[Music within. Enter a Servingman]
- First Servingman. Wine, wine, wine! What service
2750
is here! I think our fellows are asleep.
[Exit]
[Enter a second Servingman]
[Exit]
[Enter CORIOLANUS]
- Coriolanus. A goodly house: the feast smells well; but I
Appear not like a guest.
[Re-enter the first Servingman]
- First Servingman. What would you have, friend? whence are you?
Here's no place for you: pray, go to the door.
[Exit]
- Coriolanus. I have deserved no better entertainment,
In being Coriolanus.
2765
[Re-enter second Servingman]
- Second Servingman. Whence are you, sir? Has the porter his eyes in his
head; that he gives entrance to such companions?
Pray, get you out.
[Enter a third Servingman. The first meets him]
- First Servingman. A strange one as ever I looked on: I cannot get him
out of the house: prithee, call my master to him.
[Retires]
- Third Servingman. What have you to do here, fellow? Pray you, avoid
the house.
2780
- Coriolanus. Let me but stand; I will not hurt your hearth.
- Third Servingman. Pray you, poor gentleman, take up some other
station; here's no place for you; pray you, avoid: come.
- Coriolanus. Follow your function, go, and batten on cold bits.
[Pushes him away]
- Third Servingman. What, you will not? Prithee, tell my master what a
2790
strange guest he has here.
[Exit]
- Third Servingman. I' the city of kites and crows! What an ass it is!
2800
Then thou dwellest with daws too?
- Coriolanus. Ay; 'tis an honester service than to meddle with thy
mistress. Thou pratest, and pratest; serve with thy
2805
trencher, hence!
[Beats him away. Exit third Servingman]
[Enter AUFIDIUS with the second Servingman]
- Second Servingman. Here, sir: I'ld have beaten him like a dog, but for
2810
disturbing the lords within.
[Retires]
- Tullus Aufidius. Whence comest thou? what wouldst thou? thy name?
Why speak'st not? speak, man: what's thy name?
- Coriolanus. If, Tullus,
2815
[Unmuffling]
Not yet thou knowest me, and, seeing me, dost not
Think me for the man I am, necessity
Commands me name myself.
- Coriolanus. A name unmusical to the Volscians' ears,
And harsh in sound to thine.
- Tullus Aufidius. Say, what's thy name?
Thou hast a grim appearance, and thy face
Bears a command in't; though thy tackle's torn.
2825
Thou show'st a noble vessel: what's thy name?
- Coriolanus. Prepare thy brow to frown: know'st
thou me yet?
- Coriolanus. My name is Caius CORIOLANUS, who hath done
2830
To thee particularly and to all the Volsces
Great hurt and mischief; thereto witness may
My surname, Coriolanus: the painful service,
The extreme dangers and the drops of blood
Shed for my thankless country are requited
2835
But with that surname; a good memory,
And witness of the malice and displeasure
Which thou shouldst bear me: only that name remains;
The cruelty and envy of the people,
Permitted by our dastard nobles, who
2840
Have all forsook me, hath devour'd the rest;
And suffer'd me by the voice of slaves to be
Whoop'd out of Rome. Now this extremity
Hath brought me to thy hearth; not out of hope—
Mistake me not—to save my life, for if
2845
I had fear'd death, of all the men i' the world
I would have 'voided thee, but in mere spite,
To be full quit of those my banishers,
Stand I before thee here. Then if thou hast
A heart of wreak in thee, that wilt revenge
2850
Thine own particular wrongs and stop those maims
Of shame seen through thy country, speed
thee straight,
And make my misery serve thy turn: so use it
That my revengeful services may prove
2855
As benefits to thee, for I will fight
Against my canker'd country with the spleen
Of all the under fiends. But if so be
Thou darest not this and that to prove more fortunes
Thou'rt tired, then, in a word, I also am
2860
Longer to live most weary, and present
My throat to thee and to thy ancient malice;
Which not to cut would show thee but a fool,
Since I have ever follow'd thee with hate,
Drawn tuns of blood out of thy country's breast,
2865
And cannot live but to thy shame, unless
It be to do thee service.
- Tullus Aufidius. O CORIOLANUS, CORIOLANUS!
Each word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heart
A root of ancient envy. If Jupiter
2870
Should from yond cloud speak divine things,
And say 'Tis true,' I'ld not believe them more
Than thee, all noble CORIOLANUS. Let me twine
Mine arms about that body, where against
My grained ash an hundred times hath broke
2875
And scarr'd the moon with splinters: here I clip
The anvil of my sword, and do contest
As hotly and as nobly with thy love
As ever in ambitious strength I did
Contend against thy valour. Know thou first,
2880
I loved the maid I married; never man
Sigh'd truer breath; but that I see thee here,
Thou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart
Than when I first my wedded mistress saw
Bestride my threshold. Why, thou Mars! I tell thee,
2885
We have a power on foot; and I had purpose
Once more to hew thy target from thy brawn,
Or lose mine arm fort: thou hast beat me out
Twelve several times, and I have nightly since
Dreamt of encounters 'twixt thyself and me;
2890
We have been down together in my sleep,
Unbuckling helms, fisting each other's throat,
And waked half dead with nothing. Worthy CORIOLANUS,
Had we no quarrel else to Rome, but that
Thou art thence banish'd, we would muster all
2895
From twelve to seventy, and pouring war
Into the bowels of ungrateful Rome,
Like a bold flood o'er-bear. O, come, go in,
And take our friendly senators by the hands;
Who now are here, taking their leaves of me,
2900
Who am prepared against your territories,
Though not for Rome itself.
- Tullus Aufidius. Therefore, most absolute sir, if thou wilt have
The leading of thine own revenges, take
2905
The one half of my commission; and set down—
As best thou art experienced, since thou know'st
Thy country's strength and weakness,—thine own ways;
Whether to knock against the gates of Rome,
Or rudely visit them in parts remote,
2910
To fright them, ere destroy. But come in:
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, CORIOLANUS, that was much. Your hand: most welcome!
2915
[Exeunt CORIOLANUS and AUFIDIUS. The two]
Servingmen come forward]
- 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
2920
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
2925
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.
2930
- First Servingman. Nay, not so neither: but I take him to be the
2935
greater soldier.
- Second Servingman. Faith, look you, one cannot tell how to say that:
for the defence of a town, our general is excellent.
[Re-enter third Servingman]
- Third Servingman. I would not be a Roman, of all nations; I had as
lieve be a condemned man.
2945
- Third Servingman. Why, here's he that was wont to thwack our general,
Caius CORIOLANUS.
- 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
2955
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.
- 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
2965
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,
2970
and sowl the porter of Rome gates by the ears: he
will mow all down before him, and leave his passage polled.
- Third Servingman. Do't! he will do't; for, look you, sir, he has as
many friends as enemies; which friends, sir, as it
2975
were, durst not, look you, sir, show themselves, as
we term it, his friends whilst he's in directitude.
- Third Servingman. But when they shall see, sir, his crest up again,
and the man in blood, they will out of their
2980
burrows, like conies after rain, and revel all with
him.
- Third Servingman. To-morrow; to-day; presently; you shall have the
drum struck up this afternoon: 'tis, as it were, a
2985
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.
2990
- 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.
2995
- 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.
- Third Servingman. Reason; because they then less need one another.
3000
The wars for my money. I hope to see Romans as cheap
as Volscians. They are rising, they are rising.
[Exeunt]
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