Act IVScene V
Antium. A hall in Aufidius’s house
Music plays. Enter a Servingman.
First Servingman
Wine, wine, wine! What service is here? I think our fellows are asleep.
Exit.
Enter another Servingman.
Second Servingman
Where’s Cotus? My master calls for him. Cotus!
Exit.
Enter Coriolanus.
Coriolanus
A goodly house. The feast smells well, but IAppear not like a guest.
Enter the First Servingman.
First Servingman
What would you have, friend? Whence are you? Here’s no place for you. Pray go to the door.
Exit.
Coriolanus
I have deserved no better entertainmentIn being Coriolanus.
Enter Second Servingman.
Second Servingman
Whence are you, sir?—Has the porter his eyes in his head, that he gives entrance to such companions?—Pray, get you out.
Coriolanus
Away!
Second Servingman
Away? Get you away.
Coriolanus
Now th’ art troublesome.
Second Servingman
Are you so brave? I’ll have you talked with anon.
Enter Third Servingman; the First, entering, meets him.
Third Servingman
What fellow’s this?
First Servingman
A strange one as ever I looked on. I cannot get him out o’ th’ house. Prithee call my master to him.
Third Servingman
What have you to do here, fellow? Pray you, avoid the house.
Coriolanus
Let me but stand. I will not hurt your hearth.
Third Servingman
What are you?
Coriolanus
A gentleman.
Third Servingman
A marv’llous poor one.
Coriolanus
True, so I am.
Third Servingman
Pray you, poor gentleman, take up some other station. Here’s no place for you. Pray you, avoid. Come.
Coriolanus
Follow your function, go, and batten on cold bits.
Pushes him away from him.
Third Servingman
What, you will not?—Prithee, tell my master what a strange guest he has here.
Second Servingman
And I shall.
Exit.
Third Servingman
Where dwell’st thou?
Coriolanus
Under the canopy.
Third Servingman
Under the canopy?
Coriolanus
Ay.
Third Servingman
Where’s that?
Coriolanus
I’ th’ city of kites and crows.
Third Servingman
I’ th’ city of kites and crows? What an ass it is! Then thou dwell’st with daws too?
Coriolanus
No, I serve not thy master.
Third Servingman
How, sir? Do you meddle with my master?
Coriolanus
Ay, ’tis an honester service than to meddle with thy mistress. Thou prat’st and prat’st. Serve with thy trencher, hence!
Beats him away.
Exit Third Servingman.
Enter Aufidius with the Second Servingman.
Aufidius
Where is this fellow?
Second Servingman
Here, sir. I’d have beaten him like a dog, but for disturbing the lords within.
Aufidius
Whence com’st thou? What wouldst thou?Thy name? Why speak’st not? Speak, man. What’s thy name?
Coriolanus
Removing his muffler.
If, Tullus,Not yet thou know’st me, and, seeing me, dost notThink me for the man I am, necessityCommands me name myself.
Aufidius
What is thy name?
Coriolanus
A name unmusical to the Volscians’ earsAnd harsh in sound to thine.
Aufidius
Say, what’s thy name?Thou has a grim appearance, and thy faceBears a command in’t. Though thy tackle’s torn,Thou show’st a noble vessel. What’s thy name?
Coriolanus
Prepare thy brow to frown. Know’st thou me yet?
Aufidius
I know thee not. Thy name?
Coriolanus
My name is Caius Martius, who hath doneTo thee particularly and to all the VolscesGreat hurt and mischief; thereto witness mayMy surname Coriolanus. The painful service,The extreme dangers, and the drops of bloodShed for my thankless country are requitedBut with that surname, a good memoryAnd witness of the malice and displeasureWhich thou shouldst bear me. Only that name remains.The cruelty and envy of the people,Permitted by our dastard nobles, whoHave all forsook me, hath devoured the rest,And suffered me by th’ voice of slaves to beWhooped out of Rome. Now this extremityHath brought me to thy hearth, not out of hope—Mistake me not—to save my life; for ifI had feared death, of all the men i’ th’ worldI would have ’voided thee, but in mere spite,To be full quit of those my banishers,Stand I before thee here. Then if thou hastA heart of wreak in thee, that wilt revengeThine own particular wrongs and stop those maimsOf shame seen through thy country, speed thee straightAnd make my misery serve thy turn. So use itThat my revengeful services may proveAs benefits to thee, for I will fightAgainst my cankered country with the spleenOf all the under fiends. But if so beThou dar’st not this, and that to prove more fortunesThou ’rt tired, then, in a word, I also amLonger to live most weary, and presentMy throat to thee and to thy ancient malice,Which not to cut would show thee but a fool,Since I have ever followed thee with hate,Drawn tuns of blood out of thy country’s breast,And cannot live but to thy shame, unlessIt be to do thee service.
Aufidius
O Martius, Martius,Each word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heartA root of ancient envy. If JupiterShould from yond cloud speak divine thingsAnd say ’tis true, I’d not believe them moreThan thee, all-noble Martius. Let me twineMine arms about that body, whereagainstMy grained ash an hundred times hath brokeAnd scarred the moon with splinters. Here I clipThe anvil of my sword and do contestAs hotly and as nobly with thy loveAs ever in ambitious strength I didContend against thy valour. Know thou first,I loved the maid I married; never manSighed truer breath. But that I see thee here,Thou noble thing, more dances my rapt heartThan when I first my wedded mistress sawBestride my threshold. Why, thou Mars, I tell theeWe have a power on foot, and I had purposeOnce more to hew thy target from thy brawnOr lose mine arm for’t. Thou hast beat me outTwelve several times, and I have nightly sinceDreamt of encounters ’twixt thyself and me;We have been down together in my sleep,Unbuckling helms, fisting each other’s throat,And waked half dead with nothing. Worthy Martius,Had we no other quarrel else to Rome but thatThou art thence banished, we would muster allFrom twelve to seventy and, pouring warInto the bowels of ungrateful Rome,Like a bold flood o’erbear ’t. O, come, go in,And take our friendly senators by th’ hands,Who now are here, taking their leaves of me,Who am prepared against your territories,Though not for Rome itself.
Coriolanus
You bless me, gods!
Aufidius
Therefore, most absolute sir, if thou wilt haveThe leading of thine own revenges, takeTh’ one half of my commission and set down—As best thou art experienced, since thou know’stThy country’s strength and weakness—thine own ways,Whether to knock against the gates of Rome,Or rudely visit them in parts remoteTo fright them ere destroy. But come in.Let me commend thee first to those that shallSay yea to thy desires. A thousand welcomes!And more a friend than e’er an enemy—Yet, Martius, that was much. Your hand. Most welcome!
Exeunt Coriolanus and Aufidius.
Two of the Servingmen come forward.
First Servingman
Here’s a strange alteration!
Second Servingman
By my hand, I had thought to have strucken him with a cudgel, and yet my mind gave me his clothes made a false report of him.
First Servingman
What an arm he has! He turned me about with his finger and his thumb as one would set up a top.
Second Servingman
Nay, I knew by his face that there was something in him. He had, sir, a kind of face, methought—I cannot tell how to term it.
First Servingman
He had so, looking as it were—Would I were hanged, but I thought there was more in him than I could think.
Second Servingman
So did I, I’ll be sworn. He is simply the rarest man i’ th’ world.
First Servingman
I think he is. But a greater soldier than he you wot one.
Second Servingman
Who, my master?
First Servingman
Nay, it’s no matter for that.
Second Servingman
Worth six on him.
First Servingman
Nay, not so neither. But I take him to be the greater soldier.
Second Servingman
Faith, look you, one cannot tell how to say that. For the defence of a town our general is excellent.
First Servingman
Ay, and for an assault too.
Enter the Third Servingman.
Third Servingman
O slaves, I can tell you news, news, you rascals!
First and Second Servingman
What, what, what? Let’s partake.
Third Servingman
I would not be a Roman, of all nations; I had as lief be a condemned man.
First and Second Servingman
Wherefore? Wherefore?
Third Servingman
Why, here’s he that was wont to thwack our general, Caius Martius.
First Servingman
Why do you say, “thwack our general”?
Third Servingman
I do not say “thwack our general,” but he was always good enough for him.
Second Servingman
Come, we are fellows and friends. He was ever too hard for him; I have heard him say so himself.
First Servingman
He was too hard for him directly, to say the troth on’t, before Corioles; he scotched him and notched him like a carbonado.
Second Servingman
An he had been cannibally given, he might have boiled and eaten him too.
First Servingman
But, more of thy news?
Third Servingman
Why, he is so made on here within as if he were son and heir to Mars; set at upper end o’ th’ table; no question asked him by any of the senators but they stand bald before him. Our general himself makes a mistress of him, sanctifies himself with’s hand, and turns up the white o’ th’ eye to his discourse. But the bottom of the news is, our general is cut i’ th’ middle and but one half of what he was yesterday, for the other has half, by the entreaty and grant of the whole table. He’ll go, he says, and sowl the porter of Rome gates by th’ ears. He will mow all down before him and leave his passage polled.
Second Servingman
And he’s as like to do’t as any man I can imagine.
Third Servingman
Do’t? He will do’t! For look you, sir, he has as many friends as enemies, which friends, sir, as it were, durst not, look you, sir, show themselves, as we term it, his friends whilest he’s in directitude.
First Servingman
Directitude? What’s that?
Third Servingman
But when they shall see, sir, his crest up again, and the man in blood, they will out of their burrows like coneys after rain, and revel all with him.
First Servingman
But when goes this forward?
Third Servingman
Tomorrow, today, presently. You shall have the drum struck up this afternoon. ’Tis as it were parcel of their feast, and to be executed ere they wipe their lips.
Second Servingman
Why then, we shall have a stirring world again. This peace is nothing but to rust iron, increase tailors, and breed ballad-makers.
First Servingman
Let me have war, say I. It exceeds peace as far as day does night. It’s sprightly walking, audible, and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more bastard children than war’s a destroyer of men.
Second Servingman
’Tis so, and as war in some sort, may be said to be a ravisher, so it cannot be denied but peace is a great maker of cuckolds.
First Servingman
Ay, and it makes men hate one another.
Third Servingman
Reason: because they then less need one another. The wars for my money! I hope to see Romans as cheap as Volscians. They are rising; they are rising.
All
In, in, in, in!
Exeunt.