Coriolanus Page #4

I wish I had a cause to seek him there,

to oppose his hatred fully.

Come, Rome must know

the value of her own.

Behold, these are the tribunes

of the people,

the tongues of the common mouth.

- Pass no further.

- Ah? What is that?

It will be dangerous to go on.

No further.

- What makes this change?

- The matter?

Hath he not passed

the nobles and the commons?

- Cominius, no.

- Have I had children's voices?

- Tribunes, give away.

- The people are incensed against him.

- Are these your herd?

- Be calm, be calm.

The people cry you mocked them,

and of late called them time-pleasers,

- flatterers, foes to nobleness.

- Why, this was known before.

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

with a gentler spirit.

- Let's be calm.

- The people are abused, set on.

This was my speech,

and I'll speak it again.

- Not now, not now.

- Not in this heat, sir.

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 against our senate

the cockle of rebellion,

insolence, sedition,

which we ourselves have ploughed for,

sowed, and scattered

by mingling them with us,

the honored number

who lack not virtue, no, nor power,

but that which we have given to beggars!

- Well, no more!

- No more words, we beseech you.

You speak of the people

as if you were a god to punish,

not a man of their infirmity.

It were well we let the people know it.

Were I as patient as the midnight sleep,

by Jove, it would be my mind!

It is a mind that shall remain a poison

where it is, not poison any further.

Shall remain.

Hear you this Triton of the minnows?

Mark you his absolute "shall"?

Why should the people give one

that speaks thus their voice?

I'll give my reasons,

more worthier than their voices!

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.

Thus we debase

the nature of our seats

and make the rabble call our cares

fears, which will, in time,

break open the locks of the senate,

and bring in the crows

to peck the eagles!

- Come, enough!

- Enough, with over-measure.

He has spoken like a traitor,

and shall answer as traitors do!

Thou wretch,

despite overwhelm thee!

- Manifest treason!

- This is a consul? No!

Seize him!

Hence, old goat!

On both sides more respect!

Shh! Shh!

Here's he that would

take from you all your power!

You are at point to lose your liberties!

Martius would have all from you,

Martius, whom late

you have named for consul.

- What is the city but the people?!

- True!

The people are the city!

The people are the city!

We do here pronounce,

upon the part of the people,

Martius is worthy of present death!

Death!

- Guards, seize him!

- No, I'll die here!

Get you to your house! Be gone, away!

- All will be naught else!

- Come, sir, along with us!

As I do know the consul's worthiness,

so can I name his faults.

Consul? What consul?

- The Consul Coriolanus.

- He, consul?

It is decreed he dies tonight.

He's a disease that must be cut away.

O, he's a limb that hath but a disease.

Mortal, to cut it off,

to cure it, easy.

What has he done to Rome

that's worth his death, eh?

Killing our enemies?

The blood he hath lost,

he dropped it for his country.

- This is clean kam.

- We'll hear no more...

Consider this:

He's been bred in the wars

since he could draw a sword,

and is ill-schooled

in graceful language.

Give me leave. I'll go to him

and undertake to bring him

where he shall answer

by a lawful form, in peace,

to his utmost peril.

Noble tribunes,

it is the humane way.

- Menenius...

- Be you then as the people's officer.

In you bring not Martius,

we'll proceed in our first way.

I'll bring him to you.

Let them pull all about mine ears,

present me death on the wheel

or at wild horses' heels,

- yet will I still be thus to them!

- Martius...

I muse my mother

does not approve me further.

I talk of you.

Why would you wish me milder?

Would you have me false to my nature?

Rather say I play the man I am.

Sir, sir, I would have had

you put your power well on

before you had worn it out.

- Let go.

- You might have been enough

the man you are,

with striving less to be so.

- Let them hang.

- Aye, and burn, too.

Come, come, you've been

too rough, something too rough.

You must return and mend it.

There's no remedy, unless,

by not so doing, our good city

cleave in the midst and perish.

Pray, be counseled.

I have a heart as little apt as yours,

but yet a brain that leads

my use of anger to better vantage.

- Well said, noble woman.

- And what must I do?

- Return to the tribunes.

- What then? What then?

- Repent what you have spoke.

- For them? I cannot do it to the gods.

Must I then do it to them?

You are too absolute.

I've heard you say

that honor and policy,

like unsevered friends in war,

do grow together.

Why force you this?

Because that now it lies

you on to speak to the people,

not by your own instruction,

nor by the matter

your heart prompts you,

but with such words that

are but roted in your tongue,

though but bastards and syllables

of no allowance to your bosom's truth.

I would dissemble

with my nature where my fortune

and my friends at stake required

I should do so in honor.

I am, in this, your wife,

your son, the senators,

nobles... and you.

I prithee now, my son,

go to them, be with them,

say to them thou art their soldier.

And being bred in broils

has not the soft way

in asking their good loves.

But thou wilt frame thyself,

forsooth, hereafter theirs.

This but done, even as she speaks,

why their hearts were yours.

I prithee, go and be ruled.

Sir, it is fit you make strong party,

or defend yourself

by calmness or by absence.

- All's in anger.

- Only fair speech.

I think it will serve

if he can thereto frame his spirit.

He must.

He will.

Prithee now, say you will,

and go about it.

Must I, with base tongue,

give my noble heart

a lie that it must bear?

Well, I'll do it.

Away, my disposition,

and possess me some harlot's spirit.

A beggar's tongue

make motion through my lips.

I will not do it.

Lest I cease to honor mine own truth,

and by my body's action teach

my mind a most inherent baseness.

At thy choice, then.

To beg of thee is more

my dishonor than thou of them.

Come all to ruin.

Let thy mother rather

feel thy pride than fear

thy dangerous stoutness,

for I mock at death

with as big heart as thou.

Do as you like.

Thy valiantness was mine,

thou suck'st it from me,

but owe thy pride thyself.

Pray, be content, Mother, I'm going.

Chide me no more. Look, I am going.

I'll return consul, or never

trust to what my tongue can do

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