he was

 

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