Vir. 'Tis not to save labour, nor that I want love. Val. You would be another Penelope: yet, they say, all the yarn she spun, in Ulysses' absence, did but fill Ithaca full of moths. Come; I would, your cambrick were sensible as your finger, that you might leave pricking it for pity. Come, you shall go with us. Vir. No, good madam, pardon me; indeed, I will not forth. Val. In truth, la, go with me; and I'll tell you excellent news of your husband. Vir. O, good madam, there can be none yet. Val. Verily, I do not jest with you; there came news from him last night. Vir. Indeed, madam? Val. In earnest, it's true; I heard a senator speak it. Thus it is: The Volces have an army forth; against whom Cominius the general is gone, with one part of our Roman power: your lord, and Titus Lartius, are set down before their city Corioli; they nothing doubt prevailing, and to make it brief wars. This is true, on mine honour; and so, I pray, go with us. Vir. Give me excuse, good madam; I will obey you in every thing hereafter. Vol. Let her alone, lady; as she is now, she will but disease our better mirth. you Val. In troth, I think, she would:-) Fare well then.- Come, good sweet lady. - Pr'ythee, Virgilia, turn thy solemness out o'door, and go along with us. Vir. No: at a word, madam; indeed, I must not. I wish you much mirth. Val. Well, then farewell. SCENE IV. - Before Corioli. [Exeunt. Now, Mars, I pr'ythee, make us quick in work; To help our fielded friends!— Come, blow thy blast. Tullus Aufidius, is he within your walls 1 Sen. No, nor a man that fears you less than be, That's lesser than a little. Hark, our drums [Alarums afar of. Are bringing forth our youth: We'll break our walls, Rather than they shall pound us up: Our gates, Which yet seem shut, we have but pinn'd with rushes; They'll open of themselves. Hark you, afar off; [Other alarums. work he makes O, they are at it! There is Aufidius; list, what The Volces enter, and pass over the stage. They do disdain us much beyond our thoughts, He that retires, I'll take him for a Volce, Alarums, and exeunt Romans and Volces, fighting. The Romans are beaten back to their trenches. Mar. All the contagion of the south light on you, You shames of Rome!-you herd of — Boils and plagues Plaster you o'er; that you may be abhorr'd Enter, with drums and colours, MARCIUS, TITUS Or, by the fires of heaven, I'll leave the foe, LARTIUS, Officers, and Soldiers. Messenger. To them a Mess. They lie in view; but have not spoke as yet. Lart. So, the good horse is mine. Enter certain Romans, with spoils. 1 Rom. This will I carry to Rome. 2 Rom. And I this. 3 Rom. A murrain on't! I took this for silver. [Alarum continues still afar off. Enter MARCIUS and TITUS LARTIUS, with a trumpet. Mar. See here these movers, that do prize their hours, At a crack'd drachm! Cushions, leaden spoons, them. And hark, what noise the general makes! - To him : There is the man of my soul's hate, Aufidius, Lart. Worthy sir, thou bleed'st; Thy exercise hath been too violent for A second course of fight. Go, sound thy trumpet in the market-place; Call thither all the officers of the town, Where they shall know our mind: Away. [Exeunt. SCENE VI.- Near the Camp of Cominius. Enter COMINIUS and Forces, retreating. Com. Breathe you, my friends; well fought: we are come off Like Romans, neither foolish in our stands, We shall be charg'd again. Whiles we have struck, Mar. As with a man busied about decrees: Condemning some to death, and some to exile; Ransoming him, or pitying, threat'ning the other; Holding Corioli in the name of Rome, Even like a fawning greyhound in the leash, Com. Where is that slave, Which told me they had beat you to your trenches? Where is he? Call him hither. He did inform the truth: But for our gentlemen, The common file, (A plague!—Tribunes for them !) The mouse ne'er shunn'd the cat, as they did budge From rascals worse than they. Com. But how prevail'd you? Mar. How lies their battle? Know you on which side They have plac'd their men of trust? Com. As I guess, Marcius, Their hands in the vaward are the Antiates, Of their best trust; o'er them Aufidius, Their very heart of hope. Mar. I do beseech you, By all the battles wherein we have fought, By the blood we have shed together, by the vows We have made to endure friends, that you directly Set me against Aufidius, and his Antiates : And that you not delay the present; but, Filling the air with swords advanc'd, and darts, We prove this very hour. Com. Though I could wish You were conducted to a gentle bath, And balms applied to you, yet dare I never Deny your asking; take your choice of those That best can aid your action. Mar. Those are they If any think, brave death outweighs bad life, And follow Marcius. [They all shout, and wave their swords; take him up in their arms, and cast up their caps. O me, alone! Make you a sword of me? If these shows be not outward, which of you But is four Volces? None of you, but is Able to bear against the great Aufidius A shield as hard as his. A certain number, Though thanks to all, must I select: the rest Shall bear the business in some other fight, As cause will be obey'd. Please you to march ; And four shall quickly draw out my command, Which men are best inclin'd. Com. Marci. on, my fellows: Make good this ostentation, and you shall Divide in all with us. Exeunt. Alarum. A retreat is sounded. Flourish. Enter at one side, CoMINIUS, and Romans; at the other side, MARCIUS, with his arm in a scarf, and other Romans. Com. If I should tell thee o'er this thy day's work, Thou'lt not believe thy deeds: but I'll report it, Where senators shall mingle tears with smiles; Where great patricians shall attend, and shrug, I' the end, admire; where ladies shall be frighted, And, gladly quak'd, hear more; where the dull Tribunes, That, with the fusty plebeians, hate thine honours, Yet cam'st thou to a morsel of this feast, Enter TITUS LARTIUS, with his power, from the Pray now, no more: my mother, Who has a charter to extol her blood, When she does praise me, grieves me. I have done, Com. You shall not be The grave of your deserving: Rome must know The value of her own: 'twere a concealment Worse than a theft, no less than a traducement, To hide your doings; and to silence that, Which, to the spire and top of praises vouch'd, Would seem but modest: Therefore, I beseech you, (In sign of what you are, not to reward What you have done,) before our army near me. Mar. I have some wounds upon me, and they smart To hear themselves remember'd. profane, Never sound more! When drums and trumpets shall As if I loved my little should be dieted Com Too modest are you; As to us, to all the world, that Caius Marcius Bear the addition nobly ever! Auf. The town is ta'en! 1 Sol. 'Twill be deliver'd back on good condition. I would, I were a Roman; for I cannot, I' the part that is at mercy? Five times, Marcius, Or wrath, or craft, may get him. He's the devil. Auf. Bolder, though not so subtle: My valour's poison'd, With only suffering stain by him; for him [Flourish. Trumpets sound, and drums. Being naked, sick: nor fane, nor Capitol, All. Caius Marcius Coriolanus ! Cor. I will go wash; And when my face is fair, you shall perceive To the fairness of my power. Com. So, to our tent: Where, ere we do repose us, we will write For their own good, and ours. Lart. I shall, my lord. Cor. The gods begin to mock me. I that now ACT II. SCENE I.- Rome. A publick Place. Bru. Good, or bad? faces. If you see this in the map of my microcosm, Bru. Come, sir, come, we know you well enough. Men. Not according to the prayer of the people, thing. You are ambitious for poor knaves' caps and for they love not Marcius. Sic. Nature teaches beasts to know their friends. Men. Ay, to devour him; as the hungry plebeians would the noble Marcius. Bru. He's a lamb indeed, that baes like a bear. Men. He's a bear, indeed, that lives like a lamb. You two are old men; tell me one thing that I shall ask you. Roth Trib. Well, sir. Men. In what enormity is Marcius poor, that you two have not in abundance ? Bru. He's poor in no one fault, but stored with all. Bru. And topping all others in boasting. Both Trib. Why, how are we censured? Men. Because you talk of pride now,not be angry? - Will you Both Trib. Well, well, sir, well. Men. Why, 'tis no great matter: for a very little thief of occasion will rob you of a great deal of patience: give your disposition 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? Bru. We do it not alone, sir. Men. 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 infantlike, for doing much alone. You talk of pride: O, that you could turn your eyes towards the napes of your necks, and make but an interior survey of your good selves! O, that you could! Bru. What then, sir? Men. Why, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting, proud, violent, testy magistrates, (alias, fools,) as any in Rome. legs; you wear out a good wholesome forenoon, in hearing a cause between an orange-wife and a fossetseller; 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 pinched with the cholick, 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. Bru. Come, come, you are well understood to be a perfecter giber for the table, than a necessary bencher in the Capitol. Men. 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 all your predecessors, since Deucalion; though, peradventure, some of the best of them were hereditary hangmen. Good e'en 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 retire to the back of the scenB Enter VOLUMNIA, Virgilia, and VALERIA, fc. How now, my as fair as noble ladies, (and the moon, were she earthly, no nobler,) whither do you follow your eyes so fast? Vol. Honourable Menenius, my boy Marcius approaches; for the love of Juno, let's go. Men. Ha! Marcius coming home? Vol. Ay, worthy Menenius; and with most prosperous approbation. Men. Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee:Hoo! Marcius coming home! Two Ladies. Nay, 'tis true. Vol. Look, here's a letter from him; the state hath another, his wife another; and, I think, there's one at home for you. Men. I will make my very house reel to-night: Vir. Yes, certain, there's a letter for you; I saw it Sic. Menenius, you are known well enough too. Men. I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tyber 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 weals-men as you are, (I cannot call you Ly-seven years' health; in which time I will make a lip curguses) if the drink you give me, touch my palate adversely, I make a crooked face at it. I cannot 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 have good at the physician: the most sovereign prescription in Vol. O, he is wounded, I thank the gods fort. |