The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (moboreader .TXT) 📕

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’ th’ 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 th’ public weal. Obey, I charge thee, And follow to thine answer.

CORIOLANUS. Hence, old goat!

PATRICIANS. We’ll surety him.

COMINIUS. Ag’d 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 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.

PLEBEIANS. Down with him! down with him!

SECOND SENATOR. Weapons, weapons, weapons!

[They all bustle about CORIOLANUS]

ALL. Tribunes! patricians! citizens! What, ho! Sicinius!

Brutus! Coriolanus! Citizens!

PATRICIANS. 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 th’ people-Coriolanus, patience!

Speak, good Sicinius.

SICINIUS. Hear me, people; peace!

PLEBEIANS. 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 nam’d 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?

PLEBEIANS. True,

The people are the city.

BRUTUS. By the consent of all we were establish’d The people’s magistrates.

PLEBEIANS. 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’ th’ people, in whose power We were elected theirs: Marcius is worthy Of present death.

SICINIUS. Therefore lay hold of him;

Bear him to th’ rock Tarpeian, and from thence Into destruction cast him.

BRUTUS. AEdiles, seize him.

PLEBEIANS. Yield, Marcius, yield.

MENENIUS. Hear me one word; beseech you, Tribunes, Hear me but a word.

AEDILES. Peace, peace!

MENENIUS. Be that you seem, truly your country’s friend, And temp’rately 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 draws his sword]

CORIOLANUS. No: I’ll die here.

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.

MENENIUS. Help Marcius, help,

You that be noble; help him, young and old.

PLEBEIANS. 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 nought else.

SECOND SENATOR. Get you gone.

CORIOLANUS. Stand fast;

We have as many friends as enemies.

MENENIUS. Shall 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’ th’ porch o’ th’ 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.

MENENIUS. I could myself

Take up a brace o’ th’ best of them; yea, the two tribunes.

COMINIUS. 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 us’d 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 and COMINIUS, with others PATRICIANS. 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!

PATRICIANS. I would they were a-bed.

MENENIUS. I would they were in Tiber.

What the vengeance, could he not speak ‘em fair?

Re-enter BRUTUS and SICINIUS, the rabble again 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.

PLEBEIANS. 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!

PLEBEIANS. 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 tonight.

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 dropt 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 th’ end o’ th’ world.

SICINIUS. This is clean kam.

BRUTUS. Merely awry. When he did love his country, It honour’d him.

SICINIUS. The service of the foot,

Being once gangren’d, 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 belov’d-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’ th’ wars Since ‘a 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 marketplace. 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.

Rome. The house of CORIOLANUS

Enter CORIOLANUS with NOBLES

CORIOLANUS. Let them pull 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.

FIRST 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 dispos’d, Ere they lack’d power to cross you.

CORIOLANUS. Let them hang.

VOLUMNIA. Ay, and burn too.

Enter MENENIUS with the 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 To better vantage.

MENENIUS. Well said, noble woman!

Before he should thus stoop to th’ herd, but that The violent fit o’ th’ time craves it as physic For the whole state, I would put mine armour on, Which I can scarcely bear.

CORIOLANUS. What must I do?

MENENIUS. Return to th’ tribunes.

CORIOLANUS. Well, what then, what then?

MENENIUS. Repent what you have spoke.

CORIOLANUS. For them! I cannot do it to the gods; Must I then do’t to them?

VOLUMNIA. You are too absolute;

Though therein you can never be too noble But when extremities speak. I have heard you say Honour and policy, like unsever’d friends, I’ th’ war do grow together; grant that, and tell me In peace what each of them by th’ other lose That they combine not there.

CORIOLANUS. Tush, tush!

MENENIUS. A good demand.

VOLUMNIA. If it be honour in your wars to seem The same you are not, which for your best ends You adopt your policy, how is it less or worse That it shall hold companionship in