The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Part 75

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 n.o.ble Marcius.

BRUTUS. He's a lamb indeed, that baes like a bear.

MENENIUS. He's a bear indeed, that lives fike a lamb. You two are old men; tell me one thing that I shall ask you.

BOTH TRIBUNES. 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 stor'd 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' th' right-hand file? Do you?

BOTH TRIBUNES. Why, how are we censur'd?

MENENIUS. Because you talk of pride now- will you not be angry?

BOTH TRIBUNES. 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!

BOTH TRIBUNES. 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 b.u.t.tock 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 cannot say your worships have deliver'd the matter well, when I find the a.s.s 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 threepence to a second day of audience. When you are hearing a matter between party and party, if you chance to be pinch'd with the colic, you make faces like mummers, set up the b.l.o.o.d.y 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 entomb'd in an a.s.s's pack-saddle. Yet you must be saying Marcius is proud; who, in a cheap estimation, is worth all your predecessors since Deucalion; though peradventure some of the best of 'em were hereditary hangmen. G.o.d-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 n.o.ble ladies- and the moon, were she earthly, no n.o.bler- 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 G.o.ds 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 disciplin'd Aufidius soundly?

VOLUMNIA. t.i.tus Lartius writes they fought together, but Aufidius got off.

MENENIUS. And 'twas time for him too, I'll warrant him that; an he had stay'd by him, I would not have been so fidius'd for all the chests in Corioli and the gold that's in them. Is the Senate possess'd 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 G.o.ds grant them true!

VOLUMNIA. True! pow, waw.

MENENIUS. True! I'll be sworn they are true. Where is he wounded?

[To the TRIBUNES] G.o.d save your good worships! Marcius is coming home; he has more cause to be proud. Where is he wounded?

VOLUMNIA. I' th' shoulder and i' th' 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' th' body.

MENENIUS. One i' th' neck and two i' th' 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 advanc'd, declines, and then men die.

A sennet. Trumpets sound. Enter COMINIUS the GENERAL, and t.i.tUS LARTIUS; between them, CORIOLa.n.u.s, crown'd 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 Coriola.n.u.s.

Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriola.n.u.s! [Flourish]

ALL. Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriola.n.u.s!

CORIOLa.n.u.s. No more of this, it does offend my heart.

Pray now, no more.

COMINIUS. Look, sir, your mother!

CORIOLa.n.u.s. O, You have, I know, pet.i.tion'd all the G.o.ds For my prosperity! [Kneels]

VOLUMNIA. Nay, my good soldier, up; My gentle Marcius, worthy Caius, and By deed-achieving honour newly nam'd- What is it? Coriola.n.u.s must I can thee?

But, O, thy wife!

CORIOLa.n.u.s. My gracious silence, hail!

Wouldst thou have laugh'd had I come coffin'd home, That weep'st to see me triumph? Ah, my dear, Such eyes the widows in Corioli wear, And mothers that lack sons.

MENENIUS. Now the G.o.ds crown thee!

CORIOLa.n.u.s. 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 y'are 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.

CORIOLa.n.u.s. Menenius ever, ever.

HERALD. Give way there, and go on.

CORIOLa.n.u.s. [To his wife and mother] Your hand, and yours.

Ere in our own house I do shade my head, The good patricians must be visited; From whom I have receiv'd 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.

CORIOLa.n.u.s. 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