Antium. A hall in AUFIDIUS'S house.
[Music within. Enter A SERVANT.] FIRST SERVANT Wine, wine, wine! What service is here!
I think our fellows are asleep.
[Exit.] [Enter a second SERVANT.] SECOND SERVANT Where's Cotus? my master calls for him.--Cotus!
[Exit.] [Enter CORIOLANUS.] CORIOLANUS A goodly house: the feast smells well; but I
Appear not like a guest.
[Re-enter the first SERVANT.] FIRST SERVANT What would you have, friend? whence are you? Here's no place for
you: pray go to the door.
CORIOLANUS I have deserv'd no better entertainment
In being Coriolanus.
[Re-enter second SERVANT.] SECOND SERVANT Whence are you, sir? Has the porter his eyes in his head that he
gives entrance to such companions? Pray, get you out.
CORIOLANUS Away!
SECOND SERVANT Away? Get you away.
CORIOLANUS Now the art troublesome.
SECOND SERVANT Are you so brave? I'll have you talked with anon.
[Enter a third SERVANT. The first meets him.] THIRD SERVANT What fellow's this?
FIRST SERVANT A strange one as ever I looked on: I cannot get him
out o' the house. Pr'ythee call my master to him.
THIRD SERVANT What have you to do here, fellow? Pray you avoid the house.
CORIOLANUS Let me but stand; I will not hurt your hearth.
THIRD SERVANT What are you?
CORIOLANUS A gentleman.
THIRD SERVANT A marvellous poor one.
CORIOLANUS True, so I am.
THIRD SERVANT 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 SERVANT What, you will not?--Pr'ythee, tell my master what a strange
guest he has here.
SECOND SERVANT And I shall.
[Exit.] THIRD SERVANT Where dwell'st thou?
CORIOLANUS Under the canopy.
THIRD SERVANT Under the canopy?
CORIOLANUS Ay.
THIRD SERVANT Where's that?
CORIOLANUS I' the city of kites and crows.
THIRD SERVANT I' the city of kites and crows!--What an ass it is!--Then thou
dwell'st with daws too?
CORIOLANUS No, I serve not thy master.
THIRD SERVANT How, sir! Do you meddle with my master?
CORIOLANUS Ay; 'tis an honester service than to meddle with thy mistress.
Thou prat'st and prat'st; serve with thy trencher, hence!
[Beats him away.] [Enter AUFIDIUS and the second SERVANT.] AUFIDIUS Where is this fellow?
SECOND SERVANT Here, sir; I'd have beaten him like a dog, but for
disturbing the lords within.
AUFIDIUS Whence com'st thou? what wouldst thou? thy name?
Why speak'st not? speak, man: what's thy name?
CORIOLANUS [Unmuffling.] If, Tullus,
Not yet thou know'st me, and, seeing me, dost not
Think me for the man I am, necessity
Commands me name myself.
AUFIDIUS What is thy name?
[Servants retire.] CORIOLANUS A name unmusical to the Volscians' ears,
And harsh in sound to thine.
AUFIDIUS Say, what's thy name?
Thou has a grim appearance, and thy face
Bears a command in't; though thy tackle's torn,
Thou show'st a noble vessel: what's thy name?
CORIOLANUS Prepare thy brow to frown:--know'st thou me yet?
AUFIDIUS I know thee not:--thy name?
CORIOLANUS My name is Caius Marcius, who hath done
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
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
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
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
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
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 dar'st not this, and that to prove more fortunes
Th'art tir'd, then, in a word, I also am
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,
And cannot live but to thy shame, unless
It be to do thee service.
AUFIDIUS O Marcius, Marcius!
Each word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heart
A root of ancient envy. If Jupiter
Should from yond cloud speak divine things,
And say ''Tis true,' I'd not believe them more
Than thee, all noble Marcius.--Let me twine
Mine arms about that body, where against
My grained ash an hundred times hath broke
And scar'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,
I lov'd the maid I married; never man
Sighed 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
We have a power on foot; and I had purpose
Once more to hew thy target from thy brawn,
Or lose mine arm for't: thou hast beat me out
Twelve several times, and I have nightly since
Dreamt of encounters 'twixt thyself and me;
We have been down together in my sleep,
Unbuckling helms, fisting each other's throat,
And wak'd half dead with nothing. Worthy Marcius,
Had we no other quarrel else to Rome, but that
Thou art thence banish'd, we would muster all
From twelve to seventy; and, pouring war
Into the bowels of ungrateful Rome,
Like a bold flood o'erbear. O, come, go in,
And take our friendly senators by the hands;
Who now are here, taking their leaves of me,
Who am prepar'd against your territories,
Though not for Rome itself.
CORIOLANUS You bless me, gods!
AUFIDIUS Therefore, most absolute sir, if thou wilt have
The leading of thine own revenges, take
Th' one half of my commission; and set down,--
As best thou art experienc'd, 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,
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, Marcius, that was much. Your hand: most welcome!
[Exeunt CORIOLANUS and AUFIDIUS.] FIRST SERVANT Here's a strange alteration!
SECOND SERVANT By my hand, I had thought to have strucken him with a cudgel; and
yet my mind gave me his clothes made a false report of him.
FIRST SERVANT What an arm he has! He turned me about with his finger and his
thumb, as one would set up a top.
SECOND SERVANT Nay, I knew by his face that there was something in him; he had,
sir, a kind of face, methought,--I cannot tell how to term it.
FIRST SERVANT He had so, looking as it were,--would I were hanged, but I
thought there was more in him than I could think.
SECOND SERVANT So did I, I'll be sworn: he is simply the rarest man i' the
world.
FIRST SERVANT I think he is; but a greater soldier than he you wot on.
SECOND SERVANT Who, my master?
FIRST SERVANT Nay, it's no matter for that.
SECOND SERVANT Worth six on him.
FIRST SERVANT Nay, not so neither: but I take him to be the greater soldier.
SECOND SERVANT Faith, look you, one cannot tell how to say that: for the defence
of a town our general is excellent.
FIRST SERVANT Ay, and for an assault too.
[Re-enter third SERVANT.] THIRD SERVANT O slaves, I can tell you news,--news, you rascals!
FIRST and SECOND SERVANT What, what, what? let's partake.
THIRD SERVANT I would not be a Roman, of all nations; I had as lief be a
condemned man.
FIRST and SECOND SERVANT Wherefore? wherefore?
THIRD SERVANT Why, here's he that was wont to thwack our general,--Caius
Marcius.
FIRST SERVANT Why do you say, thwack our general?
THIRD SERVANT I do not say thwack our general; but he was always good enough
for him.
SECOND SERVANT Come, we are fellows and friends: he was ever too hard for him; I
have heard him say so himself.
FIRST SERVANT He was too hard for him directly, to say the troth on't; before
Corioli he scotched him and notched him like a carbonado.
SECOND SERVANT An he had been cannibally given, he might have broiled and eaten
him too.
FIRST SERVANT But more of thy news?
THIRD SERVANT 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 turns up the white o' the eye to his discourse. But the
bottom of the news is, 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, and
sowl the porter of Rome gates by the ears; he will mow all down
before him, and leave his passage polled.
SECOND SERVANT And he's as like to do't as any man I can imagine.
THIRD SERVANT Do't! he will do't; for look you, sir, he has as many friends as
enemies; which friends, sir, as it were, durst not, look you,
sir, show themselves, as we term it, his friends, whilst he's in
dejectitude.
FIRST SERVANT Dejectitude! what's that?
THIRD SERVANT But when they shall see, sir, his crest up again, and the man in
blood, they will out of their burrows, like conies after rain,
and revel all with him.
FIRST SERVANT But when goes this forward?
THIRD SERVANT To-morrow; to-day; presently; you shall have the drum struck up
this afternoon: 'tis as it were parcel of their feast, and to be
executed ere they wipe their lips.
SECOND SERVANT Why, then we shall have a stirring world again. This peace is
nothing but to rust iron, increase tailors, and breed
ballad-makers.
FIRST SERVANT 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.
SECOND SERVANT '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.
FIRST SERVANT Ay, and it makes men hate one another.
THIRD SERVANT Reason: because they then less need one another. The wars for my
money. I hope to see Romans as cheap as Volscians. They are
rising, they are rising.
ALL In, in, in, in!
[Exeunt.]