Complete Plays, The (179 page)

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 the public weal: obey, I charge thee,
And follow to thine answer.

Coriolanus

Hence, old goat!
Senators, & C We’ll surety him.

Cominius

 
Aged 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 Citizens (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!

Citizens

Down with him! down with him!
Senators, & C Weapons, weapons, weapons!

They all bustle about Coriolanus, crying

‘Tribunes!’ ‘Patricians!’ ‘Citizens!’ ‘What, ho!’
‘Sicinius!’ ‘Brutus!’ ‘Coriolanus!’ ‘Citizens!’
‘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 the people! Coriolanus, patience!
Speak, good Sicinius.

Sicinius

Hear me, people; peace!

Citizens

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 named 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?

Citizens

True,
The people are the city.

Brutus

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

Citizens

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

Sicinius

 
Therefore lay hold of him;
Bear him to the rock Tarpeian, and from thence
Into destruction cast him.

Brutus

Aediles, seize him!

Citizens

Yield, Marcius, yield!

Menenius

Hear me one word;
Beseech you, tribunes, hear me but a word.

Aedile

Peace, peace!

Menenius

[To Brutus]
 
Be that you seem, truly your country’s friend,
And temperately 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

No, I’ll die here.

Drawing his sword

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.

Cominius

Help Marcius, help,
You that be noble; help him, young and old!

Citizens

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 naught else.

Second Senator

Get you gone.

Cominius

Stand fast;
We have as many friends as enemies.

Menenius

Sham 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’ the porch o’ the 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.

Cominius

I could myself
Take up a brace o’ the best of them; yea, the two tribunes:
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 used 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, Cominius, and others

A Patrician

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!

Second Patrician

I would they were abed!

Menenius

I would they were in Tiber! What the vengeance!
Could he not speak ’em fair?

Re-enter Brutus and Sicinius, with the rabble

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.

Citizens

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!

Citizens

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 to-night.

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 dropp’d 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 the end o’ the world.

Sicinius

This is clean kam.

Brutus

Merely awry: when he did love his country,
It honour’d him.

Menenius

 
The service of the foot
Being once gangrened, 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 beloved, 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’ the wars
Since he 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 market-place. 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

S
CENE
II. A
ROOM
IN
C
ORIOLANUS
’
S
HOUSE
.

Enter Coriolanus with Patricians

Coriolanus

Let them puff 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.

A 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 disposed
Ere they lack’d power to cross you.

Coriolanus

Let them hang.

A Patrician

Ay, and burn too.

Enter Menenius and 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 the herd, but that
The violent fit o’ the 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 the 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’ the war do grow together: grant that, and tell me,
In peace what each of them by the 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 peace
With honour, as in war, since that to both
It stands in like request?