Complete Plays, The
Page 142
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 frown in Greece. By Jove himself!
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 the other.
Cominius
Well, on to the market-place.
Coriolanus
Whoever gave that counsel, to give forth
The corn o’ the 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 nourish’d 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
That ne’er did service for’t: being press’d to the war,
Even when the navel of the state was touch’d,
They would not thread the gates. This kind of service
Did not deserve corn gratis. Being i’ the war
Their mutinies and revolts, wherein they show’d
Most valour, spoke not for them: the accusation
Which they have often made against the senate,
All cause unborn, could never be the motive
Of our so frank donation. Well, what then?
How shall this bisson multitude 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’ the 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 barr’d, 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 judgment and bereaves the state
Of that integrity which should become’t,
Not having the power to do the good it would,
For the in which doth control’t.
Brutus
Has said enough.
Sicinius
Has 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 the 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’ the dust.
Brutus
Manifest treason!
Sicinius
This a consul? no.
Brutus
The aediles, ho!
Enter an Aedile
Let him be apprehended.
Sicinius
Go, call the people:
Exit Aedile
in whose name myself
Attach thee as a traitorous innovator,
A foe to the public weal: obey, I charge thee,
And follow to thine answer.
Coriolanus
Hence, old goat!
Senators, & C We’ll surety him.
Cominius
Aged sir, hands off.
Coriolanus
Hence, rotten thing! or I shall shake thy bones
Out of thy garments.
Sicinius
Help, ye citizens!
Enter a rabble of Citizens (Plebeians), with the Aediles
Menenius
On both sides more respect.
Sicinius
Here’s he that would take from you all your power.
Brutus
Seize him, Aediles!
Citizens
Down with him! down with him!
Senators, & C Weapons, weapons, weapons!
They all bustle about Coriolanus, crying
‘Tribunes!’ ‘Patricians!’ ‘Citizens!’ ‘What, ho!’
‘Sicinius!’ ‘Brutus!’ ‘Coriolanus!’ ‘Citizens!’
‘Peace, peace, peace!’ ‘stay, hold, peace!’
Menenius
What is about to be? I am out of breath;
Confusion’s near; I cannot speak. You, tribunes
To the people! Coriolanus, patience!
Speak, good Sicinius.
Sicinius
Hear me, people; peace!
Citizens
Let’s hear our tribune: peace Speak, speak, speak.
Sicinius
You are at point to lose your liberties:
Marcius would have all from you; Marcius,
Whom late you have named for consul.
Menenius
Fie, fie, fie!
This is the way to kindle, not to quench.
First Senator
To unbuild the city and to lay all flat.
Sicinius
What is the city but the people?
Citizens
True,
The people are the city.
Brutus
By the consent of all, we were establish’d
The people’s magistrates.
Citizens
You so remain.
Menenius
And so are like to do.
Cominius
That is the way to lay the city flat;
To bring the roof to the foundation,
And bury all, which yet distinctly ranges,
In heaps and piles of ruin.
Sicinius
This deserves death.
Brutus
Or let us stand to our authority,
Or let us lose it. We do here pronounce,
Upon the part o’ the people, in whose power
We were elected theirs, Marcius is worthy
Of present death.
Sicinius
Therefore lay hold of him;
Bear him to the rock Tarpeian, and from thence
Into destruction cast him.
Brutus
Aedil
es, seize him!
Citizens
Yield, Marcius, yield!
Menenius
Hear me one word;
Beseech you, tribunes, hear me but a word.
Aedile
Peace, peace!
Menenius
[To Brutus] Be that you seem, truly your country’s friend,
And temperately proceed to what you would
Thus violently redress.
Brutus
Sir, those cold ways,
That seem like prudent helps, are very poisonous
Where the disease is violent. Lay hands upon him,
And bear him to the rock.
Coriolanus
No, I’ll die here.
Drawing his sword
There’s some among you have beheld me fighting:
Come, try upon yourselves what you have seen me.
Menenius
Down with that sword! Tribunes, withdraw awhile.
Brutus
Lay hands upon him.
Cominius
Help Marcius, help,
You that be noble; help him, young and old!
Citizens
Down with him, down with him!
In this mutiny, the Tribunes, the Aediles, and the People, are beat in
Menenius
Go, get you to your house; be gone, away!
All will be naught else.
Second Senator
Get you gone.
Cominius
Stand fast;
We have as many friends as enemies.
Menenius
Sham it be put to that?
First Senator
The gods forbid!
I prithee, noble friend, home to thy house;
Leave us to cure this cause.
Menenius
For ’tis a sore upon us,
You cannot tent yourself: be gone, beseech you.
Cominius
Come, sir, along with us.
Coriolanus
I would they were barbarians — as they are,
Though in Rome litter’d — not Romans — as they are not,
Though calved i’ the porch o’ the Capitol —
Menenius
Be gone;
Put not your worthy rage into your tongue;
One time will owe another.
Coriolanus
On fair ground
I could beat forty of them.
Cominius
I could myself
Take up a brace o’ the best of them; yea, the two tribunes:
But now ’tis odds beyond arithmetic;
And manhood is call’d foolery, when it stands
Against a falling fabric. Will you hence,
Before the tag return? whose rage doth rend
Like interrupted waters and o’erbear
What they are used to bear.
Menenius
Pray you, be gone:
I’ll try whether my old wit be in request
With those that have but little: this must be patch’d
With cloth of any colour.
Cominius
Nay, come away.
Exeunt Coriolanus, Cominius, and others
A Patrician
This man has marr’d his fortune.
Menenius
His nature is too noble for the world:
He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,
Or Jove for’s power to thunder. His heart’s his mouth:
What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent;
And, being angry, does forget that ever
He heard the name of death.
A noise within
Here’s goodly work!
Second Patrician
I would they were abed!
Menenius
I would they were in Tiber! What the vengeance!
Could he not speak ’em fair?
Re-enter Brutus and Sicinius, with the rabble
Sicinius
Where is this viper
That would depopulate the city and
Be every man himself?
Menenius
You worthy tribunes,—
Sicinius
He shall be thrown down the Tarpeian rock
With rigorous hands: he hath resisted law,
And therefore law shall scorn him further trial
Than the severity of the public power
Which he so sets at nought.
First Citizen
He shall well know
The noble tribunes are the people’s mouths,
And we their hands.
Citizens
He shall, sure on’t.
Menenius
Sir, sir,—
Sicinius
Peace!
Menenius
Do not cry havoc, where you should but hunt
With modest warrant.
Sicinius
Sir, how comes’t that you
Have holp to make this rescue?
Menenius
Hear me speak:
As I do know the consul’s worthiness,
So can I name his faults,—
Sicinius
Consul! what consul?
Menenius
The consul Coriolanus.
Brutus
He consul!
Citizens
No, no, no, no, no.
Menenius
If, by the tribunes’ leave, and yours, good people,
I may be heard, I would crave a word or two;
The which shall turn you to no further harm
Than so much loss of time.
Sicinius
Speak briefly then;
For we are peremptory to dispatch
This viperous traitor: to eject him hence
Were but one danger, and to keep him here
Our certain death: therefore it is decreed
He dies to-night.
Menenius
Now the good gods forbid
That our renowned Rome, whose gratitude
Towards her deserved children is enroll’d
In Jove’s own book, like an unnatural dam
Should now eat up her own!
Sicinius
He’s a disease that must be cut away.
Menenius
O, he’s a limb that has but a disease;
Mortal, to cut it off; to cure it, easy.
What has he done to Rome that’s worthy death?
Killing our enemies, the blood he hath lost —
Which, I dare vouch, is more than that he hath,
By many an ounce — he dropp’d it for his country;
And what is left, to lose it by his country,
Were to us all, that do’t and suffer it,
A brand to the end o’ the world.
Sicinius
This is clean kam.
Brutus
Merely awry: when he did love his country,
It honour’d him.
Menenius
The service of the foot
Being once gangrened, is not then respected
For what before it was.
Brutus
We’ll hear no more.
Pursue him to his house, and pluck him thence:
Lest his infection, being of catching nature,
Spread further.
Menenius
One word more, one word.
This tiger-footed rage, when it shall find
The harm of unscann’d swiftness, will too late
Tie leaden pounds to’s heels. Proceed by process;
Lest parties, as he is beloved, break out,
And sack great Rome with Romans.
Brutus
If it were so,—
Sicinius
What do ye talk?
Have we not had a taste of his obedience?
Our aediles smote? ourselves resisted? Come.
Menenius
Consider this: he has been bred i’ the wars
>
Since he could draw a sword, and is ill school’d
In bolted language; meal and bran together
He throws without distinction. Give me leave,
I’ll go to him, and undertake to bring him
Where he shall answer, by a lawful form,
In peace, to his utmost peril.
First Senator
Noble tribunes,
It is the humane way: the other course
Will prove too bloody, and the end of it
Unknown to the beginning.
Sicinius
Noble Menenius,
Be you then as the people’s officer.
Masters, lay down your weapons.
Brutus
Go not home.
Sicinius
Meet on the market-place. We’ll attend you there:
Where, if you bring not Marcius, we’ll proceed
In our first way.
Menenius
I’ll bring him to you.
To the Senators
Let me desire your company: he must come,
Or what is worst will follow.
First Senator
Pray you, let’s to him.
Exeunt
SCENE II. A ROOM IN CORIOLANUS’S HOUSE.
Enter Coriolanus with Patricians
Coriolanus
Let them puff all about mine ears, present me
Death on the wheel or at wild horses’ heels,
Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock,
That the precipitation might down stretch
Below the beam of sight, yet will I still
Be thus to them.
A Patrician
You do the nobler.
Coriolanus
I muse my mother
Does not approve me further, who was wont
To call them woollen vassals, things created
To buy and sell with groats, to show bare heads
In congregations, to yawn, be still and wonder,
When one but of my ordinance stood up
To speak of peace or war.
Enter Volumnia
I talk of you:
Why did you wish me milder? would you have me
False to my nature? Rather say I play
The man I am.
Volumnia
O, sir, sir, sir,
I would have had you put your power well on,
Before you had worn it out.
Coriolanus
Let go.
Volumnia
You might have been enough the man you are,
With striving less to be so; lesser had been
The thwartings of your dispositions, if
You had not show’d them how ye were disposed
Ere they lack’d power to cross you.
Coriolanus
Let them hang.
A Patrician
Ay, and burn too.
Enter Menenius and Senators
Menenius
Come, come, you have been too rough, something too rough; You must return and mend it.
First Senator
There’s no remedy;
Unless, by not so doing, our good city
Cleave in the midst, and perish.
Volumnia
Pray, be counsell’d:
I have a heart as little apt as yours,
But yet a brain that leads my use of anger