The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works
Page 352
And wrath o’erwhelmed my pity. I request you
To give my poor host freedom.
COMINIUS
O, well begged!
Were he the butcher of my son he should
Be free as is the wind. Deliver him, Titus.
LARTIUS
Martius, his name?
CORIOLANUS By Jupiter, forgot!
I am weary, yea, my memory is tired.
Have we no wine here?
COMINIUS
Go we to our tent.
The blood upon your visage dries; ’tis time
It should be looked to. Come.
⌈A flourish of cornetts.⌉ Exeunt
1.11 Enter Aufidius, bloody, with two or three Soldiers AUFIDIUS The town is ta’en.
A SOLDIER
’Twill be delivered back on good condition.
AUFIDIUS Condition?
I would I were a Roman, for I cannot,
Being a Volsce, be that I am. Condition?
What good condition can a treaty find
I‘th’ part that is at mercy? Five times, Martius,
I have fought with thee; so often hast thou beat me,
And wouldst do so, I think, should we encounter
As often as we eat. By th’ elements,
If e’er again I meet him beard to beard,
He’s mine, or I am his! Mine emulation
Hath not that honour in’t it had, for where
I thought to crush him in an equal force,
True sword to sword, I’ll potch at him some way
Or wrath or craft may get him.
A SOLDIER
He’s the devil.
AUFIDIUS
Bolder, though not so subtle. My valour, poisoned
With only suff‘ring stain by him, for him
Shall fly out of itself. Nor sleep nor sanctuary,
Being naked, sick, nor fane nor Capitol,
The prayers of priests nor times of sacrifice—
Embargements all of fury—shall lift up
Their rotten privilege and custom ’gainst
My hate to Martius. Where I find him, were it
At home upon my brother’s guard, even there,
Against the hospitable canon, would I
Wash my fierce hand in’s heart. Go you to th’ city.
Learn how ’tis held, and what they are that must
Be hostages for Rome.
A SOLDIER
Will not you go?
AUFIDIUS
I am attended at the cypress grove. I pray you—
’Tis south the city mills—bring me word thither
How the world goes, that to the pace of it
I may spur on my journey.
A SOLDIER
I shall, sir.
Exeunt ⌈Aufidius at one door, Soldiers at another door⌉
2.1 Enter Menenius with the two tribunes of the people, Sicinius and Brutus
MENENIUS The augurer tells me we shall have news tonight.
BRUTUS Good or bad?
MENENIUS Not according to the prayer of the people, for they love not Martius.
SICINIUS Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.
MENENIUS Pray you, who does the wolf love?
SICINIUS The lamb.
MENENIUS Ay, to devour him, as the hungry plebeians would the noble Martius.
BRUTUS He’s a lamb indeed that baas like a bear.
MENENIUS He’s a bear indeed that lives like a lamb. You two are old men. Tell me one thing that I shall ask you.
SICINIUS and BRUTUS Well, sir?
MENENIUS In what enormity is Martius poor in that you two have not in abundance?
BRUTUS He’s poor in no one fault, but stored with all. SICINIUS Especially in pride.
BRUTUS And topping all others in boasting.
MENENIUS This is strange now. Do you two know how you are censured here in the city—I mean of us o’th’ right-hand file. Do you?
SICINIUS and BRUTUS Why, how are we censured?
MENENIUS Because—you talk of pride now—will you not be angry?
SICINIUS and BRUTUS Well, well, sir, well?
MENENIUS Why, ’tis no great matter, for a very little thief of occasion will rob you of a great deal of patience. Give your dispositions the reins, and be angry at your pleasures—at the least, if you take it as a pleasure to you in being so. You blame Martius for being proud?
BRUTUS We do it not alone, sir.
MENENIUS I know you can do very little alone, for your helps are many, or else your actions would grow wondrous single. Your abilities are too infant-like for doing much alone. You talk of pride. O that you could turn your eyes toward the napes of your necks, and make but an interior survey of your good selves! O that you could!
SICINIUS and BRUTUS What then, sir?
MENENIUS Why, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting, proud, violent, testy magistrates, alias fools, as any in Rome.
SICINIUS Menenius, you are known well enough too.
MENENIUS I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in’t; said to be something imperfect in favouring the first complaint, hasty and tinder-like upon too trivial motion; one that converses more with the buttock of the night than with the forehead of the morning. What I think, I utter, and spend my malice in my breath. Meeting two such wealsmen as you are—I cannot call you Lycurguses—if the drink you give me touch my palate adversely, I make a crooked face at it. I cannot say your worships have delivered the matter well, when I find the ass in compound with the major part of your syllables. And though I must be content to bear with those that say you are reverend grave men, yet they lie deadly that tell you have good faces. If you see this in the map of my microcosm, follows it that I am known well enough too? What harm can your bisson conspectuities glean out of this character, if I be known well enough too?
BRUTUS Come, sir, come, we know you well enough.
MENENIUS You know neither me, yourselves, nor anything. You are ambitious for poor knaves’ caps and legs. You wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orange-wife and a faucet-seller, and then rejourn the controversy of threepence to a second day of audience. When you are hearing a matter between party and party, if you chance to be pinched with the colic, you make faces like mummers, set up the bloody flag against all patience, and in roaring for a chamber-pot, dismiss the controversy bleeding, the more entangled by your hearing. All the peace you make in their cause is calling both the parties knaves. You are a pair of strange ones.
BRUTUS Come, come, you are well understood to be a perfecter giber for the table than a necessary bencher in the Capitol.
MENENIUS Our very priests must become mockers if they shall encounter such ridiculous subjects as you are. When you speak best unto the purpose it is not worth the wagging of your beards, and your beards deserve not so honourable a grave as to stuff a botcher’s cushion or to be entombed in an ass’s pack-saddle. Yet you must be saying ‘Martius is proud’, who, in a cheap estimation, is worth all your predecessors since Deucalion, though peradventure some of the best of ‘em were hereditary hangmen. Good e’en to your worships. More of your conversation would infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly plebeians. I will be bold to take my leave of you.
He leaves Brutus and Sicinius, who stand aside.
Enter in haste Volumnia, Virgilia, and Valeria
How now, my as fair as noble ladies—and the moon,
were she earthly, no nobler—whither do you follow
your eyes so fast?
VOLUMNIA Honourable Menenius, my boy Martius approaches. For the love of Juno, let’s go.
MENENIUS Ha, Martius coming home? 100
VOLUMNIA Ay, worthy Menenius, and with most prosperous approbation.
MENENIUS ⌈throwing up his cap⌉ Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee! Hoo, Martius coming home?
VIRGILIA and VALERIA Nay, ’tis true.
&nbs
p; VOLUMNIA Look, here’s a letter from him. The state hath another, his wife another, and I think there’s one at home for you.
MENENIUS I will make my very house reel tonight. A letter for me?
VIRGILIA Yes, certain, there’s a letter for you; I saw’t.
MENENIUS A letter for me? It gives me an estate of seven years’ health, in which time I will make a lip at the physician. The most sovereign prescription in Galen is but empiricutic and, to this preservative, of no better report than a horse-drench. Is he not wounded? He was wont to come home wounded.
VIRGILIA O, no, no, no!
VOLUMNIA O, he is wounded, I thank the gods for’t!
MENENIUS So do I, too, if it be not too much. Brings a victory in his pocket, the wounds become him.
VOLUMNIA On’s brows, Menenius. He comes the third time home with the oaken garland.
MENENIUS Has he disciplined Aufidius soundly? 124
VOLUMNIA Titus Lartius writes they fought together, but Aufidius got off.
MENENIUS And ’twas time for him too, I’ll warrant him that. An he had stayed by him, I would not have been so fidiussed for all the chests in Corioles and the gold that’s in them. Is the senate possessed of this?
VOLUMNIA Good ladies, let’s go. Yes, yes, yes. The senate has letters from the general, wherein he gives my son the whole name of the war. He hath in this action outdone his former deeds doubly.
VALERIA In truth, there’s wondrous things spoke of him.
MENENIUS Wondrous, ay, I warrant you; and not without his true purchasing.
VIRGILIA The gods grant them true.
VOLUMNIA True? Pooh-whoo!
MENENIUS True? I’ll be sworn they are true. Where is he wounded? (To the tribunes) God save your good worships. Martius is coming home. He has more cause to be proud. (To Volumnia) Where is he wounded?
VOLUMNIA I‘th’ shoulder and i’th’ left arm. There will be large cicatrices to show the people when he shall stand for his place. He received in the repulse of Tarquin seven hurts i’th’ body.
MENENIUS One i‘th’ neck and two i’th’ thigh—there’s nine that I know.
VOLUMNIA He had before this last expedition twenty-five wounds upon him.
MENENIUS Now it’s twenty-seven. Every gash was an enemy’s grave.
A shout and flourish
Hark, the trumpets.
VOLUMNIA These are the ushers of Martius. Before him he carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears. Death, that dark spirit, in’s nervy arm doth lie, Which being advanced, declines; and then men die.
Trumpets sound a sennet. Enter ⌈in state⌉ Cominius the general and Lartius, between them Coriolanus, crowned with an oaken garland, with captains and soldiers and a Herald
HERALD
Know, Rome, that all alone Martius did fight
Within Corioles’ gates, where he hath won 160
With fame a name to ‘Martius Caius’; these
In honour follows ‘Coriolanus’.
Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!
A flourish sounds
ALL
Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!
CORIOLANUS
No more of this, it does offend my heart.
Pray now, no more.
COMINIUS Look, sir, your mother.
CORIOLANUS (to Volumnia) O,
You have, I know, petitioned all the gods
For my prosperity!
He kneels
VOLUMNIA
Nay, my good soldier, up,
My gentle Martius, worthy Caius,⌈He rises⌉
And, by deed-achieving honour newly named—
What is it?—’Coriolanus’ must I call thee?
But O, thy wife!
CORIOLANUS (to Virgilia) My gracious silence, hail.
Wouldst thou have laughed had I come coffined
home,
That weep’st to see me triumph? Ah, my dear,
Such eyes the widows in Corioles wear,
And mothers that lack sons.
MENENIUS
Now the gods crown thee!
⌈CORIOLANUS⌉ to Valeria)
And live you yet? O my sweet lady, pardon.
VOLUMNIA
I know not where to turn. O, welcome home!
And welcome, general, and you’re welcome all!
MENENIUS
A hundred thousand welcomes! I could weep
And I could laugh, I am light and heavy. Welcome!
A curse begnaw at very root on’s heart
That is not glad to see thee. You are three
That Rome should dote on. Yet, by the faith of men,
We have some old crab-trees here at home that will not
Be grafted to your relish. Yet welcome, warriors!
We call a nettle but a nettle, and
The faults of fools but folly.
COMINIUS Ever right.
CORIOLANUS Menenius, ever, ever.
HERALD
Give way there, and go on.
CORIOLANUS ⌈to Volumnia and Virgilia⌉
Your hand, and yours.
Ere in our own house I do shade my head
The good patricians must be visited,
From whom I have received not only greetings,
But with them change of honours.
VOLUMNIA I have lived
To see inherited my very wishes,
And the buildings of my fancy. Only
There’s one thing wanting, which I doubt not but
Our Rome will cast upon thee.
CORIOLANUS Know, good mother,
I had rather be their servant in my way
Than sway with them in theirs.
COMINIUS On, to the Capitol.
A flourish of cornetts. Exeunt in state, as before, all but Brutus and Sicinius, who come forward
BRUTUS
All tongues speak of him, and the blearèd sights
Are spectacled to see him. Your prattling nurse
Into a rapture lets her baby cry
While she chats him; the kitchen malkin pins
Her richest lockram ‘bout her reechy neck,
Clamb’ring the walls to eye him. Stalls, bulks, windows
Are smothered up, leads filled and ridges horsed
With variable complexions, all agreeing
In earnestness to see him. Seld-shown flamens
Do press among the popular throngs, and puff
To win a vulgar station. Our veiled dames
Commit the war of white and damask in
Their nicely guarded cheeks to th’ wanton spoil
Of Phoebus’ burning kisses. Such a pother
As if that whatsoever god who leads him
Were slily crept into his human powers
And gave him graceful posture.
SICINIUS On the sudden
I warrant him consul.
BRUTUS Then our office may
During his power go sleep.
SICINIUS
He cannot temp’rately transport his honours
From where he should begin and end, but will
Lose those he hath won.
BRUTUS In that there’s comfort.
SICINIUS Doubt not
The commoners, for whom we stand, but they
Upon their ancient malice will forget
With the least cause these his new honours, which
That he will give them make I as little question
As he is proud to do’t.
BRUTUS I heard him swear,
Were he to stand for consul, never would he
Appear i’th’ market-place nor on him put
The napless vesture of humility,
Nor, showing, as the manner is, his wounds
To th’ people, beg their stinking breaths.
SICINIUS ’Tis right.
BRUTUS
It was his word. O, he would miss it rather
Than carry it, but by the suit of the gentry to him,
And the desire of the nob
les.
SICINIUS I wish no better
Than have him hold that purpose, and to put it
In execution.
BRUTUS ’Tis most like he will.
SICINIUS
It shall be to him then, as our good wills,
A sure destruction.
BRUTUS So it must fall out
To him, or our authority’s for an end.
We must suggest the people in what hatred
He still hath held them; that to’s power he would
Have made them mules, silenced their pleaders,
And dispropertied their freedoms, holding them
In human action and capacity
Of no more soul nor fitness for the world
Than camels in their war, who have their provand
Only for bearing burdens, and sore blows
For sinking under them.
SICINIUS This, as you say, suggested
At some time when his soaring insolence
Shall touch the people—which time shall not want
If he be put upon’t, and that’s as easy
As to set dogs on sheep—will be his fire
To kindle their dry stubble, and their blaze
Shall darken him for ever.
Enter a Messenger
BRUTUS What’s the matter?
MESSENGER
You are sent for to the Capitol. ’Tis thought
That Martius shall be consul. I have seen
The dumb men throng to see him, and the blind
To hear him speak. Matrons flung gloves,
Ladies and maids their scarves and handkerchiefs,
Upon him as he passed. The nobles bended
As to Jove’s statue, and the commons made
A shower and thunder with their caps and shouts.
I never saw the like.
BRUTUS Let’s to the Capitol,
And carry with us ears and eyes for th’ time,
But hearts for the event.
SICINIUS Have with you. Exeunt
2.2 Enter two Officers, to lay cushions, as it were in the Capitol
FIRST OFFICER Come, come, they are almost here. How many stand for consulships?
SECOND OFFICER Three, they say, but ’tis thought of everyone Coriolanus will carry it.
FIRST OFFICER That’s a brave fellow, but he’s vengeance proud and loves not the common people.