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COMINIUS: 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.

MARCIUS: Those are they That most are willing. If any such be here-- As it were sin to doubt--that love this painting Wherein you see me smear'd; if any fear Lesser his person than an ill report; If any think brave death outweighs bad life And that his country's dearer than himself; Let him alone, or so many so minded, Wave thus, to express his disposition, And follow Marcius. O, me alone! make you a sword of me? If these shows be not outward, which of you But is four Volsces? 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 from all: 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 inclined.

COMINIUS: March on, my fellows: Make good this ostentation, and you shall Divide in all with us.

LARTIUS: So, let the ports be guarded: keep your duties, As I have set them down. If I do send, dispatch Those centuries to our aid: the rest will serve For a short holding: if we lose the field, We cannot keep the town.

Lieutenant: Fear not our care, sir.

LARTIUS: Hence, and shut your gates upon's. Our guider, come; to the Roman camp conduct us.

MARCIUS: I'll fight with none but thee; for I do hate thee Worse than a promise-breaker.

AUFIDIUS: We hate alike: Not Afric owns a serpent I abhor More than thy fame and envy. Fix thy foot.

MARCIUS: Let the first budger die the other's slave, And the gods doom him after!

AUFIDIUS: If I fly, Marcius, Holloa me like a hare.

MARCIUS: Within these three hours, Tullus, Alone I fought in your Corioli walls, And made what work I pleased: 'tis not my blood Wherein thou seest me mask'd; for thy revenge Wrench up thy power to the highest.

AUFIDIUS: Wert thou the Hector That was the whip of your bragg'd progeny, Thou shouldst not scape me here. Officious, and not valiant, you have shamed me In your condemned seconds.

COMINIUS: If I should tell thee o'er this thy day's work, Thou'ldst 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 quaked, hear more; where the dull tribunes, That, with the fusty plebeians, hate thine honours, Shall say against their hearts 'We thank the gods Our Rome hath such a soldier.' Yet camest thou to a morsel of this feast, Having fully dined before.

LARTIUS: O general, Here is the steed, we the caparison: Hadst thou beheld--

MARCIUS: Pray now, no more: my mother, Who has a charter to extol her blood, When she does praise me grieves me. I have done As you have done; that's what I can; induced As you have been; that's for my country: He that has but effected his good will Hath overta'en mine act.

COMINIUS: 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 hear me.

MARCIUS: I have some wounds upon me, and they smart To hear themselves remember'd.

COMINIUS: Should they not, Well might they fester 'gainst ingratitude, And tent themselves with death. Of all the horses, Whereof we have ta'en good and good store, of all The treasure in this field achieved and city, We render you the tenth, to be ta'en forth, Before the common distribution, at Your only choice.

MARCIUS: I thank you, general; But cannot make my heart consent to take A bribe to pay my sword: I do refuse it; And stand upon my common part with those That have beheld the doing.

MARCIUS: May these same instruments, which you profane, Never sound more! when drums and trumpets shall I' the field prove flatterers, let courts and cities be Made all of false-faced soothing! When steel grows soft as the parasite's silk, Let him be made a coverture for the wars! No more, I say! For that I have not wash'd My nose that bled, or foil'd some debile wretch.-- Which, without note, here's many else have done,-- You shout me forth In acclamations hyperbolical; As if I loved my little should be dieted In praises sauced with lies.

COMINIUS: Too modest are you; More cruel to your good report than grateful To us that give you truly: by your patience, If 'gainst yourself you be incensed, we'll put you, Like one that means his proper harm, in manacles, Then reason safely with you. Therefore, be it known, As to us, to all the world, that Caius Marcius Wears this war's garland: in token of the which, My noble steed, known to the camp, I give him, With all his trim belonging; and from this time, For what he did before Corioli, call him, With all the applause and clamour of the host, CAIUS MARCIUS CORIOLANUS! Bear The addition nobly ever!

All: Caius Marcius Coriolanus!

CORIOLANUS: I will go wash; And when my face is fair, you shall perceive Whether I blush or no: howbeit, I thank you. I mean to stride your steed, and at all times To undercrest your good addition To the fairness of my power.

COMINIUS: So, to our tent; Where, ere we do repose us, we will write To Rome of our success. You, Titus Lartius, Must to Corioli back: send us to Rome The best, with whom we may articulate, For their own good and ours.

LARTIUS: I shall, my lord.

CORIOLANUS: The gods begin to mock me. I, that now Refused most princely gifts, am bound to beg Of my lord general.

COMINIUS: Take't; 'tis yours. What is't?

CORIOLANUS: I sometime lay here in Corioli At a poor man's house; he used me kindly: He cried to me; I saw him prisoner; But then Aufidius was within my view, And wrath o'erwhelm'd my pity: I request you To give my poor host freedom.

COMINIUS: O, well begg'd! Were he the butcher of my son, he should Be free as is the wind. Deliver him, Titus.

LARTIUS: Marcius, his name?

CORIOLANUS: By Jupiter! forgot. I am weary; yea, my memory is tired. Have we no wine here?

COMINIUS: Go we to our tent: The blood upon your visage dries; 'tis time It should be look'd to: come.

AUFIDIUS: The town is ta'en!

First Soldier: 'Twill be deliver'd back on good condition.

AUFIDIUS: Condition! I would I were a Roman; for I cannot, Being a Volsce, be that I am. Condition! What good condition can a treaty find I' the part that is at mercy? Five times, Marcius, I have fought with thee: so often hast thou beat me, And wouldst do so, I think, should we encounter As often as we eat. By the elements, If e'er again I meet him beard to beard, He's mine, or I am his: mine emulation Hath not that honour in't it had; for where I thought to crush him in an equal force, True sword to sword, I'll potch at him some way Or wrath or craft may get him.

First Soldier: He's the devil.

AUFIDIUS: Bolder, though not so subtle. My valour's poison'd With only suffering stain by him; for him Shall fly out of itself: nor sleep nor sanctuary, Being naked, sick, nor fane nor Capitol, The prayers of priests nor times of sacrifice, Embarquements all of fury, shall lift up Their rotten privilege and custom 'gainst My hate to Marcius: where I find him, were it At home, upon my brother's guard, even there, Against the hospitable canon, would I Wash my fierce hand in's heart. Go you to the city; Learn how 'tis held; and what they are that must Be hostages for Rome.

First Soldier: Will not you go?

AUFIDIUS: I am attended at the cypress grove: I pray you-- 'Tis south the city mills--bring me word thither How the world goes, that to the pace of it I may spur on my journey.

First Soldier: I shall, sir.

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 barm 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. 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: 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 tonight: 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? 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. 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.

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!

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!