Complete Plays, The
Page 141
Second Citizen
An ’twere to give again,— but ’tis no matter.
Exeunt the three Citizens
Re-enter two other Citizens
Coriolanus
Pray you now, if it may stand with the tune of your voices that I may be consul, I have here the customary gown.
Fourth Citizen
You have deserved nobly of your country, and you have not deserved nobly.
Coriolanus
Your enigma?
Fourth Citizen
You have been a scourge to her enemies, you have been a rod to her friends; you have not indeed loved the common people.
Coriolanus
You should account me the more virtuous that I have not been common in my love. I will, sir, flatter my sworn brother, the people, to earn a dearer estimation of them; ’tis a condition they account gentle: and since the wisdom of their choice is rather to have my hat than my heart, I will practise the insinuating nod and be off to them most counterfeitly; that is, sir, I will counterfeit the bewitchment of some popular man and give it bountiful to the desirers. Therefore, beseech you, I may be consul.
Fifth Citizen
We hope to find you our friend; and therefore give you our voices heartily.
Fourth Citizen
You have received many wounds for your country.
Coriolanus
I will not seal your knowledge with showing them. I will make much of your voices, and so trouble you no further.
Both Citizens
The gods give you joy, sir, heartily!
Exeunt
Coriolanus
Most sweet voices!
Better it is to die, better to starve,
Than crave the hire which first we do deserve.
Why in this woolvish toge should I stand here,
To beg of Hob and Dick, that do appear,
Their needless vouches? Custom calls me to’t:
What custom wills, in all things should we do’t,
The dust on antique time would lie unswept,
And mountainous error be too highly heapt
For truth to o’er-peer. Rather than fool it so,
Let the high office and the honour go
To one that would do thus. I am half through;
The one part suffer’d, the other will I do.
Re-enter three Citizens more
Here come more voices.
Your voices: for your voices I have fought;
Watch’d for your voices; for Your voices bear
Of wounds two dozen odd; battles thrice six
I have seen and heard of; for your voices have
Done many things, some less, some more your voices:
Indeed I would be consul.
Sixth Citizen
He has done nobly, and cannot go without any honest man’s voice.
Seventh Citizen
Therefore let him be consul: the gods give him joy, and make him good friend to the people!
All Citizens
Amen, amen. God save thee, noble consul!
Exeunt
Coriolanus
Worthy voices!
Re-enter Menenius, with Brutus and Sicinius
Menenius
You have stood your limitation; and the tribunes
Endue you with the people’s voice: remains
That, in the official marks invested, you
Anon do meet the senate.
Coriolanus
Is this done?
Sicinius
The custom of request you have discharged:
The people do admit you, and are summon’d
To meet anon, upon your approbation.
Coriolanus
Where? at the senate-house?
Sicinius
There, Coriolanus.
Coriolanus
May I change these garments?
Sicinius
You may, sir.
Coriolanus
That I’ll straight do; and, knowing myself again,
Repair to the senate-house.
Menenius
I’ll keep you company. Will you along?
Brutus
We stay here for the people.
Sicinius
Fare you well.
Exeunt Coriolanus and Menenius
He has it now, and by his looks methink
’Tis warm at ’s heart.
Brutus
With a proud heart he wore his humble weeds. will you dismiss the people?
Re-enter Citizens
Sicinius
How now, my masters! have you chose this man?
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 mock’d us when he begg’d 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 show’d us
His marks of merit, wounds received for’s country.
Sicinius
Why, so he did, I am sure.
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: ‘aged 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
Could you not have told him
As you were lesson’d, 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’ the body of the weal; and now, arriving
A place of potency and sway o’ the state,
If he should still malignantly remain
Fast foe to the 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
Thus to have said,
As you were fore-advised, had touch’d his spirit
And tried his inclination; from him pluck’d
Either his gracious promise, which you might,
As cause had call’d you up, have held him to
Or else it would have gall’d his surly nature,
Which easily endures not article
Tying him to aught; so putting him to rage,
You should have ta’en the advantage of his choler
And pass’d him unelected.
Brutus
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 judgment?
Sicinius
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 confirm’d; 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 therefore kept to do so.
Sicinius
Let them assemble,
And on a safer judgment 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 scorn’d you; but your loves,
Thinking upon his services, took from you
The apprehension of his present portance,
Which most gibingly, ungravely, he did fashion
After the inveterate hate he bears you.
Brutus
Lay
A fault on us, your tribunes; that we laboured,
No impediment between, but that you must
Cast your election on him.
Sicinius
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
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’ the Marcians, from whence came
That Ancus Marcius, Numa’s daughter’s son,
Who, after great Hostilius, here was king;
Of the same house Publius and Quintus were,
That our beat water brought by conduits hither;
And [Censorinus,] nobly named so,
Twice being [by the people chosen] censor,
Was his great ancestor.
Sicinius
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
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 the Capitol.
All
We will so: 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 the Capitol, come:
We will be there before the stream o’ the people;
And this shall seem, as partly ’tis, their own,
Which we have goaded onward.
Exeunt
ACT III
SCENE I. ROME. A STREET.
Cornets. Enter Coriolanus, Menenius, all the Gentry, Cominius, Titus 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 road.
Upon’s again.
Cominius
They are worn, lord consul, so,
That we shall hardly in our ages see
Their banners wave again.
Coriolanus
Saw you Aufidius?
Lartius
On safe-guard 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 lord.
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 call’d 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’ the 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 pass’d the noble and the common?
Brutus
Cominius, no.
Coriolanus
Have I had children’s voices?
First Senator
Tribunes, give way; he shall to the 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 mock’d them, and of late,
When corn was given them gratis, you repined;
Scandal’d the suppliants for the people, call’d them
Time-pleasers, flatterers, foes to nobleness.
Coriolanus
Why, this was known before.
Brutus
Not to them all.
Coriolanus
Have you inform’d 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 yond 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 inquire 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 paltering
Becomes not Rome, nor has Coriolanus
Deserved this so dishonour’d rub, laid falsely
I’ the 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 many, 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 plough’d for, sow’d, and scatter’d,
By mingling them with us, the honour’d 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 tatter us, yet sought
The very way to catch them.
Brutus
You speak o’ the 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’ the 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 ignorance; if none, awake
Your dangerous lenity. If you are learn’d,