Can thereto frame his spirit.
VOLUMNIA He must, and will
Prithee now, say you will, and go about it.
CORIOLANUS Must I go show them my unbarbed sconce?
Must I with base tongue give my noble heart
A lie that it must bear? Well, I will do’t:
Yet, were there but this single plot to lose,
This mould of Marcius, they to dust should grind it
And throw’t against the wind. To the market-place!
You have put me now to such a part which never
I shall discharge to the life.
COMINIUS Come, come, we’ll prompt you.
VOLUMNIA I prithee now, sweet son, as thou hast said
My praises made thee first a soldier, so,
To have my praise for this, perform a part
Thou hast not done before.
CORIOLANUS Well, I must do’t:
Away, my disposition, and possess me
Some harlot’s spirit! my throat of war be turn’d,
Which quired with my drum, into a pipe
Small as an eunuch, or the virgin voice
That babies lulls asleep! the smiles of knaves
Tent in my cheeks, and schoolboys’ tears take up
The glasses of my sight! a beggar’s tongue
Make motion through my lips, and my arm’d knees,
Who bow’d but in my stirrup, bend like his
That hath received an alms! I will not do’t,
Lest I surcease to honour mine own truth
And by my body’s action teach my mind
A most inherent baseness.
VOLUMNIA At thy choice, then:
To beg of thee, it is my more dishonour
Than thou of them. Come all to ruin; let
Thy mother rather feel thy pride than fear
Thy dangerous stoutness, for I mock at death
With as big heart as thou. Do as thou list
Thy valiantness was mine, thou suck’dst it from me,
But owe thy pride thyself.
CORIOLANUS Pray, be content:
Mother, I am going to the market-place;
Chide me no more. I’ll mountebank their loves,
Cog their hearts from them, and come home beloved
Of all the trades in Rome. Look, I am going:
Commend me to my wife. I’ll return consul;
Or never trust to what my tongue can do
I’ the way of flattery further.
VOLUMNIA Do your will.
Exit
COMINIUS Away! the tribunes do attend you: arm yourself
To answer mildly; for they are prepared
With accusations, as I hear, more strong
Than are upon you yet.
CORIOLANUS The word is ‘mildly.’ Pray you, let us go:
Let them accuse me by invention, I
Will answer in mine honour.
MENENIUS Ay, but mildly.
CORIOLANUS Well, mildly be it then. Mildly!
Exeunt
Scene 3
The same. The Forum.
Enter SICINIUS and BRUTUS
BRUTUS In this point charge him home, that he affects
Tyrannical power: if he evade us there,
Enforce him with his envy to the people,
And that the spoil got on the Antiates
Was ne’er distributed.
Enter an AEdile
What, will he come?
AEdile He’s coming.
BRUTUS How accompanied?
AEdile With old Menenius, and those senators
That always favour’d him.
SICINIUS Have you a catalogue
Of all the voices that we have procured
Set down by the poll?
AEdile I have; ’tis ready.
SICINIUS Have you collected them by tribes?
AEdile I have.
SICINIUS Assemble presently the people hither;
And when they bear me say ‘It shall be so
I’ the right and strength o’ the commons,’ be it either
For death, for fine, or banishment, then let them
If I say fine, cry ‘Fine;’ if death, cry ‘Death.’
Insisting on the old prerogative
And power i’ the truth o’ the cause.
AEdile I shall inform them.
BRUTUS And when such time they have begun to cry,
Let them not cease, but with a din confused
Enforce the present execution
Of what we chance to sentence.
AEdile Very well.
SICINIUS Make them be strong and ready for this hint,
When we shall hap to give ‘t them.
BRUTUS Go about it.
Exit AEdile
Put him to choler straight: he hath been used
Ever to conquer, and to have his worth
Of contradiction: being once chafed, he cannot
Be rein’d again to temperance; then he speaks
What’s in his heart; and that is there which looks
With us to break his neck.
SICINIUS Well, here he comes.
Enter CORIOLANUS, MENENIUS, and COMINIUS, with Senators and Patricians
MENENIUS Calmly, I do beseech you.
CORIOLANUS Ay, as an ostler, that for the poorest piece
Will bear the knave by the volume. The honour’d gods
Keep Rome in safety, and the chairs of justice
Supplied with worthy men! plant love among ‘s!
Throng our large temples with the shows of peace,
And not our streets with war!
First Senator Amen, amen.
MENENIUS A noble wish.
Re-enter AEdile, with Citizens
SICINIUS Draw near, ye people.
AEdile List to your tribunes. Audience: peace, I say!
CORIOLANUS First, hear me speak.
Both Tribunes Well, say. Peace, ho!
CORIOLANUS Shall I be charged no further than this present?
Must all determine here?
SICINIUS I do demand,
If you submit you to the people’s voices,
Allow their officers and are content
To suffer lawful censure for such faults
As shall be proved upon you?
CORIOLANUS I am content.
MENENIUS Lo, citizens, he says he is content:
The warlike service he has done, consider; think
Upon the wounds his body bears, which show
Like graves i’ the holy churchyard.
CORIOLANUS Scratches with briers,
Scars to move laughter only.
MENENIUS Consider further,
That when he speaks not like a citizen,
You find him like a soldier: do not take
His rougher accents for malicious sounds,
But, as I say, such as become a soldier,
Rather than envy you.
COMINIUS Well, well, no more.
CORIOLANUS What is the matter
That being pass’d for consul with full voice,
I am so dishonour’d that the very hour
You take it off again?
SICINIUS Answer to us.
CORIOLANUS Say, then: ’tis true, I ought so.
SICINIUS We charge you, that you have contrived to take
From Rome all season’d office and to wind
Yourself into a power tyrannical;
For which you are a traitor to the people.
CORIOLANUS How! traitor!
MENENIUS Nay, temperately; your promise.
CORIOLANUS The fires i’ the lowest hell fold-in the people!
Call me their traitor! Thou injurious tribune!
Within thine eyes sat twenty thousand deaths,
In thy hand clutch’d as many millions, in
Thy lying tongue both numbers, I would say
‘Thou liest’ unto thee with a voice as free
As I do pray the gods.
SICINIUS Mark you this, people?
Citizens To the rock, to the rock with him!
SICINIUS Peace!
We need not put new matter to his charge:
What you have seen him do and heard him speak,
Beating your officers, cursing yourselves,
Opposing laws with strokes and here defying
Those whose great power must try him; even this,
So criminal and in such capital kind,
Deserves the extremest death.
BRUTUS But since he hath
Served well for Rome,–
CORIOLANUS What do you prate of service?
BRUTUS I talk of that, that know it.
CORIOLANUS You?
MENENIUS Is this the promise that you made your mother?
COMINIUS Know, I pray you,–
CORIOLANUS I know no further:
Let them pronounce the steep Tarpeian death,
Vagabond exile, raying, pent to linger
But with a grain a day, I would not buy
Their mercy at the price of one fair word;
Nor cheque my courage for what they can give,
To have’t with saying ‘Good morrow.’
SICINIUS For that he has,
As much as in him lies, from time to time
Envied against the people, seeking means
To pluck away their power, as now at last
Given hostile strokes, and that not in the presence
Of dreaded justice, but on the ministers
That do distribute it; in the name o’ the people
And in the power of us the tribunes, we,
Even from this instant, banish him our city,
In peril of precipitation
From off the rock Tarpeian never more
To enter our Rome gates: i’ the people’s name,
I say it shall be so.
Citizens It shall be so, it shall be so; let him away:
He’s banish’d, and it shall be so.
COMINIUS Hear me, my masters, and my common friends,–
SICINIUS He’s sentenced; no more hearing.
COMINIUS Let me speak:
I have been consul, and can show for Rome
Her enemies’ marks upon me. I do love
My country’s good with a respect more tender,
More holy and profound, than mine own life,
My dear wife’s estimate, her womb’s increase,
And treasure of my loins; then if I would
Speak that,–
SICINIUS We know your drift: speak what?
BRUTUS There’s no more to be said, but he is banish’d,
As enemy to the people and his country:
It shall be so.
Citizens It shall be so, it shall be so.
CORIOLANUS You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate
As reek o’ the rotten fens, whose loves I prize
As the dead carcasses of unburied men
That do corrupt my air, I banish you;
And here remain with your uncertainty!