Complete Plays, The (176 page)

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, wow.

Menenius

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?

Volumnia

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.

Menenius

One i’ the neck, and two i’ the 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

Hark! the trumpets.

Volumnia

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 advanced, declines, and then men die.

A sennet. Trumpets sound. Enter Cominius the general, and Titus Lartius; between them, Coriolanus, crowned with an oaken garland; with Captains and Soldiers, and a Herald

Herald

Know, Rome, that all alone Marcius did fight
Within Corioli gates: where he hath won,
With fame, a name to Caius Marcius; these
In honour follows Coriolanus.
Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!

Flourish

All

Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!

Coriolanus

No more of this; it does offend my heart:
Pray now, no more.

Cominius

 
Look, sir, your mother!

Coriolanus

O,
You have, I know, petition’d all the gods
For my prosperity!

Kneels

Volumnia

 
Nay, my good soldier, up;
My gentle Marcius, worthy Caius, and
By deed-achieving honour newly named,—
What is it?— Coriolanus must I call thee?—
But O, thy wife!

Coriolanus

 
My gracious silence, hail!
Wouldst thou have laugh’d had I come coffin’d home,
That weep’st to see me triumph? Ay, my dear,
Such eyes the widows in Corioli wear,
And mothers that lack sons.

Menenius

Now, the gods crown thee!

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 ye’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.

Coriolanus

Menenius ever, ever.

Herald

Give way there, and go on!

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.

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. Cornets. Exeunt in state, as before. Brutus and Sicinius come forward

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,
Clambering the walls to eye him: stalls, bulks, windows,
Are smother’d up, leads fill’d, 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: or 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.

Sicinius

On the sudden,
I warrant him consul.

Brutus

Then our office may,
During his power, go sleep.

Sicinius

He cannot temperately transport his honours
From where he should begin and end, but will
Lose those he hath won.

Brutus

In that there’s comfort.

Sicinius

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 I as little question
As he is proud to do’t.

Brutus

I heard him swear,
Were he to stand for consul, never would he
Appear i’ the market-place nor on him put
The napless vesture of humility;
Nor showing, as the manner is, his wounds
To the people, beg their stinking breaths.

Sicinius

’Tis right.

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

I wish no better
Than have him hold that purpose and to put it
In execution.

Brutus

’Tis most like he will.

Sicinius

It shall be to him then as our good wills,
A sure destruction.

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 the war, who have their provand
Only for bearing burdens, and sore blows
For sinking under them.

Sicinius

This, as you say, suggested
At some time when his soaring insolence
Shall touch the people — which time shall not want,
If he 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

Brutus

What’s the matter?

Messenger

You are sent for to the Capitol. ’Tis thought
That Marcius shall be consul:
I have seen the dumb men throng to see him and
The blind to bear him speak: matrons flung gloves,
Ladies and maids their scarfs and handkerchers,
Upon him as he pass’d: 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.

Brutus

Let’s to the Capitol;
And carry with us ears and eyes for the time,
But hearts for the event.

Sicinius

Have with you.

Exeunt

S
CENE
II. T
HE
SAME
. T
HE
C
APITOL
.

Enter two Officers, to lay cushions

First Officer

Come, come, they are almost here. How many stand for consulships?

Second Officer

Three, they say: but ’tis thought of every one
Coriolanus will carry it.

First Officer

That’s a brave fellow; but he’s vengeance proud, and loves not the common people.

Second Officer

Faith, there had 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.

First Officer

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 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 Officer

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 an 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 Officer

No more of him; he is a worthy man: make way, they are coming.

A sennet. Enter, with actors before them, Cominius the consul, Menenius, Coriolanus, Senators, Sicinius and Brutus. The Senators take their places; the Tribunes take their Places by themselves. Coriolanus stands

Menenius

Having determined 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
The present consul, and last general
In our well-found successes, to report
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 Senator

Speak, good Cominius:
Leave nothing out for length, and make us think
Rather our state’s defective for requital
Than we to stretch it out.

To the Tribunes

Masters o’ the people,
We do request your kindest ears, and after,
Your loving motion toward the common body,
To yield what passes here.

Sicinius

We are convented
Upon a pleasing treaty, and have hearts
Inclinable to honour and advance
The theme of our assembly.

Brutus

Which the rather
We shall be blest to do, if he remember
A kinder value of the people than
He hath hereto prized them at.

Menenius

That’s off, that’s off;
I would you rather had been silent. Please you
To hear Cominius speak?

Brutus

Most willingly;
But yet my caution was more pertinent
Than the rebuke you give it.

Menenius

He loves your people
But tie him not to be their bedfellow.
Worthy Cominius, speak.

Coriolanus offers to go away

Nay, keep your place.

First Senator

Sit, Coriolanus; never shame to hear
What you have nobly done.

Coriolanus

Your horror’s pardon:
I had rather have my wounds to heal again
Than hear say how I got them.

Brutus

Sir, I hope
My words disbench’d you not.

Coriolanus

No, sir: yet oft,
When blows have made me stay, I fled from words.
You soothed not, therefore hurt not: but your people,
I love them as they weigh.

Menenius

Pray now, sit down.

Coriolanus

I had rather have one scratch my head i’ the sun
When the alarum were struck than idly sit
To hear my nothings monster’d.

Exit

Menenius

Masters of 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
Than one on’s ears to hear it? Proceed, Cominius.

Cominius

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 counterpoised. 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,
When with his Amazonian chin he drove
The bristled lips before him: be 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,
He proved best man i’ the field, and for his meed
Was brow-bound with the oak. His pupil age
Man-enter’d thus, he waxed like a sea,
And in the brunt of seventeen battles since
He lurch’d all swords of 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 weeds 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
Was timed with dying cries: alone he enter’d
The mortal gate of 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
Re-quicken’d what in flesh was fatigate,
And to the battle came he; where he did
Run reeking 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.