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, Marcius, that was much. Your hand: most welcome!
Exeunt CORIOLANUS and AUFIDIUS. The two 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’ the world.
First Servingman I think he is: but a greater soldier than he you wot on.
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.
Re-enter third Servingman
Third Servingman O slaves, I can tell you news,– news, you rascals!
First Servingman, Second Servingman What, what, what? let’s partake.
Third Servingman I would not be a Roman, of all nations; I had as
lieve be a condemned man.
First Servingman, Second Servingman Wherefore? wherefore?
Third Servingman Why, here’s he that was wont to thwack our general,
Caius Marcius.
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 Corioli he scotched him and notched
him like a carbon ado.
Second Servingman An he had been cannibally given, he might have
broiled 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’ the 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’ the eye to his discourse. But
the bottom of the news is that our general is cut i’
the 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 the 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 whilst 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 conies after rain, and revel all with
him.
First Servingman But when goes this forward?
Third Servingman To-morrow; to-day; presently; you shall have the
drum struck up this afternoon: ’tis, as it were, a
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 spritely, waking, 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 6
Rome. A public place.
Enter SICINIUS and BRUTUS
SICINIUS We hear not of him, neither need we fear him;
His remedies are tame i’ 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 pestering streets than see
Our tradesmen with 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.
Both Tribunes Hail sir!
MENENIUS Hail to you both!
SICINIUS Your Coriolanus
Is not much miss’d, 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
Citizens The gods preserve you both!
SICINIUS God-den, our neighbours.
BRUTUS God-den to you all, god-den 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 wish’d 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 Marcius was
A worthy officer i’ the 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 enter’d in the Roman territories,
And with the deepest malice of the war
Destroy what lies before ’em.
MENENIUS ‘Tis Aufidius,
Who, hearing of our Marcius’ banishment,
Thrusts forth his horns again into the world;
Which were inshell’d when Marcius stood for Rome,
And durst not once peep out.
SICINIUS Come, what talk you
Of Marcius?
BRUTUS Go see this rumourer whipp’d. 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 have 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 come
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 deliver’d.
SICINIUS What more fearful?
Messenger It is spoke freely out of many mouths–
How probable I do not know–that Marcius,
Join’d 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 Marcius home again.
SICINIUS The very trick on’t.
MENENIUS This is unlikely:
He and Aufidius can no more atone
Than violentest contrariety.
Enter a second Messenger
Second Messenger You are sent for to the senate:
A fearful army, led by Caius Marcius
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