The Tragedy of Coriolanus by William Shakespeare (scary books to read txt) 📖

the will of the nobility: Suffer't, and live with such as cannot rule, Nor ever will be rul'd.

BRUTUS. Call't not a plot: The people cry you mock'd them; and of late, When corn was given them gratis, you repin'd; 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!

COMINIUS. 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 abus'd; set on. This palt'ring Becomes not Rome; nor has Coriolanus Deserv'd 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 tetter 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, By Jove, 'twould be my mind!

SICINIUS. It is a mind That shall remain a poison where it is, Not poison any further.

CORIOLANUS. Shall remain! - Hear you this Triton of the minnows? mark you His absolute 'shall'?

COMINIUS. 'Twas from the canon.

CORIOLANUS. 'Shall'! O good, but most unwise patricians! why, You grave but reckless senators, have you thus Given Hydra leave to choose an officer, That with his peremptory 'shall,' being but The horn and noise o' the monster, wants not spirit To say he'll turn your current in a ditch, And make your channel his? If he have power, Then vail your ignorance: if none, awake Your dangerous lenity. If you are learn'd, Be not as common fools; if you are not, Let them have cushions by you. You are plebeians, If they be senators: and they are no less When, both your voices blended, the great'st taste Most palates theirs. They choose their magistrate; And such a one as he, who puts his 'shall,' His popular 'shall,' against a graver bench Than ever frown'd in Greece. By Jove himself, It makes the consuls base: and my soul aches To know, when two authorities are up, Neither supreme, how soon confusion May enter 'twixt the gap of both and take The one by the other.

COMINIUS. Well, on to the market-place.

CORIOLANUS. Whoever gave that counsel, to give forth The corn o' the storehouse gratis, as 'twas us'd Sometime in Greece, -

MENENIUS. Well, well, no more of that.

CORIOLANUS. Though there the people had more absolute power, - I say they nourish'd disobedience, fed The ruin of the state.

BRUTUS. Why shall the people give One that speaks thus their voice?

CORIOLANUS. I'll give my reasons, More worthier than their voices. They know the corn Was not our recompense, resting well assur'd They ne'er did service for't; being press'd to the war, Even when the navel of the state was touch'd, They would not thread the gates, - this kind of service Did not deserve corn gratis: being i' the war, Their mutinies and revolts, wherein they show'd Most valour, spoke not for them. The accusation Which they have often made against the senate, All cause unborn, could never be the motive Of our so frank donation. Well, what then? How shall this bisson multitude digest The senate's courtesy? Let deeds express What's like to be their words: - 'We did request it; We are the greater poll, and in true fear They gave us our demands:' - Thus we debase The nature of our seats, and make the rabble Call our cares fears; which will in time Break ope the locks o' the senate and bring in The crows to peck the eagles. -

MENENIUS. Come, enough.

BRUTUS. Enough, with over-measure.

CORIOLANUS. No, take more: What may be sworn by, both divine and human, Seal what I end withal! - This double worship, - Where one part does disdain with cause, the other Insult without all reason; where gentry, title, wisdom, Cannot conclude but by the yea and no Of general ignorance - it must omit Real necessities, and give way the while To unstable slightness: purpose so barr'd, it follows, Nothing is done to purpose. Therefore, beseech you, - You that will be less fearful than discreet; That love the fundamental part of state More than you doubt the change on't; that prefer A noble life before a long, and wish To jump a body with a dangerous physic That's sure of death without it, - at once pluck out The multitudinous tongue; let them not lick The sweet which is their poison: your dishonour Mangles true judgment, and bereaves the state Of that integrity which should become't; Not having the power to do the good it would, For the ill which doth control't.

BRUTUS. Has said enough.

SICINIUS. Has spoken like a traitor, and shall answer As traitors do.

CORIOLANUS. Thou wretch, despite o'erwhelm thee! - What should the people do with these bald tribunes? On whom depending, their obedience fails To the greater bench: in a rebellion, When what's not meet, but what must be, was law, Then were they chosen; in a better hour Let what is meet be said it must be meet, And throw their power i' the dust.

BRUTUS. Manifest treason!

SICINIUS. This a consul? no.

BRUTUS. The aediles, ho! - Let him be apprehended.

SICINIUS. Go call the people [Exit BRUTUS.]; in whose name myself Attach thee as a traitorous innovator, A foe to the public weal. Obey, I charge thee, And follow to thine answer.

CORIOLANUS. Hence, old goat!

SENATORS and PATRICIANS. We'll surety him.

COMINIUS. Aged sir, hands off.

CORIOLANUS. Hence, rotten thing! or I shall shake thy bones Out of thy garments.

SICINIUS. Help, ye citizens!

[Re-enter Brutus, with the AEDILES and a rabble of Citizens.]

MENENIUS. On both sides more respect.

SICINIUS. Here's he that would take from you all your power.

BRUTUS. Seize him, aediles.

PLEBEIANS. Down with him! down with him!

SECOND SENATOR. Weapons, weapons, weapons!

[They all bustle about CORIOLANUS.]

Tribunes! patricians! citizens! - What, ho! - Sicinius, Brutus, Coriolanus, Citizens!

CITIZENS. Peace, peace, peace; stay, hold, peace!

MENENIUS. What is about to be? - I am out of breath; Confusion's near: I cannot speak. - You tribunes To the people, - Coriolanus, patience: - Speak, good Sicinius.

SICINIUS. Hear me, people: peace!

CITIZENS. Let's hear our tribune: peace! - Speak, speak, speak.

SICINIUS. You are at point to lose your liberties; Marcius would have all from you; Marcius, Whom late you have nam'd for consul.

MENENIUS. Fie, fie, fie! This is the way to kindle, not to quench.

FIRST SENATOR. To unbuild the city, and to lay all flat.

SICINIUS. What is the city but the people? CITIZENS. True, The people are the city.

BRUTUS. By the consent of all, we were establish'd The people's magistrates.

CITIZENS. You so remain.

MENENIUS. And so are like to do.

COMINIUS. That is the way to lay the city flat; To bring the roof to the foundation, And bury all which yet distinctly ranges, In heaps and piles of ruin.

SICINIUS. This deserves death.

BRUTUS. Or let us stand to our authority, Or let us lose it. - We do here pronounce, Upon the part o' the people, in whose power We were elected theirs, Marcius is worthy Of present death.

SICINIUS. Therefore lay hold of him; Bear him to the rock Tarpeian, and from thence Into destruction cast him.

BRUTUS. Aediles, seize him!

CITIZENS. Yield, Marcius, yield!

MENENIUS. Hear me one word; Beseech you, tribunes, hear me but a word.

AEDILES. Peace, peace!

MENENIUS. Be that you seem, truly your country's friends, And temperately proceed to what you would Thus violently redress.

BRUTUS. Sir, those cold ways, That seem like prudent helps, are very poisonous Where the disease is violent. - Lay hands upon him And bear him to the rock.

CORIOLANUS. No; I'll die here. [Draws his sword.] There's some among you have beheld me fighting; Come, try upon yourselves what you have seen me.

MENENIUS. Down with that sword! - Tribunes, withdraw awhile.

BRUTUS. Lay hands upon him.

MENENIUS. Help Marcius, help, You that be noble; help him, young and old!

CITIZENS. Down with him, down with him!

[In this mutiny the TRIBUNES, the AEDILES, and the people are beat in.]

MENENIUS. Go, get you to your house; be gone, away! All will be nought else.

SECOND SENATOR. Get you gone.

CORIOLANUS. Stand fast; We have as many friends as enemies.

MENENIUS. Shall it be put to that?

FIRST SENATOR. The gods forbid: I pr'ythee, noble friend, home to thy house; Leave us to cure this cause.

MENENIUS. For 'tis a sore upon us You cannot tent yourself; be gone, beseech you.

COMINIUS. Come, sir, along with us.

CORIOLANUS. I would they were barbarians, - as they are, Though in Rome litter'd, - not Romans, - as they are not, Though calv'd i' the porch o' the Capitol.

MENENIUS. Be gone; Put not your worthy rage into your tongue; One time will owe another.

CORIOLANUS. On fair ground I could beat forty of them.

MENENIUS. I could myself Take up a brace o' the best of them; yea, the two tribunes.

COMINIUS. But now 'tis odds beyond arithmetic; And manhood is call'd foolery when it stands Against a falling fabric. - Will you hence, Before the tag return? whose rage doth rend Like interrupted waters, and o'erbear What they are used to bear.

MENENIUS. Pray you be gone: I'll try whether my old wit be in request With those that have but little: this must be patch'd With cloth of any colour.

COMINIUS. Nay, come away.

[Exeunt CORIOLANUS, COMINIUS, and others.]

FIRST PATRICIAN. This man has marr'd his fortune.

MENENIUS. His nature is too noble for the world: He would not flatter Neptune for his trident, Or Jove for's power to thunder.