Auf. We hate alike: | Whereof we have ta'en good, and good store, Not Afric owns a serpent I abhor Halloo me like a hare. Mar. If I fly, Marcius, They fight, and certain Volsces come to the of all I thank you, general; 40 A long flourish. They all cry, ‘MARCIUS! I' the field prove flatterers, let courts and cities be Exeunt fighting, all driven by MARCIUS. When steel grows soft as the parasite's silk, Let him be made a coverture for the wars! In acclamations hyperbolical; Com. 50 Too modest are you; More cruel to your good report than grateful Like one that means his proper harm, in manacles, As to us, to all the world, that Caius Marcius All. Caius Marcius Coriolanus ! 63 Where, ere we do repose us, we will write : Lart. O! well begg'd. SCENE X.-The Camp of the Volsces. A Flourish. Cornets. Enter TULLUS AUFIDIUS, bloody, with two or three Soldiers. Auf. The town is ta'en! Bru. And topping all others in boasting. Men. This is strange now: do you two know how you are censured here in the city, I mean First Sold. Twill be deliver'd back on good of us o' the right-hand file? do you? condition. Auf. Condition! If e'er again I meet him beard to beard, He's the devil. Auf. Bolder, though not so subtle. My valour's poison'd 20 With only suffering stain by him; for him Learn how 'tis held, and what they are that must First Sold. Will not you go? 30 Auf. 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. First Sold. ACT II. I shall, sir. Exeunt. SCENE I-Rome. A public Place. Enter MENENIUS, SICINIUS, and BRUTUS. Men. The augurer tells me we shall have news to-night. Bru. Good or bad? Men. Not according to the prayer of the people, for they love not Marcius. Sic. Nature teaches beasts to know their friends. Sic., Bru. Why, how are we censured? Men. Because you talk of pride now,-will you not be angry? Sic., Bru. Well, well, sir; well. Men. 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 Marcius for being proud? Bru. We do it not alone, sir. 34 Men. Why, then you should discover a brace alias fools, as any in Rome. of unmeriting, proud, violent, testy magistrates, Sic. Menenius, you are known well enough too. Men. 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 weals-men as you are, I cannot call you Lycurguses, if the drink you give me face at it. I can't say your worships have detouch my palate adversely, I make a crooked livered 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 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? Bru. Come, sir, come, we know you well enough. Men. You know neither me, yourselves, nor any thing. You are ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs: you wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orangewife and a fosset-seller, and then rejourn the controversy of three-pence 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. Bru. Come, come, you are well understood to be a perfecter giber for the table than a necessary bencher in the Capitol. 81 Men. 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 Marcius 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 den 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. 102 BRUTUS and SICINIUS go aside. Enter 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? lol. Honourable Menenius, my boy Marcius approaches; for the love of Juno, let's go. Men. Ha! Marcius coming home? Vol. Ay, worthy Menenius; and with most prosperous approbation. 110 Men. Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee. Hoo! Marcius coming home! Vol., Vir. Nay, 'tis true. Vol. Look, here's a letter from him: the state hath another, his wife another; and I think there's one at home for you. Men. I will make my very house reel to-night. A letter for me! Vir. Yes, certain, there's a letter for you; I saw 't. 120 Men. 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. Vir. O no, no, no. Vol. O he is wounded; I thank the gods for 't. 130 Men. So do I too, if it be not too much. Brings a victory in his pocket? The wounds become him. Vol. On's brows, Menenius; he comes the third time home with the oaken garland. Men. Has he disciplined Aufidius soundly? Vol. Titus Lartius writes they fought together, but Aufidius got off. Men. And 'twas time for him too, I'll warrant him that an he had stayed by him I would not have been so fidiused for all the chests in Corioli, and the gold that's in them. Is the senate possessed of this? 143 Vol. Good ladies, let's go. Yes, yes, yes; the senate has letters from the general, wherein Men. True! I'll be sworn they are true. Where is he wounded? To the Tribunes. God save your good worships! Marcius is coming home: he has more cause to be proud. Where is he wounded? 159 Vol. I' the shoulder and i' the 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' the body. Men. One i' the neck, and two i' the thigh, there 's nine that I know. Vol. He had, before this last expedition, twenty-five wounds upon him. Men. Now it's twenty-seven: every gash was an enemy's grave. A shout and flourish. Hark! the trumpets. 170 Vol. These are the ushers of Marcius: before him he carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears: Death, that dark spirit, in 's nervy arm doth lie;. Which, being advanc'd, declines, and then men die. A Sennet. Trumpets sound. Enter COMINIUS and TITUS LARTIUS; between them, CORIOLANUS, crowned with an oaken garland; with Captains, Soldiers, and a Herald. Her. Know, Rome, that all alone Marcius did fight Within Corioli gates: where he hath won, 180 And I could laugh; I am light, and heavy. | Appear i' the market-place, nor on him put A curse begin at very root on 's heart men, 201 The napless vesture of humility; Nor, showing, as the manner is, his wounds Bru. It was his word. Oh! he would miss 250 We have some old crab-trees here at home that We call a nettle but a nettle, and The faults of fools but folly. Com. Cor. Menenius, ever, ever. Ever right. Her. Give way there, and go on! hand, and yours: 'Tis most like he will. Sic. It shall be to him then as our good wills, Your A sure destruction. Ere in our own house I do shade my head, I have liv'd 211 To him or our authorities. For an end, Have made them mules, silenc'd their pleaders, To see inherited my very wishes, Dispropertied their freedoms; holding them, but Our Rome will cast upon thee. Bru. All tongues speak of him, and the 220 Are spectacled to see him: your prattling nurse Are smother'd up, leads fill'd, and ridges hors'd I warrant him consul. Bru. 231 On the sudden, Then our office may, During his power, go sleep. Sic. He cannot temperately transport his From where he should begin and end, but will Bru. In that there's comfort. Enter two Officers, to lay cushions. First Off. Come, come; they are almost here. How many stand for consulships? Second Off. Three, they say; but 'tis thought of every one Coriolanus will carry it. First Off. That's a brave fellow; but he's vengeance proud, and loves not the common people. Second Off. Faith, there have been many great men that have flattered the people, who ne'er loved them; and there be many that they have loved, they know not wherefore: so that, if they love they know not why, they hate upon no better a ground. Therefore, for Coriolanus neither to care whether they love or hate him manifests the true knowledge he has in their disposition; and out of his noble carelessness lets them plainly see 't. 17 First Of. If he did not care whether he had their love or no, he waved indifferently 'twixt doing them neither good nor harm; but he seeks their hate with greater devotion than they can render it him, and leaves nothing undone that may fully discover him their opposite. Now, to seem to affect the malice and displeasure of the people is as bad as that which he dislikes, to flatter them for their love. Second Off. He hath deserved worthily of his country; and his ascent is not by such easy degrees as those who, having been supple and courteous to the people, bonneted, without any further deed to have them at all into their estimation and report; but he hath so planted his honours in their eyes, and his actions in their hearts, that for their tongues to be silent, and not confess so much, were a kind of ingrateful injury; to report otherwise, were a malice, that, giving itself the lie, would pluck reproof and rebuke from every ear that heard it. First Off. No more of him; he's a worthy man: make way, they are coming. 40 A Sennet. Enter, with Lictors before them, COMINIUS the Consul, MENENIUS, CORIOLANUS, many other Senators, SICINIUS and BRUTUS. The Senators take their places; the Tribunes take theirs also by themselves. Men. Having determin'd of the Volsces, and To send for Titus Lartius, it remains, As the main point of this our after-meeting, To gratify his noble service that Hath thus stood for his country: therefore, please you, Most reverend and grave elders, to desire A little of that worthy work perform'd By Caius Marcius Coriolanus, whom We met here both to thank and to remember With honours like himself. First Sen. 50 Speak, good Cominius: We do request your kindest ears, and after, We are convented Men. He loves your people; CORIOLANUS rises, and offers to go away. Nay, keep your place. 70 First Sen. Sit, Coriolanus; never shame to hear What you have nobly done. Cor. Your honours' pardon: I had rather have my wounds to heal again Than hear say how I got them. Sir, I hope Bru. My words disbench'd you not. No, sir: yet oft, You sooth'd not, therefore hurt not. I love them as they weigh. When the alarum were struck than idly sit 80 Masters o' the people, Your multiplying spawn how can he flatter, That's thousand to one good one, when you now see He had rather venture all his limbs for honour Should not be utter'd feebly. It is held 90 The man I speak of cannot in the world Before and in Corioli, let me say, For this And fell below his stem: his sword, death's stamp, Where it did mark, it took; from face to foot 121 |
