Menenius

The augurer tells me we shall have news to-night.

Brutus

Good or bad?

Menenius

Not according to the prayer of the people, for they love not Marcius.

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 Marcius.

Brutus

He's a lamb indeed, that baes 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.

Both Tribunes

Well, sir.

Menenius

In what enormity is Marcius 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.

Menenius

This is strange now: do you two know how you are censured here in the city, I mean of us a' the right-hand file? do you?

Both Tribunes

Why, how are we censured?

Menenius

Because you talk of pride now — will you not be angry?

Both Tribunes

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 angry at your pleasures; at the least, if you take it as a pleasure to you in being so. You blame Marcius for being proud?

Brutus

We do it not alone, sir.

Menenius

I know you can do very little alone; for your helps are many, or else your actions would grow wondrous single: your abilities are too infant-like 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 your good selves! O that you could!

Brutus

What then, sir?

Menenius

Why, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting, proud, violent, testy magistrates, alias fools, as any in Rome.

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 favouring the first complaint; hasty and tinder-like 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 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 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 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 any thing. You are ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs: you wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orange-wife and a fosset-seller; and then rejourn the controversy of threepence to a second day of audience. When you are hearing a matter between party and 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 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.

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 honourable a grave as to stuff a botcher's cushion, or to be entombed in an ass's pack-saddle. Yet you must be saying, Marcius is proud; who, in a cheap estimation, is worth all your predecessors since Deucalion, though peradventure some of the best of 'em were hereditary hangmen. God-den 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. How now, my as fair as noble ladies, and the moon, were she earthly, no nobler, whither do you follow your eyes so fast?

Volumnia

Honourable Menenius, my boy Marcius approaches; for the love of Juno, let's go.

Menenius

Ha! Marcius coming home!

Volumnia

Ay, worthy Menenius; and with most prosperous approbation.

Menenius

Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee. Hoo! Marcius coming home!

Volumnia and Virgilia

Nay, 'tis true.

Volumnia

Look, here's a letter from him: 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 to-night: a 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 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.

Menenius

So do I too, if it be not too much: brings 'a 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?

Volumnia

Titus Lartius writes, they fought together, but Aufidius got off.

Menenius

And 'twas time for him too, I'll warrant him that: and he had stayed by him, I would not have been so fidiused for all the chests in Corioles, and 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 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.

Virgilia

The gods grant them true!

Volumnia

True! pow waw.

Menenius

True! I'll be sworn they are true. Where is he wounded? God save your good worships! Marcius is coming home: he has more cause to be proud. Where is he wounded?

Volumnia

I' the shoulder and i' the 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' the body.

Menenius

One i' the neck, and two i' the 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 enemy's grave. Hark! the trumpets.

Volumnia

Death, that dark spirit, in's nervy arm doth lie:

Which, being advanced, declines, and then men die. A sennet. Trumpets sound.Enter COMINIUS the general, and TITUS LARTIUS; between them, CORIOLANUS, crowned with an oaken garland; with Captains and Soldiers, and a Herald.

Roman Herald

Know, Rome, that all alone Marcius did fight

Within Corioles gates: where he hath won,

With fame, a name to Marcius Caius; these

In honour follows Coriolanus.

Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus! Flourish.

All

Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!

Coriolanus

No more of this; it does offend my heart:

Pray now, no more.

Cominius

Look, sir, your mother!

Coriolanus

O,

You have, I know, petitioned all the gods

For my prosperity! Kneels.

Volumnia

Nay, my good soldier, up;

My gentle Marcius, worthy Caius, and

By deed-achieving honour 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 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 thee!

Coriolanus

And live you yet? To Valeria

O my sweet lady, pardon.

Valeria

I know not where to turn: O, welcome home:

And welcome, general, and y' are welcome all.

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,

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.

Cominius

Ever right.

Coriolanus

Menenius ever, ever.

Roman Herald

Give way there, and go on!

Coriolanus

To Volumnia and Virgilia

Your hand, and yours:

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 honours.

Volumnia

I have lived

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,

I had rather be their servant in my way

Than sway with them in theirs.

Cominius

On, to the Capitol! Flourish. Cornets.Exeunt in state, as before. Brutus and Sicinius come forward.

Brutus

All tongues speak of him, and the bleared sights

Are spectacled to see him: your prattling nurse

Into a rapture lets her baby cry

While she chats him: the kitchen malkin pins

Her richest lockram 'bout her reechy neck,

Clambering the walls to eye him: stalls, bulks, windows,

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

Commit the war of white and damask in

Their nicely gawded cheeks to the wanton spoil

Of Phoebus' burning kisses: such a pother

As if that whatsoever god who leads him

Were slily crept into his human powers

And gave him graceful posture.

Sicinius

On the sudden,

I warrant him consul.

Brutus

Then our office may,

During his power, go sleep.

Sicinius

He cannot temperately transport his honours

From where he should begin and end, but will

Lose those he hath won.

Brutus

In that there's comfort.

Sicinius

Doubt not

The commoners, for whom we stand, but they

Upon their ancient malice will forget

With the least cause these his new honours, which

That he will give them make I as little question

As he is proud to do't.

Brutus

I heard him swear,

Were he to stand for consul, never would he

Appear i' the marketplace nor on him put

The napless vesture of humility;

Nor, showing, as the manner is, his wounds

To the people, beg their stinking breaths.

Sicinius

'Tis right.

Brutus

It was his word: O, he would miss it rather

Than carry it but by the suit of the gentry to him

And the desire of the nobles.

Sicinius

I wish no better

Than have him hold that purpose and to put it

In execution.

Brutus

'Tis most like he will.

Sicinius

It shall be to him then as our good wills,

A sure destruction.

Brutus

So it must fall out

To him or our authorities. For an end,

We must suggest the people in what hatred

He still hath held them; that to's power he would

Have made them mules, silenced their pleaders and

Dispropertied their freedoms, holding them,

In human action and capacity,

Of no more soul nor fitness for the world

Than camels in their war, who have their provand

Only for bearing burdens, and sore blows

For sinking under them.

Sicinius

This, as you say, suggested

At some time when his soaring insolence

Shall teach the people which time shall not want,

If he be put upon't; and that's as easy

As to set dogs on sheep — will be his fire

To kindle their dry stubble; and their blaze

Shall darken him for ever. Enter a Messenger.

Brutus

What's the matter?

Messenger

You are sent for to the Capitol. 'Tis thought

That Marcius shall be consul:

I have seen the dumb men throng to see him and

The blind to hear him speak: matrons flung gloves,

Ladies and maids their scarfs and handkerchers,

Upon him as he passed: the nobles bended,

As to Jove's statue, and the commons made

A shower and thunder with their caps and shouts:

I never saw the like.

Brutus

Let's to the Capitol;

And carry with us ears and eyes for the time,

But hearts for the event.

Sicinius

Have with you. Exeunt.