Complete Plays, The (175 page)

Enter Titus Lartius, with his power, from the pursuit

Lartius

O general,
Here is the steed, we the caparison:
Hadst thou beheld —

Marcius

Pray now, no more: my mother,
Who has a charter to extol her blood,
When she does praise me grieves me. I have done
As you have done; that’s what I can; induced
As you have been; that’s for my country:
He that has but effected his good will
Hath overta’en mine act.

Cominius

You shall not be
The grave of your deserving; Rome must know
The value of her own: ’twere a concealment
Worse than a theft, no less than a traducement,
To hide your doings; and to silence that,
Which, to the spire and top of praises vouch’d,
Would seem but modest: therefore, I beseech you
In sign of what you are, not to reward
What you have done — before our army hear me.

Marcius

I have some wounds upon me, and they smart
To hear themselves remember’d.

Cominius

Should they not,
Well might they fester ’gainst ingratitude,
And tent themselves with death. Of all the horses,
Whereof we have ta’en good and good store, of all
The treasure in this field achieved and city,
We render you the tenth, to be ta’en forth,
Before the common distribution, at
Your only choice.

Marcius

 
I thank you, general;
But cannot make my heart consent to take
A bribe to pay my sword: I do refuse it;
And stand upon my common part with those
That have beheld the doing.

A long flourish. They all cry ‘Marcius! Marcius!’ cast up their caps and lances: Cominius and Lartius stand bare

Marcius

May these same instruments, which you profane,
Never sound more! when drums and trumpets shall
I’ the field prove flatterers, let courts and cities be
Made all of false-faced soothing!
When steel grows soft as the parasite’s silk,
Let him be made a coverture for the wars!
No more, I say! For that I have not wash’d
My nose that bled, or foil’d some debile wretch.—
Which, without note, here’s many else have done,—
You shout me forth
In acclamations hyperbolical;
As if I loved my little should be dieted
In praises sauced with lies.

Cominius

Too modest are you;
More cruel to your good report than grateful
To us that give you truly: by your patience,
If ’gainst yourself you be incensed, we’ll put you,
Like one that means his proper harm, in manacles,
Then reason safely with you. Therefore, be it known,
As to us, to all the world, that Caius Marcius
Wears this war’s garland: in token of the which,
My noble steed, known to the camp, I give him,
With all his trim belonging; and from this time,
For what he did before Corioli, call him,
With all the applause and clamour of the host,
Caius Marcius Coriolanus! Bear
The addition nobly ever!

Flourish. Trumpets sound, and drums

All

Caius Marcius Coriolanus!

Coriolanus

I will go wash;
And when my face is fair, you shall perceive
Whether I blush or no: howbeit, I thank you.
I mean to stride your steed, and at all times
To undercrest your good addition
To the fairness of my power.

Cominius

So, to our tent;
Where, ere we do repose us, we will write
To Rome of our success. You, Titus Lartius,
Must to Corioli back: send us to Rome
The best, with whom we may articulate,
For their own good and ours.

Lartius

I shall, my lord.

Coriolanus

The gods begin to mock me. I, that now
Refused most princely gifts, am bound to beg
Of my lord general.

Cominius

Take’t; ’tis yours. What is’t?

Coriolanus

I sometime lay here in Corioli
At a poor man’s house; he used me kindly:
He cried to me; I saw him prisoner;
But then Aufidius was with in my view,
And wrath o’erwhelm’d my pity: I request you
To give my poor host freedom.

Cominius

O, well begg’d!
Were he the butcher of my son, he should
Be free as is the wind. Deliver him, Titus.

Lartius

Marcius, his name?

Coriolanus

 
By Jupiter! forgot.
I am weary; yea, my memory is tired.
Have we no wine here?

Cominius

Go we to our tent:
The blood upon your visage dries; ’tis time
It should be look’d to: come.

Exeunt

S
CENE
X. T
HE
CAMP
OF
THE
V
OLSCES
.

A flourish. Cornets. Enter Tullus Aufidius, bloody, with two or three Soldiers

Aufidius

The town is ta’en!

First Soldier

’Twill be deliver’d back on good condition.

Aufidius

Condition!
I would I were a Roman; for I cannot,
Being a Volsce, be that I am. Condition!
What good condition can a treaty find
I’ the part that is at mercy? Five times, Marcius,
I have fought with thee: so often hast thou beat me,
And wouldst do so, I think, should we encounter
As often as we eat. By the elements,
If e’er again I meet him beard to beard,
He’s mine, or I am his: mine emulation
Hath not that honour in’t it had; for where
I thought to crush him in an equal force,
True sword to sword, I’ll potch at him some way
Or wrath or craft may get him.

First Soldier

He’s the devil.

Aufidius

Bolder, though not so subtle. My valour’s poison’d
With only suffering stain by him; for him
Shall fly out of itself: nor sleep nor sanctuary,
Being naked, sick, nor fane nor Capitol,
The prayers of priests nor times of sacrifice,
Embarquements all of fury, shall lift up
Their rotten privilege and custom ’gainst
My hate to Marcius: where I find him, were it
At home, upon my brother’s guard, even there,
Against the hospitable canon, would I
Wash my fierce hand in’s heart. Go you to the city;
Learn how ’tis held; and what they are that must
Be hostages for Rome.

First Soldier

Will not you go?

Aufidius

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 Soldier

I shall, sir.

Exeunt

A
CT
II

S
CENE
I. R
OME
. A
PUBLIC
PLACE
.

Enter Menenius with the two Tribunes of the people, Sicinius and Brutus.

Menenius

The augurer tells me we shall have news to-night.

Brutus

Good or bad?

Menenius

Not according to the prayer of the people, for they love not Marcius.

Sicinius

Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.

Menenius

Pray you, who does the wolf love?

Sicinius

The lamb.

Menenius

Ay, to devour him; as the hungry plebeians would the noble Marcius.

Brutus

He’s a lamb indeed, that baes 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

Well, sir.

Menenius

In what enormity is Marcius poor in, that you two have not in abundance?

Brutus

He’s poor in no one fault, but stored with all.

Sicinius

Especially in pride.

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’ the right-hand file? do you?

Both

Why, how are we censured?

Menenius

Because you talk of pride now,— will you not be angry?

Both

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 Marcius for being proud?

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 infant-like 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!

Brutus

What then, sir?

Menenius

Why, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting, proud, violent, testy magistrates, alias fools, as any in Rome.

Sicinius

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 can’t 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 you have good faces. If you see this in the map of my microcosm, follows it that I am known well enough too? what barm can your bisson conspectuities glean out of this character, if I be known well enough too?

Brutus

Come, sir, come, we know you well enough.

Menenius

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 orange wife 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.

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 pack- saddle. Yet you must be saying, Marcius is proud; who in a cheap estimation, is worth predecessors since Deucalion, though peradventure some of the best of ’em were hereditary hangmen. God-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.

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?

Volumnia

Honourable Menenius, my boy Marcius approaches; for the love of Juno, let’s go.

Menenius

Ha! Marcius coming home!

Volumnia

Ay, worthy Menenius; and with most prosperous approbation.

Menenius

Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee. Hoo!
Marcius coming home!

Volumnia

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’t.

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 a’ 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 Corioli, 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