ACT II - Scene I Coriolanus

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Rome. A public place.

	Enter Menenius* with the two Tribunes of the people, Sicinius and Brutus.*
Menenius	The augurer tells me we shall have news to-night.
Brutus	Good or bad?
Menenius	Not according to the prayer of the people, for they love not Marcius.
Sicinius	Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.
Menenius	Pray you, who does the wolf love?
Sicinius	The lamb.
Menenius	Ay, to devour him; as the hungry plebeians would the noble Marcius.
Brutus	He’s a lamb indeed, that baes like a bear.
Menenius	He’s a bear indeed, that lives like a lamb. You two are old men: tell me one thing that I shall ask you.
Both	Well, sir.
Menenius	In what enormity is Marcius poor in, that you two have not in abundance?
Brutus	He’s poor in no one fault, but stored with all.
Sicinius	Especially in pride.
Brutus	And topping all others in boasting.
Menenius	This is strange now: do you two know how you are censured here in the city, I mean of us o’ the right-hand file? do you?
Both	Why, how are we censured?
Menenius	Because you talk of pride now⁠—will you not be angry?
Both	Well, well, sir, well.
Menenius	Why, ’tis no great matter; for a very little thief of occasion will rob you of a great deal of patience: give your dispositions the reins, and be angry at your pleasures; at the least, if you take it as a pleasure to you in being so. You blame Marcius for being proud?
Brutus	We do it not alone, sir.
Menenius	I know you can do very little alone; for your helps are many, or else your actions would grow wondrous single: your abilities are too infant-like for doing much alone. You talk of pride: O that you could turn your eyes toward the napes of your necks, and make but an interior survey of your good selves! O that you could!
Brutus	What then, sir?
Menenius	Why, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting, proud, violent, testy magistrates, alias fools, as any in Rome.
Sicinius	Menenius, you are known well enough too.
Menenius	I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in’t; said to be something imperfect in favouring the first complaint; hasty and tinder-like upon too trivial motion; one that converses more with the buttock of the night than with the forehead of the morning: what I think I utter, and spend my malice in my breath. Meeting two such wealsmen as you are⁠—I cannot call you Lycurguses⁠—if the drink you give me touch my palate adversely, I make a crooked face at it. I can’t say your worships have delivered the matter well, when I find the ass in compound with the major part of your syllables: and though I must be content to bear with those that say you are reverend grave men, yet they lie deadly that tell you you have good faces. If you see this in the map of my microcosm, follows it that I am known well enough too? what harm can your bisson conspectuities glean out of this character, if I be known well enough too?
Brutus	Come, sir, come, we know you well enough.
Menenius	You know neither me, yourselves nor any thing. You are ambitious for poor knaves’ caps and legs: you wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orange-wife and a fosset-seller; and then rejourn the controversy of three pence to a second day of audience. When you are hearing a matter between party and party, if you chance to be pinched with the colic, you make faces like mummers; set up the bloody flag against all patience; and, in roaring for a chamber-pot, dismiss the controversy bleeding, the more entangled by your hearing: all the peace you make in their cause is, calling both the parties knaves. You are a pair of strange ones.
Brutus	Come, come, you are well understood to be a perfecter giber for the table than a necessary bencher in the Capitol.
Menenius	Our very priests must become mockers, if they shall encounter such ridiculous subjects as you are. When you speak best unto the purpose, it is not worth the wagging of your beards; and your beards deserve not so honourable a grave as to stuff a botcher’s cushion, or to be entombed in an ass’s pack-saddle. Yet you must be saying, Marcius is proud; who, in a cheap estimation, is worth predecessors since Deucalion, though peradventure some of the best of ’em were hereditary hangmen. God-den to your worships: more of your conversation would infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly plebeians: I will be bold to take my leave of you. Brutus and Sicinius go aside.
	Enter Volumnia, Virgilia, and Valeria.
	How now, my as fair as noble ladies⁠—and the moon, were she earthly, no nobler⁠—whither do you follow your eyes so fast?
Volumnia	Honourable Menenius, my boy Marcius approaches; for the love of Juno, let’s go.
Menenius	Ha! Marcius coming home!
Volumnia	Ay, worthy Menenius; and with most prosperous approbation.
Menenius	Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee. Hoo! Marcius coming home!
Volumnia Virgilia	Nay, ’tis true.
Volumnia	Look, here’s a letter from him: the state hath another, his wife another; and, I think, there’s one at home for you.
Menenius	I will make my very house reel to-night: a letter for me!
Virgilia	Yes, certain, there’s a letter for you; I saw’t.
Menenius	A letter for me! it gives me an estate of seven years’ health; in which time I will make a lip at the physician: the most sovereign prescription in Galen is but empiricutic, and, to this preservative, of no better report than a horse-drench. Is he not wounded? he was wont to come home wounded.
Virgilia	O, no, no, no.
Volumnia	O, he is wounded; I thank the gods for’t.
Menenius	So do I too, if it be not too much: brings a’ victory in his pocket? the wounds become him.
Volumnia	On’s brows: Menenius, he comes the third time home with the oaken garland.
Menenius	Has he disciplined Aufidius soundly?
Volumnia	Titus Lartius writes, they fought together, but Aufidius got off.
Menenius	And ’twas time for him too, I’ll warrant him that: an he had stayed by him, I would not have been so fidiused for all the chests in Corioli, and the gold that’s in them. Is the senate possessed of this?
Volumnia	Good ladies, let’s go. Yes, yes, yes; the senate has letters from the general, wherein he gives my son the whole name of the war: he hath in this action outdone his former deeds doubly
Valeria	In troth, there’s wondrous things spoke of him.
Menenius	Wondrous! ay, I warrant you, and not without his true purchasing.
Virgilia	The gods grant them true!
Volumnia	True! pow, wow.
Menenius	True! I’ll be sworn they are true. Where is he wounded? To the Tribunes. God save your good worships! Marcius is coming home: he has more cause to be proud. Where is he wounded?
Volumnia	I’ the shoulder and i’ the left arm: there will be large cicatrices to show the people, when he shall stand for his place. He received in the repulse of Tarquin seven hurts i’ the body.
Menenius	One i’ the neck, and two i’ the thigh⁠—there’s nine that I know.
Volumnia	He had, before this last expedition, twenty-five wounds upon him.
Menenius	Now it’s twenty-seven: every gash was an enemy’s grave. A shout and flourish. Hark! the trumpets.
Volumnia	These are the ushers of Marcius: before him he carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears: Death, that dark spirit, in’s nervy arm doth lie; Which, being advanced, declines, and then men die.
	A sennet. Trumpets sound. Enter Cominius* the general, and Titus Lartius; between them, Coriolanus, crowned with an oaken garland; with Captains and Soldiers, and a Herald.*
Herald	Know, Rome, that all alone Marcius did fight Within Corioli gates: where he hath won, With fame, a name to Caius Marcius; these In honour follows Coriolanus. Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus! Flourish.
All	Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!
Coriolanus	No more of this; it does offend my heart: Pray now, no more.
Cominius	Look, sir, your mother!
Coriolanus	O, You have, I know, petition’d all the gods For my prosperity! Kneels.
Volumnia	Nay, my good soldier, up; My gentle Marcius, worthy Caius, and By deed-achieving honour newly named⁠— What is it?⁠—Coriolanus must I call thee?⁠— But O, thy wife!
Coriolanus	My gracious silence, hail! Wouldst thou have laugh’d had I come coffin’d home, That weep’st to see me triumph? Ay, my dear, Such eyes the widows in Corioli wear, And mothers that lack sons.
Menenius	Now, the gods crown thee!
Coriolanus	And live you yet? To Valeria. O my sweet lady, pardon.
Volumnia	I know not where to turn: O, welcome home: And welcome, general: and ye’re welcome all.
Menenius	A hundred thousand welcomes. I could weep And I could laugh, I am light and heavy. Welcome. A curse begin at very root on’s heart, That is not glad to see thee! You are three That Rome should dote on: yet, by the faith of men, We have some old crab-trees here at home that will not Be grafted to your relish. Yet welcome, warriors: We call a nettle but a nettle and The faults of fools but folly.
Cominius	Ever right.
Coriolanus	Menenius ever, ever.
Herald	Give way there, and go on!
Coriolanus	To Volumnia* and Virgilia.* Your hand, and yours: Ere in our own house I do shade my head, The good patricians must be visited; From whom I have received not only greetings, But with them change of honours.
Volumnia	I have lived To see inherited my very wishes And the buildings of my fancy: only There’s one thing wanting, which I doubt not but Our Rome will cast upon thee.
Coriolanus	Know, good mother, I had rather be their servant in my way Than sway with them in theirs.
Cominius	On, to the Capitol! Flourish. Cornets. Exeunt in state, as before. Brutus* and Sicinius come forward.*
Brutus	All tongues speak of him, and the bleared sights Are spectacled to see him: your prattling nurse Into a rapture lets her baby cry While she chats him: the kitchen malkin pins Her richest lockram ’bout her reechy neck, Clambering the walls to eye him: stalls, bulks, windows, Are smother’d up, leads fill’d, and ridges horsed With variable complexions, all agreeing In earnestness to see him: seld-shown flamens Do press among the popular throngs and puff To win a vulgar station: or veil’d dames Commit the war of white and damask in Their nicely-gawded cheeks to the wanton spoil Of Phoebus’ burning kisses: such a pother As if that whatsoever god who leads him Were slily crept into his human powers And gave him graceful posture.
Sicinius	On the sudden, I warrant him consul.
Brutus	Then our office may, During his power, go sleep.
Sicinius	He cannot temperately transport his honours From where he should begin and end, but will Lose those he hath won.
Brutus	In that there’s comfort.
Sicinius	Doubt not The commoners, for whom we stand, but they Upon their ancient malice will forget With the least cause these his new honours, which That he will give them make I as little question As he is proud to do’t.
Brutus	I heard him swear, Were he to stand for consul, never would he Appear i’ the market-place nor on him put The napless vesture of humility; Nor, showing, as the manner is, his wounds To the people, beg their stinking breaths.
Sicinius	’Tis right.
Brutus	It was his word: O, he would miss it rather Than carry it but by the suit of the gentry to him And the desire of the nobles.
Sicinius	I wish no better Than have him hold that purpose and to put it In execution.
Brutus	’Tis most like he will.
Sicinius	It shall be to him then as our good wills, A sure destruction.
Brutus	So it must fall out To him or our authorities. For an end, We must suggest the people in what hatred He still hath held them; that to’s power he would Have made them mules, silenced their pleaders and Dispropertied their freedoms, holding them, In human action and capacity, Of no more soul nor fitness for the world Than camels in the war, who have their provand Only for bearing burdens, and sore blows For sinking under them.
Sicinius	This, as you say, suggested At some time when his soaring insolence Shall touch the people⁠—which time shall not want, If he be put upon’t; and that’s as easy As to set dogs on sheep⁠—will be his fire To kindle their dry stubble; and their blaze Shall darken him for ever.
	Enter a Messenger.
Brutus	What’s the matter?
Messenger	You are sent for to the Capitol. ’Tis thought That Marcius shall be consul: I have seen the dumb men throng to see him and The blind to bear him speak: matrons flung gloves, Ladies and maids their scarfs and hand kerchers, Upon him as he pass’d: the nobles bended, As to Jove’s statue, and the commons made A shower and thunder with their caps and shouts: I never saw the like.
Brutus	Let’s to the Capitol; And carry with us ears and eyes for the time, But hearts for the event.
Sicinius	Have with you. Exeunt.

ACT II - Scene I Coriolanus

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