Part 31

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 not Think me for the man I am, necessity Commands me name myself.

AUFIDIUS. What is thy name?

CORIOLANUS. A name unmusical to the Volscians’ ears And harsh in sound to thine.

AUFIDIUS. Say, what’s thy name? Thou has a grim appearance, and thy face Bears 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 done To thee particularly and to all the Volsces Great hurt and mischief; thereto witness may My surname Coriolanus. The painful service, The extreme dangers, and the drops of blood Shed for my thankless country are requited But with that surname, a good memory And witness of the malice and displeasure Which thou shouldst bear me. Only that name remains. The cruelty and envy of the people, Permitted by our dastard nobles, who Have all forsook me, hath devoured the rest, And suffered me by th’ voice of slaves to be Whooped out of Rome. Now this extremity Hath brought me to thy hearth, not out of hope— Mistake me not—to save my life; for if I had feared death, of all the men i’ th’ world I would have ’voided thee, but in mere spite, To be full quit of those my banishers, Stand I before thee here. Then if thou hast A heart of wreak in thee, that wilt revenge Thine own particular wrongs and stop those maims Of shame seen through thy country, speed thee straight And make my misery serve thy turn. So use it That my revengeful services may prove As benefits to thee, for I will fight Against my cankered country with the spleen Of all the under fiends. But if so be Thou dar’st not this, and that to prove more fortunes Thou ’rt tired, then, in a word, I also am Longer to live most weary, and present My 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, unless It be to do thee service.

AUFIDIUS. O Martius, Martius, Each word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heart A root of ancient envy. If Jupiter Should from yond cloud speak divine things And say ’tis true, I’d not believe them more Than thee, all-noble Martius. Let me twine Mine arms about that body, whereagainst My grained ash an hundred times hath broke And scarred the moon with splinters. Here I clip The anvil of my sword and do contest As hotly and as nobly with thy love As ever in ambitious strength I did Contend against thy valour. Know thou first, I loved the maid I married; never man Sighed truer breath. But that I see thee here, Thou noble thing, more dances my rapt heart Than when I first my wedded mistress saw Bestride my threshold. Why, thou Mars, I tell thee We have a power on foot, and I had purpose Once more to hew thy target from thy brawn Or lose mine arm for’t. Thou hast beat me out Twelve several times, and I have nightly since Dreamt 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 that Thou art thence banished, we would muster all From twelve to seventy and, pouring war Into 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 have The leading of thine own revenges, take Th’ one half of my commission and set down— As best thou art experienced, since thou know’st Thy country’s strength and weakness—thine own ways, Whether to knock against the gates of Rome, Or rudely visit them in parts remote To fright them ere destroy. But come in. Let me commend thee first to those that shall Say 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._]

SCENE VI. Rome. A public place

Enter the two Tribunes. Sicinius and Brutus.

SICINIUS. We hear not of him, neither need we fear him. His remedies are tame—the present peace, And quietness of the people, which before Were in wild hurry. Here do we make his friends Blush that the world goes well, who rather had, Though they themselves did suffer by’t, behold Dissentious numbers pest’ring streets than see Our tradesmen singing in their shops and going About their functions friendly.

BRUTUS. We stood to’t in good time.

Enter Menenius.

Is this Menenius?

SICINIUS. ’Tis he, ’tis he. O, he is grown most kind Of late.—Hail, sir!

MENENIUS. Hail to you both.

SICINIUS. Your Coriolanus is not much missed But with his friends. The commonwealth doth stand, And so would do were he more angry at it.

MENENIUS. All’s well, and might have been much better if He could have temporized.

SICINIUS. Where is he, hear you?

MENENIUS. Nay, I hear nothing; His mother and his wife hear nothing from him.

Enter three or four Citizens.

ALL CITIZENS. The gods preserve you both!

SICINIUS. Good e’en, our neighbours.

BRUTUS. Good e’en to you all, good e’en to you all.

FIRST CITIZEN. Ourselves, our wives, and children, on our knees Are bound to pray for you both.

SICINIUS. Live and thrive!

BRUTUS. Farewell, kind neighbours. We wished Coriolanus Had loved you as we did.

CITIZENS. Now the gods keep you!

BOTH TRIBUNES. Farewell, farewell.

[_Exeunt Citizens._]

SICINIUS. This is a happier and more comely time Than when these fellows ran about the streets Crying confusion.

BRUTUS. Caius Martius was A worthy officer i’ th’ war, but insolent, O’ercome with pride, ambitious, past all thinking Self-loving.

SICINIUS. And affecting one sole throne, without assistance.

MENENIUS. I think not so.

SICINIUS. We should by this, to all our lamentation, If he had gone forth consul, found it so.

BRUTUS. The gods have well prevented it, and Rome Sits safe and still without him.

Enter an Aedile.

AEDILE. Worthy tribunes, There is a slave, whom we have put in prison, Reports the Volsces with two several powers Are entered in the Roman territories, And with the deepest malice of the war Destroy what lies before ’em.

MENENIUS. ’Tis Aufidius, Who, hearing of our Martius’ banishment, Thrusts forth his horns again into the world, Which were inshelled when Martius stood for Rome, And durst not once peep out.

SICINIUS. Come, what talk you of Martius?

BRUTUS. Go see this rumourer whipped. It cannot be The Volsces dare break with us.

MENENIUS. Cannot be? We have record that very well it can, And three examples of the like hath been Within my age. But reason with the fellow Before you punish him, where he heard this, Lest you shall chance to whip your information And beat the messenger who bids beware Of what is to be dreaded.

SICINIUS. Tell not me. I know this cannot be.

BRUTUS. Not possible.

Enter a Messenger.

MESSENGER. The nobles in great earnestness are going All to the Senate House. Some news is coming That turns their countenances.

SICINIUS. ’Tis this slave— Go whip him ’fore the people’s eyes—his raising, Nothing but his report.

MESSENGER. Yes, worthy sir, The slave’s report is seconded, and more, More fearful, is delivered.

SICINIUS. What more fearful?

MESSENGER. It is spoke freely out of many mouths— How probable I do not know—that Martius, Joined with Aufidius, leads a power ’gainst Rome And vows revenge as spacious as between The young’st and oldest thing.

SICINIUS. This is most likely!

BRUTUS. Raised only that the weaker sort may wish Good Martius home again.

SICINIUS. The very trick on ’t.

MENENIUS. This is unlikely; He and Aufidius can no more atone Than violent’st contrariety.

Enter a Second Messenger.

SECOND MESSENGER. You are sent for to the Senate. A fearful army, led by Caius Martius Associated with Aufidius, rages Upon our territories, and have already O’erborne their way, consumed with fire and took What lay before them.

Enter Cominius.

COMINIUS. O, you have made good work!

MENENIUS. What news? What news?

COMINIUS. You have holp to ravish your own daughters and To melt the city leads upon your pates, To see your wives dishonoured to your noses—

MENENIUS. What’s the news? What’s the news?

COMINIUS. Your temples burned in their cement, and Your franchises, whereon you stood, confined Into an auger’s bore.

MENENIUS. Pray now, your news?— You have made fair work, I fear me.—Pray, your news? If Martius should be joined with Volscians—

COMINIUS. If? He is their god; he leads them like a thing Made by some other deity than Nature, That shapes man better; and they follow him Against us brats with no less confidence Than boys pursuing summer butterflies Or butchers killing flies.

MENENIUS. You have made good work, You and your apron-men, you that stood so much Upon the voice of occupation and The breath of garlic eaters!

COMINIUS. He’ll shake your Rome about your ears.

MENENIUS. As Hercules did shake down mellow fruit. You have made fair work.

BRUTUS. But is this true, sir?

COMINIUS. Ay, and you’ll look pale Before you find it other. All the regions Do smilingly revolt, and who resists Are mocked for valiant ignorance And perish constant fools. Who is’t can blame him? Your enemies and his find something in him.

MENENIUS. We are all undone unless The noble man have mercy.

COMINIUS. Who shall ask it? The Tribunes cannot do’t for shame; the people Deserve such pity of him as the wolf Does of the shepherds. For his best friends, if they Should say “Be good to Rome,” they charged him even As those should do that had deserved his hate And therein showed like enemies.

MENENIUS. ’Tis true. If he were putting to my house the brand That should consume it, I have not the face To say “Beseech you, cease.”—You have made fair hands, You and your crafts! You have crafted fair!

COMINIUS. You have brought A trembling upon Rome such as was never S’ incapable of help.

TRIBUNES. Say not we brought it.

MENENIUS. How? Was it we? We loved him, but like beasts And cowardly nobles, gave way unto your clusters, Who did hoot him out o’ th’ city.

COMINIUS. But I fear They’ll roar him in again. Tullus Aufidius, The second name of men, obeys his points As if he were his officer. Desperation Is all the policy, strength, and defence That Rome can make against them.

Enter a troop of Citizens.

MENENIUS. Here comes the clusters.— And is Aufidius with him? You are they That made the air unwholesome when you cast Your stinking, greasy caps in hooting at Coriolanus’ exile. Now he’s coming, And not a hair upon a soldier’s head Which will not prove a whip. As many coxcombs As you threw caps up will he tumble down And pay you for your voices. ’Tis no matter. If he could burn us all into one coal We have deserved it.

ALL CITIZENS. Faith, we hear fearful news.

FIRST CITIZEN. For mine own part, When I said banish him, I said ’twas pity.

SECOND CITIZEN. And so did I.

THIRD CITIZEN. And so did I. And, to say the truth, so did very many of us. That we did we did for the best; and though we willingly consented to his banishment, yet it was against our will.

COMINIUS. You are goodly things, you voices!

MENENIUS. You have made good work, you and your cry!— Shall’s to the Capitol?

COMINIUS. O, ay, what else?

[_Exeunt Cominius and Menenius._]

SICINIUS. Go, masters, get you home. Be not dismayed. These are a side that would be glad to have This true which they so seem to fear. Go home, And show no sign of fear.

FIRST CITIZEN. The gods be good to us! Come, masters, let’s home. I ever said we were i’ th’ wrong when we banished him.

SECOND CITIZEN. So did we all. But, come, let’s home.

[_Exeunt Citizens._]

BRUTUS. I do not like this news.

SICINIUS. Nor I.

BRUTUS. Let’s to the Capitol. Would half my wealth Would buy this for a lie!

SICINIUS. Pray let’s go.

[_Exeunt._]

SCENE VII. A camp at a short distance from Rome

Enter Aufidius with his Lieutenant.

AUFIDIUS. Do they still fly to th’ Roman?

LIEUTENANT. I do not know what witchcraft’s in him, but Your soldiers use him as the grace ’fore meat, Their talk at table, and their thanks at end; And you are dark’ned in this action, sir, Even by your own.

AUFIDIUS. I cannot help it now, Unless by using means I lame the foot Of our design. He bears himself more proudlier, Even to my person, than I thought he would When first I did embrace him. Yet his nature In that’s no changeling, and I must excuse What cannot be amended.

LIEUTENANT. Yet I wish, sir— I mean for your particular—you had not Joined in commission with him, but either Had borne the action of yourself or else To him had left it solely.

AUFIDIUS. I understand thee well, and be thou sure, When he shall come to his account, he knows not What I can urge against him, although it seems, And so he thinks and is no less apparent To th’ vulgar eye, that he bears all things fairly, And shows good husbandry for the Volscian state, Fights dragonlike, and does achieve as soon As draw his sword; yet he hath left undone That which shall break his neck or hazard mine Whene’er we come to our account.

LIEUTENANT. Sir, I beseech you, think you he’ll carry Rome?

AUFIDIUS. All places yield to him ere he sits down, And the nobility of Rome are his; The Senators and Patricians love him too. The Tribunes are no soldiers, and their people Will be as rash in the repeal as hasty To expel him thence. I think he’ll be to Rome As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it By sovereignty of nature. First, he was A noble servant to them, but he could not Carry his honours even. Whether ’twas pride, Which out of daily fortune ever taints The happy man; whether defect of judgment, To fail in the disposing of those chances Which he was lord of; or whether nature, Not to be other than one thing, not moving From th’ casque to th’ cushion, but commanding peace Even with the same austerity and garb As he controlled the war; but one of these— As he hath spices of them all—not all, For I dare so far free him—made him feared, So hated, and so banished. But he has a merit To choke it in the utt’rance. So our virtues Lie in th’ interpretation of the time, And power, unto itself most commendable, Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair T’ extol what it hath done. One fire drives out one fire, one nail one nail; Rights by rights falter; strengths by strengths do fail. Come, let’s away. When, Caius, Rome is thine, Thou art poor’st of all; then shortly art thou mine.

[_Exeunt._]

ACT V

SCENE I. Rome. A public place

Enter Menenius, Cominius, Sicinius, Brutus (the two Tribunes), with others.

MENENIUS. No, I’ll not go. You hear what he hath said Which was sometime his general, who loved him In a most dear particular. He called me father, But what o’ that? Go you that banished him; A mile before his tent, fall down, and knee The way into his mercy. Nay, if he coyed To hear Cominius speak, I’ll keep at home.

COMINIUS. He would not seem to know me.

MENENIUS. Do you hear?

COMINIUS. Yet one time he did call me by my name. I urged our old acquaintance, and the drops That we have bled together. “Coriolanus” He would not answer to, forbade all names. He was a kind of nothing, titleless, Till he had forged himself a name i’ th’ fire Of burning Rome.

MENENIUS. Why, so; you have made good work! A pair of tribunes that have wracked Rome To make coals cheap! A noble memory!

COMINIUS. I minded him how royal ’twas to pardon When it was less expected. He replied It was a bare petition of a state To one whom they had punished.

MENENIUS. Very well. Could he say less?

COMINIUS. I offered to awaken his regard For’s private friends. His answer to me was He could not stay to pick them in a pile Of noisome musty chaff. He said ’twas folly For one poor grain or two to leave unburnt And still to nose th’ offence.

MENENIUS. For one poor grain or two! I am one of those! His mother, wife, his child, And this brave fellow too, we are the grains; You are the musty chaff, and you are smelt Above the moon. We must be burnt for you.

SICINIUS. Nay, pray, be patient. If you refuse your aid In this so-never-needed help, yet do not Upbraid’s with our distress. But sure, if you Would be your country’s pleader, your good tongue, More than the instant army we can make, Might stop our countryman.

MENENIUS. No, I’ll not meddle.

SICINIUS. Pray you, go to him.

MENENIUS. What should I do?

BRUTUS. Only make trial what your love can do For Rome, towards Martius.

MENENIUS. Well, and say that Martius Return me, as Cominius is returned, unheard, What then? But as a discontented friend, Grief-shot with his unkindness? Say’t be so?

SICINIUS. Yet your good will Must have that thanks from Rome after the measure As you intended well.

MENENIUS. I’ll undertake’t. I think he’ll hear me. Yet to bite his lip And hum at good Cominius much unhearts me. He was not taken well; he had not dined. The veins unfilled, our blood is cold, and then We pout upon the morning, are unapt To give or to forgive; but when we have stuffed These pipes and these conveyances of our blood With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls Than in our priestlike fasts. Therefore I’ll watch him Till he be dieted to my request, And then I’ll set upon him.

BRUTUS. You know the very road into his kindness And cannot lose your way.

MENENIUS. Good faith, I’ll prove him, Speed how it will. I shall ere long have knowledge Of my success.

[_Exit._]

COMINIUS. He’ll never hear him.

SICINIUS. Not?