Act IIScene I
Rome. A public place
Enter Menenius with the two Tribunes of the people, Sicinius and Brutus.
Menenius
The augurer tells me we shall have news tonight.
Brutus
Good or bad?
Menenius
Not according to the prayer of the people, for they love not Martius.
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 Martius.
Brutus
He’s a lamb indeed, that baas 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 Tribunes
Well, sir.
Menenius
In what enormity is Martius 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’ th’ right-hand file, do you?
Both Tribunes
Why, how are we censured?
Menenius
Because you talk of pride now, will you not be angry?
Both Tribunes
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 Martius 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 infantlike 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!
Both Tribunes
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 cannot 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 have good faces. If you see this in the map of my microcosm, follows it that I am known well enough too? What harm 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 anything. 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 faucet-seller, and then rejourn the controversy of threepence 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 packsaddle. Yet you must be saying Martius is proud, who, in a cheap estimation, is worth all your predecessors since Deucalion, though peradventure some of the best of ’em were hereditary hangmen. Good e’en 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.
He begins to exit. Brutus and Sicinius stand 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 Martius approaches. For the love of Juno, let’s go!
Menenius
Ha? Martius coming home?
Volumnia
Ay, worthy Menenius, and with most prosperous approbation.
Menenius
Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee! Hoo! Martius coming home?
Valeria, 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 it.
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 he 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 Corioles 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.
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, waw!
Menenius
True? I’ll be sworn they are true. Where is he wounded?
To the Tribunes.
God save your good Worships! Martius is coming home; he has more cause to be proud.—Where is he wounded?
Volumnia
I’ th’ shoulder and i’ th’ 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’ th’ body.
Menenius
One i’ th’ neck and two i’ th’ 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 Martius: 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.
Enter Cominius the General and Titus Lartius, between them Coriolanus crowned with an oaken garland, with Captains and Soldiers and a Herald. Trumpets sound.
Herald
Know, Rome, that all alone Martius did fightWithin Corioles’ gates, where he hath won,With fame, a name to Caius Martius; theseIn honour follows “Coriolanus.”Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus.
Sound 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, petitioned all the godsFor my prosperity.
Kneels.
Volumnia
Nay, my good soldier, up.
He stands.
My gentle Martius, worthy Caius, andBy 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 laughed had I come coffined home,That weep’st to see me triumph? Ah, my dear,Such eyes the widows in Corioles wearAnd 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 you’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 heartThat is not glad to see thee! You are threeThat Rome should dote on; yet, by the faith of men,We have some old crab trees here at home that will notBe grafted to your relish. Yet welcome, warriors!We call a nettle but a nettle, andThe 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 livedTo see inherited my very wishesAnd the buildings of my fancy. OnlyThere’s one thing wanting, which I doubt not butOur Rome will cast upon thee.
Coriolanus
Know, good mother,I had rather be their servant in my wayThan sway with them in theirs.
Cominius
On, to the Capitol.
Flourish of cornets. Exeunt in state, as before.
Brutus and Sicinius come forward.
Brutus
All tongues speak of him, and the bleared sightsAre spectacled to see him. Your prattling nurseInto a rapture lets her baby cryWhile she chats him. The kitchen malkin pinsHer richest lockram ’bout her reechy neck,Clamb’ring the walls to eye him. Stalls, bulks, windowsAre smothered up, leads filled, and ridges horsedWith variable complexions, all agreeingIn earnestness to see him. Seld-shown flamensDo press among the popular throngs and puffTo win a vulgar station. Our veiled damesCommit the war of white and damask inTheir nicely-gauded cheeks to th’ wanton spoilOf Phoebus’ burning kisses. Such a pother,As if that whatsoever god who leads himWere slyly crept into his human powersAnd gave him graceful posture.
Sicinius
On the suddenI warrant him consul.
Brutus
Then our office may,During his power, go sleep.
Sicinius
He cannot temp’rately transport his honoursFrom where he should begin and end, but willLose 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 forgetWith the least cause these his new honours—whichThat he will give them make as little questionAs he is proud to do’t.
Brutus
I heard him swear,Were he to stand for consul, never would heAppear i’ th’ marketplace nor on him putThe napless vesture of humility,Nor showing, as the manner is, his woundsTo th’ people, beg their stinking breaths.
Sicinius
’Tis right.
Brutus
It was his word. O, he would miss it ratherThan carry it but by the suit of the gentry to himAnd the desire of the nobles.
Sicinius
I wish no betterThan have him hold that purpose and to put itIn 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 outTo him, or our authorities for an end.We must suggest the people in what hatredHe still hath held them; that to’s power he wouldHave made them mules, silenced their pleaders, andDispropertied their freedoms; holding themIn human action and capacityOf no more soul nor fitness for the worldThan camels in their war, who have their provandOnly for bearing burdens, and sore blowsFor sinking under them.
Sicinius
This, as you say, suggestedAt some time when his soaring insolenceShall touch the people—which time shall not wantIf it be put upon’t, and that’s as easyAs to set dogs on sheep—will be his fireTo kindle their dry stubble, and their blazeShall darken him for ever.
Enter a Messenger.
Brutus
What’s the matter?
Messenger
You are sent for to the Capitol. ’Tis thoughtThat Martius shall be consul. I have seenThe dumb men throng to see him, and the blindto hear him speak; matrons flung gloves,Ladies and maids their scarves and handkerchiefs,Upon him as he passed; the nobles bendedAs to Jove’s statue, and the Commons madeA 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 th’ time,But hearts for the event.
Sicinius
Have with you.
Exeunt.