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Translated Text |
| Source: Folger Shakespeare Library |
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Enter Menenius with the two Tribunes of the people,
Sicinius and Brutus. MENENIUS The augurer tells me we shall have news
tonight. BRUTUS Good or bad? MENENIUS Not according to the prayer of the people,
for they love not Martius. 5 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 Martius. 10 BRUTUS He’s a lamb indeed, that baas 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. | Back in Rome, Menenius chats up our two scheming tribunes, Sicinius and Brutus, while waiting for news from the battlefield. |
BOTH Well, sir. 15 MENENIUS In what enormity is Martius 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. 20 MENENIUS This is strange now. Do you two know how
you are censured here in the city, I mean of us o’
th’ right-hand file, do you? BOTH Why, how are we censured? MENENIUS Because you talk of pride now, will you not 25
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 30
angry at your pleasures, at the least, if you take it
as a pleasure to you in being so. You blame Martius
for being proud. BRUTUS We do it not alone, sir. MENENIUS I know you can do very little alone, for 35
your helps are many, or else your actions would
grow wondrous single. Your abilities are too infantlike
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 40
your good selves! O, that you could! BOTH What then, sir? MENENIUS Why, then you should discover a brace of
unmeriting, proud, violent, testy magistrates, alias
fools, as any in Rome. 45 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 favoring the first complaint, hasty and tinder-like 50
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 55
Lycurguses—if the drink you give me touch my
palate adversely, I make a crooked face at it. I cannot
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 60
be content to bear with those that say you are reverend
grave men, yet they lie deadly that tell you
have good faces. If you see this in the map of my
microcosm, follows it that I am known well enough
too? What harm can your bisson conspectuities 65
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 anything.
You are ambitious for poor knaves’ caps 70
and legs. You wear out a good wholesome forenoon
in hearing a cause between an orange-wife
and a faucet-seller, and then rejourn the controversy
of threepence to a second day of audience.
When you are hearing a matter between party and 75
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 80
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. 85 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 honorable a grave as to 90
stuff a botcher’s cushion or to be entombed in an
ass’s packsaddle. Yet you must be saying Martius is
proud, who, in a cheap estimation, is worth all
your predecessors since Deucalion, though peradventure
some of the best of ’em were hereditary 95
hangmen. Good e’en 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. He begins to exit. Brutus and Sicinius stand aside. | Sicinius and Brutus start with the Caius Martius hate, but Menenius
defends his pal and gives the tribunes a good tongue lashing before
storming off. |
Enter Volumnia, Virgilia, and Valeria. How now, my as fair as noble ladies—and the 100
moon, were she earthly, no nobler—whither do
you follow your eyes so fast? | Just then, Volumnia, Virgilia, and Valeria (the three V's) show up and bump into Menenius. Sicinius and Brutus stand off to the side and eavesdrop. |
VOLUMNIA Honorable Menenius, my boy Martius approaches.
For the love of Juno, let’s go! MENENIUS Ha? Martius coming home? 105 VOLUMNIA Ay, worthy Menenius, and with most prosperous
approbation. MENENIUS Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee! (He
throws his cap in the air.) Hoo! Martius coming
home? 110 VALERIA, VIRGILIA Nay, ’tis true. VOLUMNIA Look, here’s a letter from him. She produces
a paper. 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 115
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 120
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. 125 MENENIUS So do I too, if it be not too much. Brings he
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? 130 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 Corioles and 135
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 140
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. 145 VIRGILIA The gods grant them true. VOLUMNIA True? Pow waw! MENENIUS True? I’ll be sworn they are true. Where is
he wounded? (To the Tribunes.) God save your
good Worships! Martius is coming home; he has 150
more cause to be proud.—Where is he wounded? VOLUMNIA I’ th’ shoulder and i’ th’ 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’ th’ body. 155 MENENIUS One i’ th’ neck and two i’ th’ 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 160
enemy’s grave. (A shout and flourish.) Hark, the
trumpets! | Volumnia (Martius' mom) describes all the gory details of the wounds her son has received in battle. So far, the grand total is a whopping 27. (We told you "wounds" are a big deal in this play.) There's some discussion about how Martius will have tons of scars and gashes to show off to the plebeians when he goes before them to ask for their
votes. (Apparently, Caius Martius plans to run for office and showing
off his scars can help him win.) |
VOLUMNIA These are the ushers of Martius: before him
he carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears.
Death, that dark spirit, in ’s nervy arm doth lie, 165
Which, being advanced, declines, and then men die. A sennet. Enter Cominius the General and Titus Lartius, between
them Coriolanus crowned with an oaken garland, with
Captains and Soldiers and a Herald. Trumpets sound. HERALD
Know, Rome, that all alone Martius did fight
Within Corioles’ gates, where he hath won,
With fame, a name to Martius Caius; these
In honor follows “Coriolanus.” 170
Welcome to Rome, renownèd Coriolanus. Sound flourish. | A Herald shows up and is all "Make way, people, because Caius Martius is in the house and he's got a new nickname: Coriolanus!" (Okay, fine. Since everyone in Rome starts using this new name, we will, too.) |
ALL
Welcome to Rome, renownèd Coriolanus! CORIOLANUS
No more of this. It does offend my heart.
Pray now, no more. COMINIUS Look, sir, your mother. 175 CORIOLANUS O,
You have, I know, petitioned all the gods
For my prosperity. Kneels. VOLUMNIA Nay, my good soldier, up.
He stands.
My gentle Martius, worthy Caius, and 180
By deed-achieving honor newly named—
What is it? Coriolanus must I call thee?
But, O, thy wife— CORIOLANUS My gracious silence, hail.
Wouldst thou have laughed had I come coffined 185
home,
That weep’st to see me triumph? Ah, my dear,
Such eyes the widows in Corioles wear
And mothers that lack sons. MENENIUS Now the gods crown 190
thee! CORIOLANUS
And live you yet? (To Valeria.) O, my sweet lady,
pardon. VOLUMNIA
I know not where to turn. O, welcome home!—
And, welcome, general.—And you’re welcome all. 195 | Coriolanus enters and kneels before his mother like he's her obedient
servant. Then he gets up and greets his wife. In that order. |
MENENIUS
A hundred thousand welcomes! I could weep,
And I could laugh; I am light and heavy. Welcome.
A curse begin at very root on ’s heart
That is not glad to see thee! You are three
That Rome should dote on; yet, by the faith of men, 200
We have some old crab trees here at home that will
not
Be grafted to your relish. Yet welcome, warriors!
We call a nettle but a nettle, and
The faults of fools but folly. 205 COMINIUS Ever right. CORIOLANUS Menenius ever, ever. HERALD
Give way there, and go on! CORIOLANUS, to Volumnia and Virgilia Your hand
and yours. 210
Ere in our own house I do shade my head,
The good patricians must be visited,
From whom I have received not only greetings,
But with them change of honors. VOLUMNIA I have lived 215
To see inherited my very wishes
And the buildings of my fancy. Only
There’s one thing wanting, which I doubt not but
Our Rome will cast upon thee. CORIOLANUS Know, good mother, 220
I had rather be their servant in my way
Than sway with them in theirs. COMINIUS On, to the Capitol. Flourish of cornets. They exit in state, as before. | After a quick hello to wife and mommy, Coriolanus rushes off to the Capitol to see the patricians who run the Senate. |
Brutus and Sicinius come forward. BRUTUS
All tongues speak of him, and the blearèd sights
Are spectacled to see him. Your prattling nurse 225
Into a rapture lets her baby cry
While she chats him. The kitchen malkin pins
Her richest lockram ’bout her reechy neck,
Clamb’ring the walls to eye him. Stalls, bulks,
windows 230
Are smothered up, leads filled, and ridges horsed
With variable complexions, all agreeing
In earnestness to see him. Seld-shown flamens
Do press among the popular throngs and puff
To win a vulgar station. Our veiled dames 235
Commit the war of white and damask in
Their nicely-gauded cheeks to th’ wanton spoil
Of Phoebus’ burning kisses. Such a pother,
As if that whatsoever god who leads him
Were slyly crept into his human powers 240
And gave him graceful posture. SICINIUS On the sudden
I warrant him consul. BRUTUS Then our office may,
During his power, go sleep. 245 | Alone on stage, the trash-talking tribunes freak out because Coriolanus will probably be elected "consul" now that he's an even bigger war hero than he was before. Brain Snack: Being consul was kind of a big deal, like being the U.S. president. At the time of the story, "Consul" was the highest political office in early Republican
Rome, which had only recently set up a government of elected officials
after getting rid of the tyrant King Tarquin. |
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