Coriolanus

Before we proceed any further,

hear me speak.

You are all resolved

rather to die than to famish?

Resolved.

First, you know Caius Martius

is chief enemy to the people.

- We know it.

- Let us kill him.

And we'll have corn at our own price.

We are accounted poor citizens,

the patricians good.

The leanness that afflicts us,

the object of our misery,

our suffering, is a gain to them.

Aye...

Let us revenge this with our sticks,

ere we become rakes.

No more talking on it. Come!

Soft, soft, who comes here?

...friends, mine honest neighbors...

Worthy Senator Menenius,

one that has always loved the people.

I tell you, friends, most charitable

care have the patricians of you.

For your wants,

your suffering in this dearth,

you may as well strike

at the heavens with your staves

as lift them against the Roman state.

Suffer us to famish, and their

storehouses crammed with grain.

Bread!

- Bread!

- Bread.

Bread!

Bread, bread, bread...!

Bread, bread, bread...

Stop!

Stop! Stop!

What's the matter,

you dissentious rogues,

that, rubbing the poor itch of

your opinion, make yourselves scabs?

We have ever your good word.

He that will give good words to thee

will flatter beneath abhorring.

What would you have, you curs,

that like nor peace nor war?

The one affrights you,

the other makes you proud.

He that trusts to you,

where he should find you lions,

finds you hares, where foxes, geese.

Who deserves greatness,

deserves your hate.

Hang ye. Trust ye?

With every minute

you do change your mind,

and call him noble

that was now your hate,

him vile that was your garland.

What's the matter, that in these

several places of the city

you cry against the noble senate,

who, under the gods, keep you in awe,

which else would feed on one another?

Go.

Get you home...

...you fragments.

- Go back!

- Forward!

Go back!

- Please...

- Know you me yet?

I know you well.

Your name, I think, is Aufidius.

It is so.

- I'm a Roman.

- What's the news in Rome?

What's the news in Rome?

There hath been in Rome

strange insurrections.

- The people against the senators.

- Hath been? Is it ended then?

The main blaze of it is past,

but a small thing

would make it flame again.

You have ended my business.

The news is the Volsces are in arms.

They have a leader, Tullus Aufidius,

that'll put you to it.

I sin in envying his nobility.

And were I anything but what I am,

I would wish me only he.

You have fought together?

He is a lion that I am proud to hunt.

Titus Lartius, thou shalt see me

once more strike at Tullus' face.

Lead you on.

So your opinion is, Aufidius,

that they of Rome

are entered in our counsels

- and know how we proceed.

- Is it not yours?

'Tis not four days gone

since I heard thence.

By the discovery,

we shall be shortened in our aim.

And it is rumored Martius, your

old enemy, leads on this preparation.

If we and Caius Martius

chance to meet, 'tis sworn between us

we shall ever strike

till one can do no more.

If ever again I meet him beard to beard,

he's mine or I am his.

Mark me!

They do disdain us much

beyond our thoughts.

He that retires, I'll take him for

a Volsce and he shall feel mine edge!

Go!

Come on.

Away!

The citizens

of Corioles have issued

and given to Titus

and to Martius battle.

We've heard their drums.

I saw our forces to their trenches

driven, and then I came away...

I pray you, daughter, sing,

or express yourself

in a more comfortable sort.

If my son were my husband,

I would more freely

rejoice in that absence

wherein he won honor

than in the embracements of his bed

where he would show most love.

When yet he was but tender-bodied

and the only son of my womb,

I, considering how honor

would become such a person,

was pleased to let him seek danger,

where he was like to find fame.

To a cruel war I sent him,

from whence he returned,

his brows bound with oak.

But had he died in the business,

madam, how then?

Then...

...his good report

should have been my son.

Hear me.

Had I a dozen sons,

I had rather eleven die

nobly for their country,

than one voluptuously

surfeit out of action.

Heavens bless my lord

from fell Aufidius.

He'll beat Aufidius' head

below his knee and tread upon his neck.

Methinks I hear hither

your husband's drum.

I see him stamp thus,

cry thus:

"Come on, you cowards!

You were got in fear,

though you were born in Rome."

You souls of geese

that bear the shapes of men!

Pluto and hell.

Look to it. Come on!

Mend and charge home,

or, by the fires of heaven, I'll leave

the foe and make my wars on you.

His bloody brow then wiping,

forth he goes.

His bloody brow?

O Jupiter, no blood.

Away, you fool.

It more becomes a man

than gold his trophy.

Senator Menenius is come to visit you.

Tell him we are fit to bid him welcome.

Beseech you,

give me leave to retire myself.

- Indeed, you shall not.

- My ladies both, good day to you.

How do you both?

And how does your little son?

I thank you, sir. Well, good.

He'd rather play

with swords and hear a drum

- than look upon his schoolmaster.

- On my word, the father's son.

Come, I must have you play the idle

housewife with me this afternoon.

No, good sir, I will not out of doors.

- Not out of doors?

- She shall, she shall.

Indeed, no, by your patience.

I'll not over the threshold

till my lord return from the wars.

Fie, you confine yourself

most unreasonably.

- I cannot go hither.

- O you would be another Penelope.

Yet they say, all the yarn she spun

in Ulysses' absence

did but fill Ithaca full of moths.

No, good sir. Pardon me.

Indeed, I will not forth.

Go with me, and I'll tell you

excellent news of your husband.

No, good sir,

there can be none yet.

- There came news from him last night.

- Indeed?

Your lord and Titus Lartius are set down

before the Volscian city of Carioles.

They nothing doubt prevailing,

and to make it brief wars.

This is true, on mine honor.

So, I pray, go out with us.

Give me excuse, good sir.

I will obey you in everything hereafter.

Let her alone. As she is now,

she will but disease our better mirth.

- What is become of Martius?

- Slain, sir, doubtless.

He is himself alone,

to answer all the city.

Thou art lost, Martius.

Who's yonder,

that does appear as he were flayed?

O gods! He has the stamp of Martius.

Come I too late?!

Come I too late?!

Aye, if you come not in the blood

of others, but mantled in your own.

Let me hold you in arms

as sound as when I wooed,

in heart as merry as when

our nuptial day was done.

There is the man of my soul's hate.

Aufidius, piercing our Romans.

Worthy sir, thou bleeds.

Thy exercise has been too violent

for a second course of fight.

Sir, praise me not.

My work hath not yet warmed me.

The blood I drop is more

medicinal than dangerous to me.

To Aufidius thus

I will appear and fight.

If any such be here,

as it were sin to doubt,

that love this painting

wherein you see me smeared,

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