your voices,
I have no further with you.’ Was not this mockery?
SICINIUS Why either were you ignorant to see’t,
Or, seeing it, of such childish friendliness
To yield your voices?
BRUTUS Could you not have told him
As you were lesson’d, when he had no power,
But was a petty servant to the state,
He was your enemy, ever spake against
Your liberties and the charters that you bear
I’ the body of the weal; and now, arriving
A place of potency and sway o’ the state,
If he should still malignantly remain
Fast foe to the plebeii, your voices might
Be curses to yourselves? You should have said
That as his worthy deeds did claim no less
Than what he stood for, so his gracious nature
Would think upon you for your voices and
Translate his malice towards you into love,
Standing your friendly lord.
SICINIUS Thus to have said,
As you were fore-advised, had touch’d his spirit
And tried his inclination; from him pluck’d
Either his gracious promise, which you might,
As cause had call’d you up, have held him to
Or else it would have gall’d his surly nature,
Which easily endures not article
Tying him to aught; so putting him to rage,
You should have ta’en the advantage of his choler
And pass’d him unelected.
BRUTUS Did you perceive
He did solicit you in free contempt
When he did need your loves, and do you think
That his contempt shall not be bruising to you,
When he hath power to crush? Why, had your bodies
No heart among you? or had you tongues to cry
Against the rectorship of judgment?
SICINIUS Have you
Ere now denied the asker? and now again
Of him that did not ask, but mock, bestow
Your sued-for tongues?
Third Citizen He’s not confirm’d; we may deny him yet.
Second Citizen And will deny him:
I’ll have five hundred voices of that sound.
First Citizen I twice five hundred and their friends to piece ’em.
BRUTUS Get you hence instantly, and tell those friends,
They have chose a consul that will from them take
Their liberties; make them of no more voice
Than dogs that are as often beat for barking
As therefore kept to do so.
SICINIUS Let them assemble,
And on a safer judgment all revoke
Your ignorant election; enforce his pride,
And his old hate unto you; besides, forget not
With what contempt he wore the humble weed,
How in his suit he scorn’d you; but your loves,
Thinking upon his services, took from you
The apprehension of his present portance,
Which most gibingly, ungravely, he did fashion
After the inveterate hate he bears you.
BRUTUS Lay
A fault on us, your tribunes; that we laboured,
No impediment between, but that you must
Cast your election on him.
SICINIUS Say, you chose him
More after our commandment than as guided
By your own true affections, and that your minds,
Preoccupied with what you rather must do
Than what you should, made you against the grain
To voice him consul: lay the fault on us.
BRUTUS Ay, spare us not. Say we read lectures to you.
How youngly he began to serve his country,
How long continued, and what stock he springs of,
The noble house o’ the Marcians, from whence came
That Ancus Marcius, Numa’s daughter’s son,
Who, after great Hostilius, here was king;
Of the same house Publius and Quintus were,
That our beat water brought by conduits hither;
And [Censorinus,] nobly named so,
Twice being [by the people chosen] censor,
Was his great ancestor.
SICINIUS One thus descended,
That hath beside well in his person wrought
To be set high in place, we did commend
To your remembrances: but you have found,
Scaling his present bearing with his past,
That he’s your fixed enemy, and revoke
Your sudden approbation.
BRUTUS Say, you ne’er had done’t–
Harp on that still–but by our putting on;
And presently, when you have drawn your number,
Repair to the Capitol.
All We will so: almost all
Repent in their election.
Exeunt Citizens
BRUTUS Let them go on;
This mutiny were better put in hazard,
Than stay, past doubt, for greater:
If, as his nature is, he fall in rage
With their refusal, both observe and answer
The vantage of his anger.
SICINIUS To the Capitol, come:
We will be there before the stream o’ the people;
And this shall seem, as partly ’tis, their own,
Which we have goaded onward.
Exeunt
Act 3
Scene 1
Rome. A street.
Cornets. Enter CORIOLANUS, MENENIUS, all the Gentry, COMINIUS, TITUS LARTIUS, and other Senators
CORIOLANUS Tullus Aufidius then had made new head?
LARTIUS He had, my lord; and that it was which caused
Our swifter composition.
CORIOLANUS So then the Volsces stand but as at first,
Ready, when time shall prompt them, to make road.
Upon’s again.
COMINIUS They are worn, lord consul, so,
That we shall hardly in our ages see
Their banners wave again.
CORIOLANUS Saw you Aufidius?
LARTIUS On safe-guard he came to me; and did curse
Against the Volsces, for they had so vilely
Yielded the town: he is retired to Antium.
CORIOLANUS Spoke he of me?
LARTIUS He did, my lord.
CORIOLANUS How? what?
LARTIUS How often he had met you, sword to sword;
That of all things upon the earth he hated
Your person most, that he would pawn his fortunes
To hopeless restitution, so he might
Be call’d your vanquisher.
CORIOLANUS At Antium lives he?
LARTIUS At Antium.
CORIOLANUS I wish I had a cause to seek him there,
To oppose his hatred fully. Welcome home.
Enter SICINIUS and BRUTUS
Behold, these are the tribunes of the people,
The tongues o’ the common mouth: I do despise them;
For they do prank them in authority,
Against all noble sufferance.
SICINIUS Pass no further.
CORIOLANUS Ha! what is that?
BRUTUS It will be dangerous to go on: no further.
CORIOLANUS What makes this change?
MENENIUS The matter?
COMINIUS Hath he not pass’d the noble and the common?
BRUTUS Cominius, no.
CORIOLANUS Have I had children’s voices?
First Senator Tribunes, give way; he shall to the market-place.
BRUTUS The people are incensed against him.
SICINIUS Stop,
Or all will fall in broil.
CORIOLANUS Are these your herd?
Must these have voices, that can yield them now
And straight disclaim their tongues? What are
your offices?
You being their mouths, why rule you not their teeth?
Have you not set them on?
MENENIUS Be calm, be calm.
CORIOLANUS It is a purposed thing, and grows by plot,
To curb the will of the nobility:
Suffer’t, and live with such as cannot rule
Nor ever will be ruled.
BRUTUS Call’t not a plot:
The people cry you mock’d them, and of late,
When corn was given them gratis, you repined;
Scandal’d the suppliants for the people, call’d them
Time-pleasers, flatterers, foes to nobleness.
CORIOLANUS Why, this was known before.
BRUTUS Not to them all.
CORIOLANUS Have you inform’d them sithence?
BRUTUS How! I inform them!
CORIOLANUS You are like to do such business.
BRUTUS Not unlike,
Each way, to better yours.
CORIOLANUS Why then should I be consul? By yond clouds,
Let me deserve so ill as you, and make me
Your fellow tribune.
SICINIUS You show too much of that
For which the people stir: if you will pass
To where you are bound, you must inquire your way,
Which you are out of, with a gentler spirit,
Or never be so noble as a consul,
Nor yoke with him for tribune.
MENENIUS Let’s be calm.
COMINIUS The people are abused; set on. This paltering
Becomes not Rome, nor has Coriolanus
Deserved this so dishonour’d rub, laid falsely
I’ the plain way of his merit.
CORIOLANUS Tell me of corn!
This was my speech, and I will speak’t again–
MENENIUS Not now, not now.
First Senator Not in this heat, sir, now.
CORIOLANUS Now, as I live, I will. My nobler friends,
I crave their pardons:
For the mutable, rank-scented many, let them
Regard me as I do not flatter, and
Therein behold themselves: I say again,
In soothing them, we nourish ‘gainst our senate
The cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition,
Which we ourselves have plough’d for, sow’d,
and scatter’d,
By mingling them with us, the honour’d number,
Who lack not virtue, no, nor power, but that
Which they have given to beggars.
MENENIUS Well, no more.
First Senator No more words, we beseech you.
CORIOLANUS How! no more!
As for my country I have shed my blood,
Not fearing outward force, so shall my lungs
Coin words till their decay against those measles,
Which we disdain should tatter us, yet sought
The very way to catch them.
BRUTUS You speak o’ the people,
As if you were a god to punish, not
A man of their infirmity.
SICINIUS ‘Twere well
We let the people know’t.
MENENIUS What, what? his choler?
CORIOLANUS Choler!
Were I as patient as the midnight sleep,