Wine, wine, wine! What service is here? I think our fellows are asleep.

Where’s Cotus? My master calls for him. Cotus!

A goodly house. The feast smells well, but I

Appear not like a guest.

What would you have, friend? Whence are you? Here’s no place for you.

Pray go to the door.

I have deserved no better entertainment

In being Coriolanus.

Whence are you, sir?—Has the porter his eyes in his head, that he gives

entrance to such companions?—Pray, get you out.

Away!

Away? Get you away.

Now th’ art troublesome.

Are you so brave? I’ll have you talked with anon.

What fellow’s this?

A strange one as ever I looked on. I cannot get him out o’ th’ house.

Prithee call my master to him.

What have you to do here, fellow? Pray you, avoid the house.

Let me but stand. I will not hurt your hearth.

What are you?

A gentleman.

A marv’llous poor one.

True, so I am.

Pray you, poor gentleman, take up some other station. Here’s no place

for you. Pray you, avoid. Come.

Follow your function, go, and batten on cold bits.

What, you will not?—Prithee, tell my master what a strange guest he has

here.

And I shall.

Where dwell’st thou?

Under the canopy.

Under the canopy?

Ay.

Where’s that?

I’ th’ city of kites and crows.

I’ th’ city of kites and crows? What an ass it is! Then thou dwell’st

with daws too?

No, I serve not thy master.

How, sir? Do you meddle with my master?

Ay, ’tis an honester service than to meddle with thy mistress. Thou

prat’st and prat’st. Serve with thy trencher, hence!

Where is this fellow?

Here, sir. I’d have beaten him like a dog, but for disturbing the lords

within.

Whence com’st thou? What wouldst thou?

Thy name? Why speak’st not? Speak, man. What’s thy name?

[_Removing his muffler_.] If, Tullus,

Not yet thou know’st me, and, seeing me, dost not

Think me for the man I am, necessity

Commands me name myself.

What is thy name?

A name unmusical to the Volscians’ ears

And harsh in sound to thine.

Say, what’s thy name?

Thou has a grim appearance, and thy face

Bears a command in’t. Though thy tackle’s torn,

Thou show’st a noble vessel. What’s thy name?

Prepare thy brow to frown. Know’st thou me yet?

I know thee not. Thy name?

My name is Caius Martius, who hath done

To thee particularly and to all the Volsces

Great hurt and mischief; thereto witness may

My surname Coriolanus. The painful service,

The extreme dangers, and the drops of blood

Shed for my thankless country are requited

But with that surname, a good memory

And witness of the malice and displeasure

Which thou shouldst bear me. Only that name remains.

The cruelty and envy of the people,

Permitted by our dastard nobles, who

Have all forsook me, hath devoured the rest,

And suffered me by th’ voice of slaves to be

Whooped out of Rome. Now this extremity

Hath brought me to thy hearth, not out of hope—

Mistake me not—to save my life; for if

I had feared death, of all the men i’ th’ world

I would have ’voided thee, but in mere spite,

To be full quit of those my banishers,

Stand I before thee here. Then if thou hast

A heart of wreak in thee, that wilt revenge

Thine own particular wrongs and stop those maims

Of shame seen through thy country, speed thee straight

And make my misery serve thy turn. So use it

That my revengeful services may prove

As benefits to thee, for I will fight

Against my cankered country with the spleen

Of all the under fiends. But if so be

Thou dar’st not this, and that to prove more fortunes

Thou ’rt tired, then, in a word, I also am

Longer to live most weary, and present

My throat to thee and to thy ancient malice,

Which not to cut would show thee but a fool,

Since I have ever followed thee with hate,

Drawn tuns of blood out of thy country’s breast,

And cannot live but to thy shame, unless

It be to do thee service.

O Martius, Martius,

Each word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heart

A root of ancient envy. If Jupiter

Should from yond cloud speak divine things

And say ’tis true, I’d not believe them more

Than thee, all-noble Martius. Let me twine

Mine arms about that body, whereagainst

My grained ash an hundred times hath broke

And scarred the moon with splinters. Here I clip

The anvil of my sword and do contest

As hotly and as nobly with thy love

As ever in ambitious strength I did

Contend against thy valour. Know thou first,

I loved the maid I married; never man

Sighed truer breath. But that I see thee here,

Thou noble thing, more dances my rapt heart

Than when I first my wedded mistress saw

Bestride my threshold. Why, thou Mars, I tell thee

We have a power on foot, and I had purpose

Once more to hew thy target from thy brawn

Or lose mine arm for’t. Thou hast beat me out

Twelve several times, and I have nightly since

Dreamt of encounters ’twixt thyself and me;

We have been down together in my sleep,

Unbuckling helms, fisting each other’s throat,

And waked half dead with nothing. Worthy Martius,

Had we no other quarrel else to Rome but that

Thou art thence banished, we would muster all

From twelve to seventy and, pouring war

Into the bowels of ungrateful Rome,

Like a bold flood o’erbear ’t. O, come, go in,

And take our friendly senators by th’ hands,

Who now are here, taking their leaves of me,

Who am prepared against your territories,

Though not for Rome itself.

You bless me, gods!

Therefore, most absolute sir, if thou wilt have

The leading of thine own revenges, take

Th’ one half of my commission and set down—

As best thou art experienced, since thou know’st

Thy country’s strength and weakness—thine own ways,

Whether to knock against the gates of Rome,

Or rudely visit them in parts remote

To fright them ere destroy. But come in.

Let me commend thee first to those that shall

Say yea to thy desires. A thousand welcomes!

And more a friend than e’er an enemy—

Yet, Martius, that was much. Your hand. Most welcome!

Two of the Servingmen come forward.

Here’s a strange alteration!

By my hand, I had thought to have strucken him with a cudgel, and yet

my mind gave me his clothes made a false report of him.

What an arm he has! He turned me about with his finger and his thumb as

one would set up a top.

Nay, I knew by his face that there was something in him. He had, sir, a

kind of face, methought—I cannot tell how to term it.

He had so, looking as it were—Would I were hanged, but I thought there

was more in him than I could think.

So did I, I’ll be sworn. He is simply the rarest man i’ th’ world.

I think he is. But a greater soldier than he you wot one.

Who, my master?

Nay, it’s no matter for that.

Worth six on him.

Nay, not so neither. But I take him to be the greater soldier.

Faith, look you, one cannot tell how to say that. For the defence of a

town our general is excellent.

Ay, and for an assault too.

O slaves, I can tell you news, news, you rascals!

FIRST and SECOND SERVINGMAN.

What, what, what? Let’s partake.

I would not be a Roman, of all nations; I had as lief be a condemned

man.

FIRST and SECOND SERVINGMAN.

Wherefore? Wherefore?

Why, here’s he that was wont to thwack our general, Caius Martius.

Why do you say, “thwack our general”?

I do not say “thwack our general,” but he was always good enough for

him.

Come, we are fellows and friends. He was ever too hard for him; I have

heard him say so himself.

He was too hard for him directly, to say the troth on’t, before

Corioles; he scotched him and notched him like a carbonado.

An he had been cannibally given, he might have boiled and eaten him

too.

But, more of thy news?

Why, he is so made on here within as if he were son and heir to Mars;

set at upper end o’ th’ table; no question asked him by any of the

senators but they stand bald before him. Our general himself makes a

mistress of him, sanctifies himself with’s hand, and turns up the white

o’ th’ eye to his discourse. But the bottom of the news is, our general

is cut i’ th’ middle and but one half of what he was yesterday, for the

other has half, by the entreaty and grant of the whole table. He’ll go,

he says, and sowl the porter of Rome gates by th’ ears. He will mow all

down before him and leave his passage polled.

And he’s as like to do’t as any man I can imagine.

Do’t? He will do’t! For look you, sir, he has as many friends as

enemies, which friends, sir, as it were, durst not, look you, sir, show

themselves, as we term it, his friends whilest he’s in directitude.

Directitude? What’s that?

But when they shall see, sir, his crest up again, and the man in blood,

they will out of their burrows like coneys after rain, and revel all

with him.

But when goes this forward?

Tomorrow, today, presently. You shall have the drum struck up this

afternoon. ’Tis as it were parcel of their feast, and to be executed

ere they wipe their lips.

Why then, we shall have a stirring world again. This peace is nothing

but to rust iron, increase tailors, and breed ballad-makers.

Let me have war, say I. It exceeds peace as far as day does night. It’s

sprightly walking, audible, and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy,

lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more bastard

children than war’s a destroyer of men.

’Tis so, and as war in some sort, may be said to be a ravisher, so it

cannot be denied but peace is a great maker of cuckolds.

Ay, and it makes men hate one another.

Reason: because they then less need one another. The wars for my money!

I hope to see Romans as cheap as Volscians. They are rising; they are

rising.

In, in, in, in!