Deserves your hate. and your affections are A sick man's appetite, who desires most that Which would increase his evil. He that depends Upon your favours, swims with fins of lead, And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye! Trust ye?
With every minute you do change a mind; And call him noble, that was now your hate, Him vile, that was your garland.
AN IMAGINARY DESCRIPTION OF CORIOLANUS WARRING.
Methinks, I hear hither your husband's drum; See him pluck Aufidius down by the hair; As children from a bear, the Volces shunning him: Methinks, I see him stamp thus, and call thus,- Come on you cowards, you were got in fear, Though you were born in Rome: His bloody brow With his mail'd hand then wiping, forth he goes; Like to a harvest-man, that's task'd to mow Or all, or lose his hire.
Vir. His bloody brow! O, Jupiter, no blood! Vol. Away, you fool! it more becomes a man, Than gilt his trophy. The breasts of Hecuba, When she did suckle Hector, look'd not lovelier Than Hector's forehead, when it spit forth blood At Grecian swords contending.
DOING OUR DUTY MERITS NOT PRAISE.
Pray, now, no more: my mother,
Who has a charter* to extol her blood,
When she does praise me, grieves me. I have done, As you have done; that's what I can; induc'd
As you have been; that's for my country:
He, that has but effected his good will,
Hath overta'en mine act.
AUFIDIUS'S HATRED TO CORIOLANUS.
Nor sleep, nor sanctuary,
Being naked, sick: nor fane, nor Capitol, The prayers of priests, nor times of sacrifice, Embarquements all of fury, shall lift up
Their rotten privilege and custom 'gainst My hate to Marcius: where I find him, were it At home upon my brother's guard,* even there Against the hospitable cannon, would I Wash my fierce hand in his heart.
All tongues speak of him, and the bleared sights Are spectacled to see him: Your prattling nurse Into a rapturet lets her baby cry,
While she chats him: the kitchen malkin pins Her richest lockram§ 'bout her reechy neck, Clambering the walls to eye him: stalls, bulks, win- dows.
Are smother'd up, leads fill'd, and ridges hors'd With variable complexions; all agreeing
In earnestness to see him: seld T-shown flamens** Do press among the popular throngs, and puff To win a vulgar station:†† our veil'd dames Commit the war of white and damask, in Their nicely-gawded cheeks, to the 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.
COMINIUS'S PRAISE OF CORIOLANUS IN THE SENATE
I shall lack voice: the deeds of Coriolanus
Should not be utter'd feebly. It is held,
That valour is the chiefest virtue, and Most dignifies the haver:§§ if it be, The man I speak of cannot in the world Be singly counterpois'd. At sixteen years, When Tarquin made a head for Rome, he fought Beyond the mark of others; our then dictator, Whom with all praise I point at, saw him fight,
My brother posted to protect him. § Best linen. ¶ Seldom.
† Fit. Maid. Soiled with sweat and smoke. **Priests. + Common standing-place
When with his Amazonian chin* he drove The bristled lips before him: he bestrid An o'er-press'd Roman, and i' the consul's view Slew three opposers: Tarquin's self he met, And struck him on his knee: in that day's feats, When he might act the woman in the scene,t He prov'd best man i' the field, and for his meed Was brow-bound with the oak. His pupilage Man entered thus, he waxed like a sea; And, in the brunt of seventeen battles since, He lurch'd|| all swords o' the garland. For this last, Before and in Corioli, let me say,
I cannot speak him home: He stopp'd the fliers: And, by his rare example, made the coward Turn terror into sport: as waves before
A vessel under sail, so men obey'd,
And fell below his stem: his sword (death's stamp) Where it did mark, it took; from face to foot He was a thing of blood, whose every motion T Was timed** with dying cries: alone he enter'd The mortal gate o' the city, which he painted With shunless destiny, aidless came off, And with a sudden reinforcement struck Corioli, like a planet: now all's his: When by and by the din of war 'gan pierce His ready sense: then straight his doubled spirit Requicken'd what in flesh was fatigate,ft And to the battle came he; where he did Run recking o'er the lives of men, as if "Twere a perpetual spoil: and, till we call'd Both field and city ours, he never stood To ease his breast with panting.
To know, when two authorities are up,
Smooth-faced enough to act a woman's part. § Reward. Won. ¶ Stroke. ** Followed. tt Wearied.
Neither supreme, how soon confusion May enter 'twixt the gap of both, and take The one by the other.
CHARACTER OF CORIOLANUS.
His nature is too noble for the world: He would not flatter Neptune for his trident, Or Jove for his power to thunder.
What his breast forges that his tongue must vent; And, being angry, does forget that ever
He heard the name of death.
HONOUR AND POLICY.
I have heard you say,
Honour and policy, like unsever'd friends,
'the war do grow together: grant that, and tell me In peace, what each of them by th' other lose, That they combine not there.
THE METHOD TO GAIN POPULAR FAVOUR.
Go to them, with this bonnet in thy hand; And thus far having stretch'd it, (here be with them;) Thy knee bussing the stones (for in such business Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant More learned than the ears,) waving thy head, Which often, thus, correcting thy stout heart, That humble, as the ripest mulberry,
Now will not hold the handling: Or, say to them, Thou art their soldier, and being bred in broils, Hast not the soft way, which, thou dost confess, Were fit for thee to use, as they to claim, In asking their good loves; but thou wilt frame Thyself, forsooth, hereafter theirs, so far As thou hast power, and person.
CORIOLANUS'S ABHORRENCE OF FLATTERY. Well, I must do't:
Away, my disposition, and possess me
Some harlot's spirit! My throat of war he turn'd,
Which quired with my drum, into a pipe
Small as an eunuch, or the virgin voice
That babies lulls asleep' The smiles of knaves
Tent in my cheeks; and school-boys' tears take up The glasses of my sight! A beggar's tongue Make motion through my lips; and my arm'd knees, Who bow'd but in my stirrup, bend like his That hath receiv'd an alms!-I will not do't: Lest I surcease to honour mine own truth, And, by my body's action, teach my mind A most inherent baseness.
VOLUMNIA'S RESOLUTION ON THE PRIDE OP CORIOLANUS.
To beg of thee, it is my more dishonour, Than thou of them. Come all to ruin; let Thy mother rather feel thy pride, than fear Thy dangerous stoutness; for I mock at death With as big heart as thou. Do as thou list.
Thy valiantness was mine, thou suck'dst it from me, But owet thy pride thyself.
CORIOLANUS'S DETESTATION OF THE VULGAR.
You common cry of curse! whose breath I hate As reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize As the dead carcasses of unburied men That do corrupt my air, I banish you; And here remain with your uncertainty! Let every feeble rumour shake your hearts! Your enemies, with nodding of their plumes, Fan you into despair; have the power still To banish your defenders; till, at length, Your ignorance (which finds not till it feels,) Making not reservation of yourselves, (Still your own foes,) deliver you, as most Abated captives, to some nation
That won you without blows!
PRECEPT AGAINST ILL FORTUNE.
To say, extremity was the trier of spirits: That common chances common men could bear;
Own. Pack § Vapour. Subdued.
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