The arden shakespeare co.., p.99
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works, page 99
And so would do, were he more angry at it.
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MENENIUS
All’s well, and might have been much better if
He could have temporiz’d.
SICINIUS Where is he, hear you?
MENENIUS
Nay, I hear nothing. His mother and his wife
Hear nothing from him.
Enter three or four Citizens.
ALL The gods preserve you both!
SICINIUS Good den, our neighbours.
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BRUTUS Good den to you all, good den to you all.
1 CITIZEN
Ourselves, our wives, and children, on our knees
Are bound to pray for you both.
SICINIUS Live, and thrive!
BRUTUS
Farewell, kind neighbours. We wish’d Coriolanus
Had lov’d you as we did.
ALL Now the gods keep you!
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BOTH TRIBUNES Farewell, farewell. Exeunt Citizens.
SICINIUS This is a happier and more comely time
Than when those fellows ran about the streets
Crying confusion.
BRUTUS Caius Martius was
A worthy officer i’th’ war, but insolent,
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O’ercome with pride, ambitious past all thinking,
Self-loving.
SICINIUS And affecting one sole throne,
Without assistance.
MENENIUS I think not so.
SICINIUS We should by this, to all our lamentation,
If he had gone forth consul, found it so.
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BRUTUS
The gods have well prevented it, and Rome
Sits safe and still without him.
Enter an Aedile.
AEDILE Worthy tribunes,
There is a slave whom we have put in prison,
Reports the Volsces with two several powers
Are enter’d in the Roman territories,
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And with the deepest malice of the war,
Destroy what lies before ’em.
MENENIUS ’Tis Aufidius,
Who, hearing of our Martius’ banishment,
Thrusts forth his horns again into the world,
Which were inshell’d when Martius stood for Rome,
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And durst not once peep out.
SICINIUS Come, what talk you
Of Martius?
BRUTUS Go see this rumourer whipp’d. It cannot be
The Volsces dare break with us.
MENENIUS Cannot be?
We have record that very well it can,
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And three examples of the like hath been
Within my age. But reason with the fellow
Before you punish him, where he heard this,
Lest you shall chance to whip your information,
And beat the messenger who bids beware
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Of what is to be dreaded.
SICINIUS Tell not me.
I know this cannot be.
BRUTUS Not possible.
Enter a Messenger.
MESSENGER The nobles in great earnestness are going
All to the senate-house. Some news is coming
That turns their countenances.
SICINIUS ’Tis this slave –
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Go whip him ’fore the people’s eyes – his raising,
Nothing but his report.
MESSENGER Yes, worthy sir,
The slave’s report is seconded; and more,
More fearful, is deliver’d.
SICINIUS What more fearful?
MESSENGER It is spoke freely out of many mouths,
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How probable I do not know, that Martius,
Join’d with Aufidius, leads a power ’gainst Rome,
And vows revenge as spacious as between
The young’st and oldest thing.
SICINIUS This is most likely!
BRUTUS Rais’d only that the weaker sort may wish
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Good Martius home again.
SICINIUS The very trick on’t.
MENENIUS This is unlikely:
He and Aufidius can no more atone
Than violent’st contrariety.
Enter a Second Messenger.
2 MESSENGER You are sent for to the senate.
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A fearful army, led by Caius Martius,
Associated with Aufidius, rages
Upon our territories, and have already
O’erborne their way, consum’d with fire, and took
What lay before them.
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Enter COMINIUS.
COMINIUS
O, you have made good work.
MENENIUS What news? What news?
COMINIUS
You have holp to ravish your own daughters, and
To melt the city leads upon your pates,
To see your wives dishonour’d to your noses –
MENENIUS What’s the news? What’s the news?
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COMINIUS Your temples burned in their cement, and
Your franchises, whereon you stood, confin’d
Into an auger’s bore.
MENENIUS Pray now, your news? –
You have made fair work, I fear me. – Pray, your
news?
If Martius should be join’d wi’th’ Volscians –
COMINIUS If!
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He is their god. He leads them like a thing
Made by some other deity than nature,
That shapes man better; and they follow him
Against us brats, with no less confidence
Than boys pursuing summer butterflies,
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Or butchers killing flies.
MENENIUS You have made good work,
You, and your apron-men; you that stood so much
Upon the voice of occupation and
The breath of garlic-eaters!
COMINIUS He’ll shake your Rome about your ears.
MENENIUS As Hercules
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Did shake down mellow fruit. You have made fair
work!
BRUTUS But is this true, sir?
COMINIUS Ay, and you’ll look pale
Before you find it other. All the regions
Do smilingly revolt, and who resists
Are mock’d for valiant ignorance,
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And perish constant fools. Who is’t can blame him?
Your enemies and his find something in him.
MENENIUS We are all undone unless
The noble man have mercy.
COMINIUS Who shall ask it?
The tribunes cannot do’t for shame; the people
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Deserve such pity of him as the wolf
Does of the shepherds. For his best friends, if they
Should say, ‘Be good to Rome’, they charg’d him
even
As those should do that had deserv’d his hate,
And therein show’d like enemies.
MENENIUS ’Tis true!
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If he were putting to my house the brand
That should consume it, I have not the face
To say, ‘Beseech you, cease’. You have made fair
hands,
You and your crafts! You have crafted fair!
COMINIUS You have brought
A trembling upon Rome, such as was never
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S’incapable of help.
BOTH TRIBUNES Say not we brought it.
MENENIUS
How? Was’t we? We lov’d him, but, like beasts
And cowardly nobles, gave way unto your clusters,
Who did hoot him out o’th’ city.
COMINIUS But I fear
They’ll roar him in again. Tullus Aufidius,
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The second name of men, obeys his points
As if he were his officer. Desperation
Is all the policy, strength and defence,
That Rome can make against them.
Enter a troop of Citizens.
MENENIUS Here come the clusters.
And is Aufidius with him? You are they
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That made the air unwholesome when you cast
Your stinking greasy caps in hooting at
Coriolanus’ exile. Now he’s coming,
And not a hair upon a soldier’s head
Which will not prove a whip. As many coxcombs
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As you threw caps up will he tumble down,
And pay you for your voices. ’Tis no matter,
If he could burn us all into one coal,
We have deserv’d it.
CITIZENS Faith, we hear fearful news.
1 CITIZEN For mine own part,
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When I said banish him, I said ’twas pity.
2 CITIZEN And so did I.
3 CITIZEN And so did I; and, to say the truth, so did very
many of us. That we did we did for the best, and
though we willingly consented to his banishment, yet
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it was against our will.
COMINIUS Y’are goodly things, you voices.
MENENIUS You have made good work,
You and your cry. Shall’s to the Capitol?
COMINIUS O, ay, what else?
Exeunt Cominius and Menenius.
SICINIUS Go masters, get you home; be not dismay’d;
150
These are a side that would be glad to have
This true which they so seem to fear. Go home,
And show no sign of fear.
1 CITIZEN The gods be good to us! Come, masters, let’s
home. I ever said we were i’th’ wrong when we
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banished him.
2 CITIZEN So did we all. But come, let’s home.
Exeunt Citizens.
BRUTUS I do not like this news.
SICINIUS Nor I.
BRUTUS Let’s to the Capitol. Would half my wealth
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Would buy this for a lie!
SICINIUS Pray let’s go. Exeunt.
4.7 Enter AUFIDIUS with his Lieutenant.
AUFIDIUS Do they still fly to th’Roman?
LIEUTENANT
I do not know what witchcraft’s in him, but
Your soldiers use him as the grace ’fore meat,
Their talk at table and their thanks at end;
And you are darken’d in this action, sir,
5
Even by your own.
AUFIDIUS I cannot help it now,
Unless, by using means, I lame the foot
Of our design. He bears himself more proudlier
Even to my person than I thought he would
When first I did embrace him. Yet his nature
10
In that’s no changeling, and I must excuse
What cannot be amended.
LIEUTENANT Yet I wish, sir,
I mean for your particular, you had not
Join’d in commission with him; but either
Have borne the action of yourself, or else
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To him had left it solely.
AUFIDIUS I understand thee well, and be thou sure
When he shall come to his account, he knows not
What I can urge against him. Although it seems,
And so he thinks, and is no less apparent
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To th’ vulgar eye, that he bears all things fairly
And shows good husbandry for the Volscian state,
Fights dragon-like, and does achieve as soon
As draw his sword: yet he hath left undone
That which shall break his neck or hazard mine
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Whene’er we come to our account.
LIEUTENANT
Sir, I beseech you, think you he’ll carry Rome?
AUFIDIUS All places yields to him ere he sits down,
And the nobility of Rome are his.
The senators and patricians love him too;
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The tribunes are no soldiers, and their people
Will be as rash in the repeal as hasty
To expel him thence. I think he’ll be to Rome
As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it
By sovereignty of nature. First, he was
