The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

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The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works Page 354

by William Shakespeare


  FIRST CITIZEN He has our voices, sir.

  BRUTUS

  We pray the gods he may deserve your loves.

  SECOND CITIZEN

  Amen, sir. To my poor unworthy notice

  He mocked us when he begged our voices.

  THIRD CITIZEN

  Certainly. He flouted us downright.

  FIRST CITIZEN

  No, ’tis his kind of speech. He did not mock us.

  SECOND CITIZEN

  Not one amongst us save yourself but says

  He used us scornfully. He should have showed us

  His marks of merit, wounds received for’s country.

  SICINIUS

  Why, so he did, I am sure.

  ALL THE CITIZENS

  No, no; no man saw ’em.

  THIRD CITIZEN

  He said he had wounds which he could show in

  private,

  And with his hat, thus waving it in scorn,

  ‘I would be consul,’ says he. ‘Agèd custom

  But by your voices will not so permit me.

  Your voices therefore.’ When we granted that,

  Here was ‘I thank you for your voices, thank you.

  Your most sweet voices. Now you have left your voices

  I have no further with you.’ Was not this mockery?

  SICINIUS

  Why either were you ignorant to see’t,

  Or, seeing it, of such childish friendliness

  To yield your voices?

  BRUTUS (to the Citizens) Could you not have told him

  As you were lessoned: when he had no power

  But was a petty servant to the state,

  He was your enemy, ever spake against

  Your liberties and the charters that you bear

  I‘th’ body of the weal; and now arriving

  A place of potency and sway o’th’ state,

  If he should still malignantly remain

  Fast foe to th’ plebeii, your voices might

  Be curses to yourselves. You should have said

  That as his worthy deeds did claim no less

  Than what he stood for, so his gracious nature

  Would think upon you for your voices and

  Translate his malice towards you into love,

  Standing your friendly lord.

  SICINIUS (to the Citizens) Thus to have said

  As you were fore-advised had touched his spirit

  And tried his inclination, from him plucked

  Either his gracious promise which you might,

  As cause had called you up, have held him to,

  Or else it would have galled his surly nature,

  Which easily endures not article

  Tying him to aught. So putting him to rage,

  You should have ta‘en th’advantage of his choler

  And passed him unelected.

  BRUTUS (to the Citizens) Did you perceive

  He did solicit you in free contempt

  When he did need your loves, and do you think

  That his contempt shall not be bruising to you

  When he hath power to crush? Why, had your bodies

  No heart among you? Or had you tongues to cry

  Against the rectorship of judgement?

  SICINIUS (to the Citizens) Have you

  Ere now denied the asker, and now again,

  Of him that did not ask but mock, bestow

  Your sued-for tongues?

  THIRD CITIZEN

  He’s not confirmed, we may deny him yet.

  SECOND CITIZEN And will deny him.

  I’ll have five hundred voices of that sound.

  FIRST CITIZEN

  I twice five hundred, and their friends to piece ’em.

  BRUTUS

  Get you hence instantly, and tell those friends

  They have chose a consul that will from them take

  Their liberties, make them of no more voice

  Than dogs that are as often beat for barking,

  As therefor kept to do so.

  SICINIUS (to the Citizens) Let them assemble,

  And on a safer judgement all revoke

  Your ignorant election. Enforce his pride

  And his old hate unto you. Besides, forget not

  With what contempt he wore the humble weed,

  How in his suit he scorned you; but your loves,

  Thinking upon his services, took from you

  Th’apprehension of his present portance,

  Which most gibingly, ungravely he did fashion

  After the inveterate hate he bears you.

  BRUTUS (to the Citizens) Lay

  A fault on us your tribunes, that we laboured

  No impediment between, but that you must

  Cast your election on him.

  SICINIUS (to the Citizens) Say you chose him

  More after our commandment than as guided

  By your own true affections, and that your minds,

  Preoccupied with what you rather must do

  Than what you should, made you against the grain

  To voice him consul. Lay the fault on us.

  BRUTUS (to the Citizens)

  Ay, spare us not. Say we read lectures to you,

  How youngly he began to serve his country,

  How long continued, and what stock he springs of,

  The noble house o’th’ Martians, from whence came

  That Ancus Martius, Numa’s daughter’s son,

  Who after great Hostilius here was king;

  Of the same house Publius and Quintus were,

  That our best water brought by conduits hither;

  And Censorinus that was so surnamed,

  And nobly named so, twice being censor,

  Was his great ancestor.

  SICINIUS (to the Citizens) One thus descended,

  That hath beside well in his person wrought

  To be set high in place, we did commend

  To your remembrances, but you have found,

  Scaling his present bearing with his past,

  That he’s your fixed enemy, and revoke

  Your sudden approbation.

  BRUTUS (to the Citizens) Say you ne‘er had done’t—

  Harp on that still—but by our putting on;

  And presently when you have drawn your number,

  Repair to th’ Capitol.

  ⌈A CITIZEN⌉ We will so.

  ⌈ANOTHER CITIZEN⌉ Almost all

  Repent in their election.

  Exeunt Citizens

  BRUTUS Let them go on.

  This mutiny were better put in hazard

  Than stay, past doubt, for greater.

  If, as his nature is, he fall in rage

  With their refusal, both observe and answer

  The vantage of his anger.

  SICINIUS To th’ Capitol, come.

  We will be there before the stream o‘th’ people,

  And this shall seem, as partly ’tis, their own,

  Which we have goaded onward.

  Exeunt

  3.1 Cornetts. Enter Coriolanus, Menenius, all the gentry; Cominius, Lartius, and other Senators

  CORIOLANUS

  Tullus Aufidius then had made new head?

  LARTIUS

  He had, my lord, and that it was which caused

  Our swifter composition.

  CORIOLANUS

  So then the Volsces stand but as at first,

  Ready when time shall prompt them to make raid

  Upon’s again.

  COMINIUS They are worn, lord consul, so

  That we shall hardly in our ages see

  Their banners wave again.

  CORIOLANUS (to Lartius) Saw you Aufidius?

  LARTIUS

  On safeguard he came to me, and did curse

  Against the Volsces for they had so vilely

  Yielded the town. He is retired to Antium.

  CORIOLANUS

  Spoke he of me?

  LARTIUS

  He did, my l
ord.

  CORIOLANUS

  How? What?

  LARTIUS

  How often he had met you sword to sword;

  That of all things upon the earth he hated

  Your person most; that he would pawn his fortunes

  To hopeless restitution, so he might

  Be called your vanquisher.

  CORIOLANUS At Antium lives he?

  LARTIUS At Antium.

  CORIOLANUS

  I wish I had a cause to seek him there,

  To oppose his hatred fully. Welcome home.Enter Sicinius and Brutus

  Behold, these are the tribunes of the people,

  The tongues o’th’ common mouth. I do despise them,

  For they do prank them in authority

  Against all noble sufferance.

  SICINIUS Pass no further.

  CORIOLANUS Ha, what is that?

  BRUTUS

  It will be dangerous to go on. No further.

  CORIOLANUS What makes this change?

  MENENIUS The matter?

  COMINIUS

  Hath he not passed the noble and the common?

  BRUTUS

  Cominius, no.

  CORIOLANUS Have I had children’s voices?

  ⌈FIRST⌉ SENATOR

  Tribunes, give way. He shall to th’ market-place.

  BRUTUS

  The people are incensed against him.

  SICINIUS

  Stop,

  Or all will fall in broil.

  CORIOLANUS Are these your herd?

  Must these have voices, that can yield them now

  And straight disclaim their tongues? What are your

  offices?

  You being their mouths, why rule you not their

  teeth?

  Have you not set them on?

  MENENIUS

  Be calm, be calm.

  CORIOLANUS

  It is a purposed thing, and grows by plot

  To curb the will of the nobility.

  Suffer’t, and live with such as cannot rule

  Nor ever will be ruled.

  BRUTUS

  Call’t not a plot.

  The people cry you mocked them, and of late

  When corn was given them gratis, you repined,

  Scandalled the suppliants for the people, called them

  Time-pleasers, flatterers, foes to nobleness.

  CORIOLANUS

  Why, this was known before.

  BRUTUS

  Not to them all.

  CORIOLANUS

  Have you informed them sithence?

  BRUTUS

  How, I inform them?

  ⌈CORIOLANUS⌉

  You are like to do such business.

  BRUTUS Not unlike

  Each way to better yours.

  CORIOLANUS

  Why then should I be consul? By yon clouds,

  Let me deserve so ill as you, and make me

  Your fellow tribune.

  SICINIUS

  You show too much of that

  For which the people stir. If you will pass

  To where you are bound, you must enquire your way,

  Which you are out of, with a gentler spirit,

  Or never be so noble as a consul,

  Nor yoke with him for tribune.

  MENENIUS

  Let’s be calm.

  COMINIUS

  The people are abused, set on. This palt‘ring

  Becomes not Rome, nor has Coriolanus

  Deserved this so dishonoured rub, laid falsely

  I’th’ plain way of his merit.

  CORIOLANUS

  Tell me of corn?

  This was my speech, and I will speak’t again.

  MENENIUS Not now, not now.

  ⌈FIRST⌉ SENATOR Not in this heat, sir, now.

  CORIOLANUS Now as I live,

  I will. My nobler friends, I crave their pardons.

  For the mutable rank-scented meinie,

  Let them regard me, as I do not flatter,

  And therein behold themselves. I say again,

  In soothing them we nourish ’gainst our Senate

  The cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition,

  Which we ourselves have ploughed for, sowed, and

  scattered

  By mingling them with us, the honoured number

  Who lack not virtue, no, nor power, but that

  Which they have given to beggars.

  MENENIUS

  Well, no more.

  ⌈FIRST⌉ SENATOR

  No more words, we beseech you.

  CORIOLANUS How, no more?

  As for my country I have shed my blood,

  Not fearing outward force, so shall my lungs

  Coin words till their decay against those measles

  Which we disdain should tetter us, yet sought

  The very way to catch them.

  BRUTUS

  You speak o’th’ people as if you were a god

  To punish, not a man of their infirmity.

  SICINIUS

  ’Twere well we let the people know’t.

  MENENIUS

  What, what, his choler?

  CORIOLANUS

  Choler? Were I as patient as the midnight sleep,

  By Jove, ’twould be my mind.

  SICINIUS It is a mind

  That shall remain a poison where it is,

  Not poison any further.

  CORIOLANUS ‘Shall remain’?

  Hear you this Triton of the minnows? Mark you

  His absolute ‘shall’?

  COMINIUS

  ’Twas from the canon.

  CORIOLANUS ‘Shall’?

  O good but most unwise patricians, why,

  You grave but reckless senators, have you thus

  Given Hydra here to choose an officer

  That, with his peremptory ‘shall’, being but

  The horn and noise o‘th’ monster’s, wants not spirit

  To say he’ll turn your current in a ditch

  And make your channel his? If he have power,

  Then vail your impotence; if none, awake

  Your dangerous lenity. If you are learned,

  Be not as common fools; if you are not,

  Let them have cushions by you. You are plebeians

  If they be senators, and they are no less

  When, both your voices blended, the great‘st taste

  Most palates theirs. They choose their magistrate,

  And such a one as he, who puts his ‘shall’,

  His popular ‘shall’, against a graver bench

  Than ever frowned in Greece. By Jove himself, no

  It makes the consuls base, and my soul aches

  To know, when two authorities are up,

  Neither supreme, how soon confusion

  May enter ’twixt the gap of both and take

  The one by th’ other.

  COMINIUS

  Well, on to th’ market-place.

  CORIOLANUS

  Whoever gave that counsel to give forth

  The corn o‘th’ storehouse gratis, as ’twas used

  Sometime in Greece—

  MENENIUS

  Well, well, no more of that.

  CORIOLANUS

  Though there the people had more absolute power—

  I say they nourished disobedience, fed

  The ruin of the state.

  BRUTUS

  Why shall the people give

  One that speaks thus their voice?

  CORIOLANUS

  I’ll give my reasons,

  More worthier than their voices. They know the corn

  Was not our recompense, resting well assured

  They ne‘er did service for’t. Being pressed to th’ war,

  Even when the navel of the state was touched,

  They would not thread the gates. This kind of service

  Did not deserve corn gratis. Being i’th’ war,

  Their mutinies and revolts, wherein they showed
<
br />   Most valour, spoke not for them. Th‘accusation

  Which they have often made against the senate,

  All cause unborn, could never be the native

  Of our so frank donation. Well, what then?

  How shall this bosom multiplied digest

  The senate’s courtesy? Let deeds express

  What’s like to be their words: ‘We did request it,

  We are the greater poll, and in true fear

  They gave us our demands.’ Thus we debase

  The nature of our seats, and make the rabble

  Call our cares fears, which will in time

  Break ope the locks o’th’ senate and bring in

  The crows to peck the eagles.

  MENENIUS

  Come, enough.

  BRUTUS

  Enough with over-measure.

  CORIOLANUS

  No, take more.

  What may be sworn by, both divine and human,

  Seal what I end withal! This double worship,

  Where one part does disdain with cause, the other

  Insult without all reason, where gentry, title, wisdom

  Cannot conclude but by the yea and no

  Of general ignorance, it must omit

  Real necessities, and give way the while

  To unstable slightness. Purpose so barred, it follows

  Nothing is done to purpose. Therefore beseech you—

  You that will be less fearful than discreet,

  That love the fundamental part of state

  More than you doubt the change on‘t, that prefer

  A noble life before a long, and wish

  To jump a body with a dangerous physic

  That’s sure of death without it—at once pluck out

  The multitudinous tongue; let them not lick

  The sweet which is their poison. Your dishonour

  Mangles true judgement, and bereaves the state

  Of that integrity which should become’t,

  Not having the power to do the good it would

  For th’ill which doth control’t.

  BRUTUS

  He’s said enough.

  SICINIUS

  He’s spoken like a traitor, and shall answer

  As traitors do.

  CORIOLANUS

  Thou wretch, despite o’erwhelm thee!

  What should the people do with these bald tribunes,

  On whom depending, their obedience fails

  To th’ greater bench? In a rebellion,

  When what’s not meet but what must be was law,

  Then were they chosen. In a better hour

  Let what is meet be said it must be meet,

  And throw their power i’th’ dust.

  BRUTUS

  Manifest treason.

  SICINIUS

  This a consul? No.

  BRUTUS

  The aediles, hotEnter an Aedile

  Let him be apprehended.

  SICINIUS

  Go call the people,

  ⌈Exit Aedile

  (To Coriolanus) in whose name myself

 

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