Four Plays

by John Osborne

CORIOLANUS: Tell me, where can I make contact with him?

  MAN: Who wants to know?

  CORIOLANUS: Someone; someone uniquely placed to get him what he’s always set his heart on.

  (MAN hesitates then he scribbles on a piece of paper, which he hands to CORIOLANUS.)

  Thank you.

  MAN: Forget you saw me.

  (He disappears into the shadows. CORIOLANUS reads the piece of paper.)

  CORIOLANUS: Here I am, hating my own birthplace and ending up in Autium with a slip of paper. Oh, world, what slippery terms! Oh, I can find this place. If he shoots me down, he’ll have done well for himself. If not, I can do things for him even now.

  Scene 4

  Antium. A room in AUFIDIUS’s headquarters. CORIOLANUS is being restrained by three of AUFIDIUS’s men.

  AUFIDIUS: Who the devil’s this?

  FIRST MAN: I’ll beat the bejesus out of him.

  AUFIDIUS: Who let him get in at all?

  FIRST MAN: Nobody, Aufidius.

  AUFIDIUS: Oh, nobody is it? Then nobody let go of him and nobody let him out! Where do you come from?

  What do you want? Speak up. What’s your name?

  CORIOLANUS: (Unmuffling.) If, Tullus, you still can’t guess who I am, take me for what I am: necessity!

  AUFIDIUS: Name?

  CORIOLANUS: Not one that’s liked much by the Volscians; least of all by you.

  AUFIDIUS: Your name. Your clothes don’t fool me, but I can’t see the face.

  CORIOLANUS: Then prepare yourself. Still not know?

  AUFIDIUS: I’ve told you. Your name, damn you.

  CORIOLANUS: Caius Marcius. Or, Coriolanus, to you. For that’s my name since I think we last had the pleasure. That surname’s all I have to show for the services I gave to my grateful country. So much… A name for the hatred you’ve lived off for the likes of me. A name… Coriolanus. All that’s left to me before being whooped out of Rome. Which is how I end up here with you. Oh, believe me, not to save my life, for this is the last place I would come to if I were merely hanging on to something I never had much care for and still less now. I am here for, for miserable spite; no more no less. If you want your revenge for Corioli, you could take it now. Then you’d best do it now rather than gossip with me. Otherwise, think how you can use me against your enemy – against troops. Battalions of ‘em. Even you might do with my spleen. Think on it. Still, if the idea is beyond your Volscian folk visions, it’s beyond me too; even the hatred I once felt for you and all your vicious kind. There is nothing left but leading your kind.

  AUFIDIUS: Oh, Marcius, Marcius! What are you doing to me! From your lips. Here!

  (They embrace.)

  I loved my wife when I first clapped eyes on her, but my heart’s not run such a dance since she crossed my own doorway. Marcius, Caius Marcius!

  (They embrace again.)

  Why, I tell you we shall put such a force in the field the world will be astonished. I have dreamt of killing you with my own hands so many times, I no longer even wake up with the sweat unless my wife begs me to stop thrashing about. Marcius, if we had no other quarrel with Rome than that she’d slung you out, that, that would be enough for me. Come in, come in, meet everyone. We are making plans at the moment for the outskirts; if not actually Rome itself.

  CORIOLANUS: God bless you.

  AUFIDIUS: You are perfect. Perfect. Who knows better, feels best! You will draw up the tactics, morale strategies. You know, you know the gaps, the weaknesses… Let me show you off to your new comrades. Welcome! A better friend even than a good enemy. Oh, Marcius, this is a great, great thing that has happened. Give me your hand!

  (They go out, arms round one another.)

  FIRST MAN: I don’t see this at all.

  SECOND MAN: Nor I. Still, he’s a rare man.

  FIRST MAN: He is. But Aufidius is worth six of him.

  SECOND MAN: Who can tell?

  FIRST MAN: We’ll see.

  (Enter THIRD MAN.)

  THIRD MAN: I don’t like it. He’s got them all in there listening to him – and Aufidius in the middle, like the rest. He’s more hopping mad than we ever were.

  SECOND MAN: Then we shall have the ‘Old times’ stirring again. Let’s get on with it, I say. Fighting’s better than this sitting around. A fine campaign this. Action is move and muscle, peace is just lethargy and drowsy blood. Nothing to do but make unwanted babies in some strange place.

  THIRD MAN: Perhaps we’ll see the Romans done like they did the Volscians. Here’s to it. We’re coming. Good comrades!

  (They dash out)

  Scene 5

  Rome. Conference room. SICINIUS and BRUTUS.

  SICINIUS: There’s no news of him and I don’t expect any. Mark ‘rendered harmless’. Everything’s settled back into the old ways so quickly. His old friends are quite put out by it all. They’d rather have had the place in turmoil even if it cost them money and what they own; and we all know how much that means to ‘em. Apparently, happy workers make them feel more uneasy than unfriendly ones.

  BRUTUS: We had our show-down at the right time.

  (Enter MENENIUS.)

  Well, and here’s Menenius to prove it.

  SICINIUS: Indeed. Oh, he’s got very friendly lately… Hallo to you, sir.

  MENENIUS: Hallo.

  SICINIUS: Your Coriolanus doesn’t seem missed much except by a few friends. We seem to survive without him. I wonder what he would think if he were here.

  MENENIUS: It certainly seems to have settled down. But how much better it could have been if he could have only yielded here and there.

  SICINIUS: Have you heard where he is?

  MENENIUS: No, I hear nothing. His wife and mother have heard nothing either.

  BRUTUS: Caius Marcius was good at what he was most good at. War and just, oh, general hostility. But, added to that, he was, let’s see: insolent, overcome with pride, ambitious beyond all thinking, self-loving –

  SICINIUS: Aiming for himself and one self alone. Even without support.

  MENINIUS: I think that’s an unfair assessment.

  SICINIUS: You’d have soon found it so if he had ever become consul.

  BRUTUS: I think we can say we did well to prevent that and Rome can sleep safely without him.

  (Enter MESSENGER with papers which he hands to MENENIUS.)

  MENENIUS: (Reading) It’s Aufidius. Just what I feared. With Marcius gone, he’s come out of his hole as I knew he would.

  SICINIUS: Marcius? Aufidius? This is all rumour. The Volscians wouldn’t dare take us on again.

  MENENIUS: Can’t be! We know very well that it can. Three times it’s happened in my own lifetime.

  BRUTUS: It’s not possible.

  MESSENGER: More news is coming in all the time. No one knows quite what’s happening or what to do. It’s being said openly, how probable I don’t know, that Marcius has joined up with Aufidius; they’ve joined up together against Rome and planned such horrors beyond – well, contemplation.

  SICINIUS: This makes sense.

  BRUTUS: Thinking that the weakest ones among us will welcome Marcius back again on any terms…

  SICINIUS: Exactly.

  MENENIUS: I don’t believe it. He and Aufidius are too much for each other.

  (Enter COMINIUS)

  COMINIUS: You must go to the Senate at once. An incredible force led by, yes, Caius Marcius and Aufidius with him has landed already and is hurtling at this moment towards the city and with hardly any resistance from us. Oh, you have done well, I hope you are pleased with yourselves. The place will fall on your heads and the rest of us with you. Oh, you have done well, believe me.

  MENENIUS: And this is true about Marcius and the Volscians?

  COMINIUS: He’s like a god to them. He leads them against us like something out of hell, only better. They chase us like schoolboys after butterflies which is all we are, according to their book.

  MENENIUS: Well, you have all done well, you and your fighting workers, you revolutionaries
, you brawny slogan-turners. What about you now then?

  COMINIUS: He’ll shake Rome about your ears.

  BRUTUS: Is this really true?

  COMINIUS: I promise you, you won’t find out otherwise, anywhere. Everything is going down in front of him. And who can blame him? Your enemies have found something in him.

  MENENIUS: We’re finished unless he chooses otherwise.

  COMINIUS: And who shall ask for it? The Tribunes can’t. They’ve no real power. They’ve been shown up for what they are. Even if his best friend should say, please be good to Rome, you think they would get a show of less hatred now?

  MENENIUS: You are right. If he were setting fire to my own house I wouldn’t have the face to say, please don’t. You’ve done well, you’ve done well, as you meant to do from the beginning.

  COMINIUS: (To Tribunes.) What you’ve brought on Rome! Even our worst times were never so terrible as this. And helpless.

  BRUTUS/SICINIUS: No, not us… (Etc)

  MENENIUS: Then who was it? Are you saying it was us? We loved him for what he was and could have been, but like the miserable beasts we are, we gave in to your mob and let them hoot him out of the city.

  COMINIUS: But I think you’ll find they’ll roar him in again. Tullus Aufidius, ah – only just less a personality than Coriolanus, takes his cue as if he were some mere assistant. And against all this, we have – what?

  (MENENIUS looks out of the window)

  MENENIUS: Here they come. Here come the mobs now. Aufidius? With Coriolanus? You are the ones who howled and voted for the exiling of him. Now he’s coming back with his own army and as many of you will yell out ‘welcome back’ as hurled him out. Never mind. If he could burn us, every one of us, like a huge coal in the universe, we’d deserve it. You’re good things, you and your voices. You’ve done well with them with your linked arms and trying to storm the Capitol. And we let you do it!

  COMINIUS: Oh yes, what else?

  (COMINIUS and MENENIUS go out accompanied by the MESSENGER)

  BRUTUS: I don’t like this.

  SICINIUS: Nor I.

  BRUTUS: Let’s go to the Capitol. I’d give everything I have if this were just rumour.

  SICINIUS: I don’t think it is. Let’s go.

  (They go out.)

  Scene 6

  Enter AUFIDIUS with one of his lieutenants.

  AUFIDIUS: They still flock to that Roman.

  LIEUTENANT: I don’t know what it is about him but our men use his name like saying grace before a meal. This is not good for you… that your own men –

  AUFIDIUS: I can’t help it now. It’s too early to take steps. Certainly he’s taken wing. Even to me, more than I thought he would when we first clutched each other but he’s the self same man. One must excuse what can’t be changed – while it suits.

  LIEUTENANT: I still wish, sir – I mean for your own sake – that you’d not gone into double harness. Perhaps it would have been better to have done the whole thing yourself or even to have let him get on with it on his own.

  AUFIDIUS: I know what you mean well enough. But you can be sure of that, that when his account comes in, he has no idea of what I can charge against him. Oh, I will agree with you that to the Volscian state he does seem a brilliant manager, does all he can and leaves no possibility unexamined; and up till now, he has done what was promised. Still, something will be left undone and that will either break his neck or mine, when we come to the adding up.

  LIEUTENANT: Do you think, sir, that he’ll take Rome on his own? Everywhere’s surrendering to him before he starts. The nobility of Rome are in his pocket; so too are the Senators and Patricians. As for the Tribunes, no soldiers they and as for the people, they’ll be as keen to mark their yeses in the right place as they were to mark ‘no’ before.

  AUFIDIUS: Oh, I think he’ll be to Rome what a piranha is to an over-fleshed human. It’s the nature of them both, as he was their honoured servant but then couldn’t keep his balance. Whether it was pride brought on by unbroken boyish fame, who knows, but he was lucky in it, whatever it was it may have been. Perhaps he had defective judgment in following up; certainly he had the chances. But whatever, this was a right royal rising up of one man we’ve not seen the like of – not in our time; at any rate. But even in all this he was feared and hated more than anybody. Can you think of anyone else it was like? Everything he had going for him – it was quite enough to gag on and eventually choke. So whatever value any one of us may have is: no more than what the time puts on to it, and power, however comfortable for its run to sit in, is a pretty hard coffin to lie in. One fire drives out one fire; one nail one nail; rights foundered by rights; strength by strength; they all fail. Let’s go. When Caius, Rome is yours, you will never have been so poor, for I think then you might belong to me.

  Scene 7

  Rome. Conference room. MENENIUS, COMINIUS, SICINIUS and BRUTUS.

  MENENIUS: No, I’ll not go to see him. You have heard what he said about me; I was once his commander. I loved him in a most, a most particular way. He called me his father once, but – so what now? You go, you that got rid of him. Kneel down before his headquarters and crawl your way back into his mercy if you can. No, if he was reluctant to listen to Cominius, I’ll stay at home.

  COMINIUS: He didn’t want to know me.

  MENENIUS: You hear that?

  COMINIUS: He did call me by my first name once. I turned on the times we’ve had together, the good ones and the bloody ones. Coriolanus: he wouldn’t answer to that name. In fact, no names. He was a kind of nothing, nameless; without title; until he had burned a new one for himself out of Rome.

  MENENIUS: Oh yes, you Tribunes, you’ve done your work well. We shall make a good memorial.

  COMINIUS: I tried reminding him how gracious it is for someone like him to forgive but he said he would treat it just like any other petition among the rest.

  MENENIUS: What else did he say?

  SICINIUS: I know this, that if you would go to him, you could do more than any army we might have or any politician.

  MENENIUS: No.

  SICINIUS: Please.

  MENENIUS: To do what?

  SICINIUS: Only you can save Rome from Marcius.

  MENENIUS: Well, and what if Marcius sends me packing like Cominius here, not even listened to – what then? Just another late friend shot down with one of his glances. What if that happens?

  SICINIUS: Then you will have done all you can.

  MENENIUS: Very well. I’ll try. I think he may listen to me. From Cominius’s account, it may well be that he was not approached at the right time, or mood or something, not fed or overtired. I’ll try and see to it that the circumstances are a bit better this time. If I think the time is right, I’ll talk to him like the old days.

  BRUTUS: You know what a sort of maze his heart is but you do at least know the way.

  MENENIUS: I’ll do my best with him. How it turns out is another thing. I’ll report as soon as I can.

  (Exit MENENIUS.)

  COMINIUS: He won’t listen to him.

  SICINIUS: Won’t?

  COMINIUS: I tell you he sits up to his ears in admiration; with blood in both eyes and nothing but Rome will catch either of them. There’s no appealing to him. He just told me to go and sent me off without a word. No word after and nothing about what he would or wouldn’t do. No discussions even, there is nothing left. Oh, there’s his wife and mother. I believe they have plans for trying to reason with him but I don’t set much store by that. However, we shall see.

  (They go out.)

  Scene 8

  CORIOLANUS’s headquarters in front of Rome. MENENIUS is under guard.

  MENENIUS: You, you, listen to me.

  (Enter CORIOLANUS and AUFIDIUS)

  CORIOLANUS: What’s the matter?

  MENENIUS: You see, you can’t keep me from my own Coriolanus. (To CORIOLANUS) Oh, my boy, my dear boy. What are you preparing for us? Look, I’m here to talk to you. I wasn’t coming but then I was
told there was only myself left. I’ve been blown out of Rome by petitions!

  CORIOLANUS: Go away.

  MENENIUS: What! Away!

  CORIOLANUS: I no longer know you. Wife, mother, child, I wish to know nothing of you. My interests are in other places. Friends, family, lovers, we may have been, but that is past, so get along with you. My deafness is more powerful than your voice, I promise you. You’ll have a safe conduct, I shall see to that. Otherwise, I want to hear nothing from you, you understand, nothing. This man Aufidius is my comrade. Look at him, and remember it. You see, Aufidius?

  AUFIDIUS: Oh, you are loyal.

  (The GUARDS hustle out MENENIUS with their automatics. CORIOLANUS and AUFIDIUS sit down)

  CORIOLANUS: Tomorrow Rome itself, his own home, will be bombarded. My good friend, I hope you’ll tell your Volscians how I’ve dealt with these people.

  AUFIDIUS: You have been impeccable.

  CORIOLANUS: This last old man; it was not easy sending him back to Rome; he always held me up like a son to him. He was their last resource. Well, after him, no more, from state or friends or anybody.

  (There is a noise from outside.)

  I suppose that’s one more delegation trying to racket its way in. Well, that’s the last.

  (Enter VIRGILIA, VOLUMNIA and YOUNG MARCIUS.)

  (To AUFIDIUS) It’s Virgilia. And my mother and the boy. Well, enough of that. Oh, my mother bows, does she? Now that she wants something that can’t be given. Even my young boy’s put on a face which he thinks can’t be denied. Let the Volscians plough up Rome and harrow all Italy: I’ll never be such a moulting animal as to give in to instinct; but stand up here as if a man were creator of himself; and knew no other family or friend…

  VIRGILIA: My dearest.

  CORIOLANUS: These are not the same eyes you saw last time in Rome.

  VIRGILIA: Seeing us here in this way makes you say this.

  CORIOLANUS: Like a played out actor I’ve forgotten my lines. Forgive me, but don’t ask me in return to forgive our Romans. God, I babble on just at the sight of two women.

  VOLUMNIA: It’s we who ask your forgiveness.