Outline
Characters
Dreamweaver
[Enter Menenius with the two Tribunes of the people, Sicinius and]
[Brutus.]
Menenius
The augurer tells me we shall have news tonight.
Junius Brutus
Good or bad?
Menenius
Not according to the prayer of the people, for they love not Martius.
Sicinius Velutus
Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.
Menenius
Pray you, who does the wolf love?
Sicinius Velutus
The lamb.
Menenius
Ay, to devour him, as the hungry plebeians would the noble Martius.
Junius Brutus
He’s a lamb indeed, that baas like a bear.
Menenius
He’s a bear indeed, that lives like a lamb. You two are old men; tell
me one thing that I shall ask you.
Both Tribunes
Well, sir.
Menenius
In what enormity is Martius poor in, that you two have not in
abundance?
Junius Brutus
He’s poor in no one fault, but stored with all.
Sicinius Velutus
Especially in pride.
Junius Brutus
And topping all others in boasting.
Menenius
This is strange now. Do you two know how you are censured here in the
city, I mean of us o’ th’ right-hand file, do you?
Both Tribunes
Why, how are we censured?
Menenius
Because you talk of pride now, will you not be angry?
Both Tribunes
Well, well, sir, well?
Menenius
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 Martius for being proud.
Junius Brutus
We do it not alone, sir.
Menenius
I know you can do very little alone, for your helps are many, or else
your actions would grow wondrous single. Your abilities are too
infantlike for doing much alone. You talk of pride. O that you could
turn your eyes toward the napes of your necks and make but an interior
survey of your good selves! O, that you could!
Both Tribunes
What then, sir?
Menenius
Why, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting, proud, violent,
testy magistrates, alias fools, as any in Rome.
Sicinius Velutus
Menenius, you are known well enough, too.
Menenius
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 wealsmen as you are—I
cannot call you Lycurguses—if the drink you give me touch my palate
adversely, I make a crooked face at it. I cannot say your Worships have
delivered 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 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?
Junius Brutus
Come, sir, come; we know you well enough.
Menenius
You know neither me, yourselves, nor anything. You are ambitious for
poor knaves’ caps and legs. You wear out a good wholesome forenoon in
hearing a cause between an orange-wife and a faucet-seller, and then
rejourn the controversy of threepence 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.
Junius Brutus
Come, come. You are well understood to be a perfecter giber for the
table than a necessary bencher in the Capitol.
Menenius
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 packsaddle. Yet you must be saying Martius 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 e’en 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.
[He begins to exit. Brutus and Sicinius stand aside.]
[Enter Volumnia, Virgilia and Valeria]
Menenius
How now, my as fair as noble ladies—and the moon, were she earthly, no
nobler—whither do you follow your eyes so fast?
Volumnia
Honourable Menenius, my boy Martius approaches. For the love of Juno,
let’s go!
Menenius
Ha? Martius coming home?
Volumnia
Ay, worthy Menenius, and with most prosperous approbation.
Menenius
Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee! Hoo! Martius coming home?
Valeria, Virgilia
Nay, ’tis true.
Volumnia
Look, here’s a letter from him. The state hath another, his wife
another, and I think there’s one at home for you.
Menenius
I will make my very house reel tonight. A letter for me?
Virgilia
Yes, certain, there’s a letter for you; I saw it.
Menenius
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.
Virgilia
O, no, no, no!
Volumnia
O, he is wounded, I thank the gods for’t.
Menenius
So do I too, if it be not too much. Brings he victory in his pocket,
the wounds become him.
Volumnia
On’s brows, Menenius. He comes the third time home with the oaken
garland.
Menenius
Has he disciplined Aufidius soundly?
Volumnia
Titus Lartius writes they fought together, but Aufidius got off.
Menenius
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 Corioles
and the gold that’s in them. Is the Senate possessed of this?
Volumnia
Good ladies, let’s go.—Yes, yes, yes. The Senate has letters from the
General, wherein he gives my son the whole name of the war. He hath in
this action outdone his former deeds doubly.
Valeria
In troth, there’s wondrous things spoke of him.
Menenius
Wondrous? Ay, I warrant you, and not without his true purchasing.
Virgilia
The gods grant them true.
Volumnia
True? Pow, waw!
Menenius
True? I’ll be sworn they are true. Where is he wounded? [_To the
Tribunes_.] God save your good Worships! Martius is coming home; he has
more cause to be proud.—Where is he wounded?
Volumnia
I’ th’ shoulder and i’ th’ 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’ th’ body.
Menenius
One i’ th’ neck and two i’ th’ thigh—there’s nine that I know.
Volumnia
He had, before this last expedition, twenty-five wounds upon him.
Menenius
Now it’s twenty-seven. Every gash was an enemy’s grave.
[A shout and flourish_.]
Menenius
Hark, the trumpets!
Volumnia
These are the ushers of Martius: before him he carries noise, and
behind him he leaves tears.
Death, that dark spirit, in’s nervy arm doth lie,
Which, being advanced, declines, and then men die.
[A sennet_.]
[Enter Cominius the General and Titus Lartius, between them Coriolanus]
Volumnia
crowned with an oaken garland, with Captains and Soldiers and a Herald.
Trumpets sound.
Herald
Know, Rome, that all alone Martius did fight
Within Corioles’ gates, where he hath won,
With fame, a name to Caius Martius; these
In honour follows “Coriolanus.”
Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus.
[Sound flourish.]
ALL
Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!
Caius Martius Coriolanus
No more of this, it does offend my heart.
Pray now, no more.
Cominius
Look, sir, your mother.
O,
You have, I know, petitioned all the gods
For my prosperity.
[Kneels.]
Volumnia
Nay, my good soldier, up.
[He stands.]
Volumnia
My gentle Martius, worthy Caius, and
By deed-achieving honour newly named—
What is it? Coriolanus must I call thee?
But, O, thy wife—
Caius Martius Coriolanus
My gracious silence, hail.
Wouldst thou have laughed had I come coffined home,
That weep’st to see me triumph? Ah, my dear,
Such eyes the widows in Corioles wear
And mothers that lack sons.
Menenius
Now the gods crown thee!
Caius Martius Coriolanus
And live you yet? [_To Valeria_] O my sweet lady, pardon.
Volumnia
I know not where to turn. O, welcome home!
And welcome, general.—And you’re welcome all.
Menenius
A hundred thousand welcomes! I could weep,
And I could laugh; I am light and heavy. Welcome.
A curse begin at very root on’s heart
That is not glad to see thee! You are three
That Rome should dote on; yet, by the faith of men,
We have some old crab trees here at home that will not
Be grafted to your relish. Yet welcome, warriors!
We call a nettle but a nettle, and
The faults of fools but folly.
Cominius
Ever right.
Caius Martius Coriolanus
Menenius ever, ever.
Herald
Give way there, and go on!
Caius Martius Coriolanus
[_To Volumnia and Virgilia_.] Your hand, and yours.
Ere in our own house I do shade my head,
The good patricians must be visited,
From whom I have received not only greetings,
But with them change of honours.
Volumnia
I have lived
To see inherited my very wishes
And the buildings of my fancy. Only
There’s one thing wanting, which I doubt not but
Our Rome will cast upon thee.
Caius Martius Coriolanus
Know, good mother,
I had rather be their servant in my way
Than sway with them in theirs.
Cominius
On, to the Capitol.
[Flourish of cornets. Exeunt in state, as before.]
Cominius
Brutus and Sicinius come forward.
Junius Brutus
All tongues speak of him, and the bleared sights
Are spectacled to see him. Your prattling nurse
Into a rapture lets her baby cry
While she chats him. The kitchen malkin pins
Her richest lockram ’bout her reechy neck,
Clamb’ring the walls to eye him. Stalls, bulks, windows
Are smothered up, leads filled, and ridges horsed
With variable complexions, all agreeing
In earnestness to see him. Seld-shown flamens
Do press among the popular throngs and puff
To win a vulgar station. Our veiled dames
Commit the war of white and damask in
Their nicely-gauded cheeks to th’ wanton spoil
Of Phoebus’ burning kisses. Such a pother,
As if that whatsoever god who leads him
Were slyly crept into his human powers
And gave him graceful posture.
Sicinius Velutus
On the sudden
I warrant him consul.
Junius Brutus
Then our office may,
During his power, go sleep.
Sicinius Velutus
He cannot temp’rately transport his honours
From where he should begin and end, but will
Lose those he hath won.
Junius Brutus
In that there’s comfort.
Sicinius Velutus
Doubt not the commoners, for whom we stand,
But they, upon their ancient malice will forget
With the least cause these his new honours—which
That he will give them make as little question
As he is proud to do’t.
Junius Brutus
I heard him swear,
Were he to stand for consul, never would he
Appear i’ th’ marketplace nor on him put
The napless vesture of humility,
Nor showing, as the manner is, his wounds
To th’ people, beg their stinking breaths.
Sicinius Velutus
’Tis right.
Junius Brutus
It was his word. O, he would miss it rather
Than carry it but by the suit of the gentry to him
And the desire of the nobles.
Sicinius Velutus
I wish no better
Than have him hold that purpose and to put it
In execution.
Junius Brutus
’Tis most like he will.
Sicinius Velutus
It shall be to him then, as our good wills,
A sure destruction.
Junius Brutus
So it must fall out
To him, or our authorities for an end.
We must suggest the people in what hatred
He still hath held them; that to’s power he would
Have made them mules, silenced their pleaders, and
Dispropertied their freedoms; holding them
In human action and capacity
Of no more soul nor fitness for the world
Than camels in their war, who have their provand
Only for bearing burdens, and sore blows
For sinking under them.
Sicinius Velutus
This, as you say, suggested
At some time when his soaring insolence
Shall touch the people—which time shall not want
If it be put upon’t, and that’s as easy
As to set dogs on sheep—will be his fire
To kindle their dry stubble, and their blaze
Shall darken him for ever.
[Enter a Messenger.]
Junius Brutus
What’s the matter?
Second Messenger
You are sent for to the Capitol. ’Tis thought
That Martius shall be consul. I have seen
The dumb men throng to see him, and the blind
to hear him speak; matrons flung gloves,
Ladies and maids their scarves and handkerchiefs,
Upon him as he passed; the nobles bended
As to Jove’s statue, and the Commons made
A shower and thunder with their caps and shouts.
I never saw the like.
Junius Brutus
Let’s to the Capitol;
And carry with us ears and eyes for th’ time,
But hearts for the event.
Sicinius Velutus
Have with you.
[Exeunt.]