Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

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1.11 Enter Aufidius, bloody, with two or three Soldiers AUFIDIUS The town is ta’en.

A SOLDIER

’Twill be delivered back on good condition.

AUFIDIUS Condition?

I would I were a Roman, for I cannot,

Being a Volsce, be that I am. Condition?

What good condition can a treaty find

I‘th’ part that is at mercy? Five times, Martius,

I have fought with thee; so often hast thou beat me,

And wouldst do so, I think, should we encounter

As often as we eat. By th’ elements,

If e’er again I meet him beard to beard,

He’s mine, or I am his! Mine emulation

Hath not that honour in’t it had, for where

I thought to crush him in an equal force,

True sword to sword, I’ll potch at him some way

Or wrath or craft may get him.

A SOLDIER

He’s the devil.

AUFIDIUS

Bolder, though not so subtle. My valour, poisoned

With only suff‘ring stain by him, for him

Shall fly out of itself. Nor sleep nor sanctuary,

Being naked, sick, nor fane nor Capitol,

The prayers of priests nor times of sacrifice—

Embargements all of fury—shall lift up

Their rotten privilege and custom ’gainst

My hate to Martius. Where I find him, were it

At home upon my brother’s guard, even there,

Against the hospitable canon, would I

Wash my fierce hand in’s heart. Go you to th’ city.

Learn how ’tis held, and what they are that must

Be hostages for Rome.

A SOLDIER

Will not you go?

AUFIDIUS

I am attended at the cypress grove. I pray you—

’Tis south the city mills—bring me word thither

How the world goes, that to the pace of it

I may spur on my journey.

A SOLDIER

I shall, sir.

Exeunt ⌈Aufidius at one door, Soldiers at another door⌉

2.1 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.

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.

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.

SICINIUS and BRUTUS Well, sir?

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.

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?

SICINIUS and BRUTUS Why, how are we censured?

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

SICINIUS and BRUTUS 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 Martius 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!

SICINIUS and 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 anything. 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 faucet-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 ‘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 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 leaves Brutus and Sicinius, who stand aside.

Enter in haste Volumnia, Virgilia, and Valeria

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 Martius approaches. For the love of Juno, let’s go.

MENENIUS Ha, Martius coming home? 100

VOLUMNIA Ay, worthy Menenius, and with most prosperous approbation.

MENENIUS ⌈throwing up his cap⌉ Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee! Hoo, Martius coming home?

VIRGILIA and VALERIA 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 tonight. 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? 124

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 fidiussed 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 truth, 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? Pooh-whoo!

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 more cause to be proud. (To Volumnia) 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.

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 enemy’s grave.

A shout and flourish

Hark, the trumpets.

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, Which being advanced, declines; and then men die.

Trumpets sound a sennet. Enter ⌈in state⌉ Cominius the general and Lartius, between them Coriolanus, crowned with an oaken garland, with captains and soldiers and a Herald

HERALD

Know, Rome, that all alone Martius did fight

Within Corioles’ gates, where he hath won 160

With fame a name to ‘Martius Caius’; these

In honour follows ‘Coriolanus’.

Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!

A flourish sounds

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 (to Volumnia) O,

You have, I know, petitioned all the gods

For my prosperity!

He kneels

VOLUMNIA

Nay, my good soldier, up,

My gentle Martius, worthy Caius,

⌈He rises⌉

And, by deed-achieving honour newly named—

What is it?—’Coriolanus’ must I call thee?

But O, thy wife!

CORIOLANUS (to Virgilia) 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⌉ to Valeria)

And live you yet? O my sweet lady, pardon.

VOLUMNIA

I know not where to turn. O, welcome home!

And welcome, general, and you’re welcome all!

MENENIUS

A hundred thousand welcomes! I could weep

And I could laugh, I am light and heavy. Welcome!

A curse begnaw 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.

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.

A flourish of cornetts. Exeunt in state, as before, all but Brutus and Sicinius, who come forward

BRUTUS

All tongues speak of him, and the blearèd 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,

Clamb’ring 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 guarded cheeks to th’ 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 temp’rately 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’th’ market-place nor on him put

The napless vesture of humility,

Nor, showing, as the manner is, his wounds

To th’ 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 authority’s 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 touch 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 Martius 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 scarves and handkerchiefs,

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 th’ time,

But hearts for the event.

SICINIUS Have with you. Exeunt

2.2 Enter two Officers, to lay cushions, as it were in the Capitol

FIRST OFFICER Come, come, they are almost here. How many stand for consulships?

SECOND OFFICER Three, they say, but ’tis thought of everyone Coriolanus will carry it.

FIRST OFFICER That’s a brave fellow, but he’s vengeance proud and loves not the common people.

SECOND OFFICER Faith, there hath been many great men that have flattered the people who ne’er loved them; and there be many that they have loved they know not wherefore, so that if they love they know not why, they hate upon no better a ground. Therefore for Coriolanus neither to care whether they love or hate him manifests the true knowledge he has in their disposition, and out of his noble carelessness lets them plainly see’t.

FIRST OFFICER If he did not care whether he had their love or no he waved indifferently ’twixt doing them neither good nor harm; but he seeks their hate with greater devotion than they can render it him, and leaves nothing undone that may fully discover him their opposite. Now to seem to affect the malice and displeasure of the people is as bad as that which he dislikes, to flatter them for their love.

SECOND OFFICER He hath deserved worthily of his country, and his ascent is not by such easy degrees as those who, having been supple and courteous to the people, bonneted, without any further deed to have them at all into their estimation and report. But he hath so planted his honours in their eyes and his actions in their hearts that for their tongues to be silent and not confess so much were a kind of ingrateful injury. To report otherwise were a malice that, giving itself the lie, would pluck reproof and rebuke from every ear that heard it.

FIRST OFFICER No more of him. He’s a worthy man. Make way, they are coming.

A sennet. Enter the Patricians, and Sicinius and Brutus, the tribunes of the people, lictors before them; Coriolanus, Menenius, Cominius the consul. ⌈The Patricians take their places and sit.⌉ Sicinius and Brutus take their places by themselves. Coriolanus stands

MENENIUS

Having determined of the Volsces, and

To send for Titus Lartius, it remains

As the main point of this our after-meeting

To gratify his noble service that

Hath thus stood for his country. Therefore please

you,

Most reverend and grave elders, to desire

The present consul and last general

In our well-found successes to report

A little of that worthy work performed

By Martius Caius Coriolanus, whom

We met here both to thank and to remember

With honours like himself.

⌈Coriolanus sits⌉

FIRST SENATOR Speak, good Cominius.

Leave nothing out for length, and make us think

Rather our state’s defective for requital

Than we to stretch it out.

(To the tribunes) Masters o’th’ people,

We do request your kindest ears and, after,

Your loving motion toward the common body

To yield what passes here.

SICINIUS We are convented

Upon a pleasing treaty, and have hearts

Inclinable to honour and advance

The theme of our assembly.

BRUTUS Which the rather

We shall be blessed to do if he remember

A kinder value of the people than

He hath hereto prized them at.

MENENIUS That’s off, that’s off.

I would you rather had been silent. Please you

To hear Cominius speak?

BRUTUS Most willingly,

But yet my caution was more pertinent

Than the rebuke you give it.

MENENIUS He loves your people,

But tie him not to be their bedfellow.

Worthy Cominius, speak.

Coriolanus rises and offers to go away

(To Coriolanus) Nay, keep your place. ⌈FIRST⌉ SENATOR Sit, Coriolanus. Never shame to hear

What you have nobly done.

CORIOLANUS Your honours’ pardon,

I had rather have my wounds to heal again

Than hear say how I got them.

BRUTUS

Sir, I hope

My words disbenched you not?

CORIOLANUS No, sir, yet oft

When blows have made me stay I fled from words.

You soothed not, therefore hurt not; but your people,

I love them as they weigh—

MENENIUS Pray now, sit down.

CORIOLANUS

I had rather have one scratch my head i’th’ sun

When the alarum were struck than idly sit

To hear my nothings monstered.

Exit

MENENIUS Masters of the people,

Your multiplying spawn how can he flatter—

That’s thousand to one good one—when you now see

He had rather venture all his limbs for honour

Than one on’s ears to hear it? Proceed, Cominius.

COMINIUS

I shall lack voice; the deeds of Coriolanus

Should not be uttered feebly. It is held

That valour is the chiefest virtue, and

Most dignifies the haver. If it be,

The man I speak of cannot in the world

Be singly counterpoised. At sixteen years,

When Tarquin made a head for Rome, he fought

Beyond the mark of others. Our then dictator,

Whom with all praise I point at, saw him fight

When with his Amazonian chin he drove

The bristled lips before him. He bestrid

An o‘erpressed Roman, and, i’th’ consul’s view,

Slew three opposers. Tarquin’s self he met,

And struck him on his knee. In that day’s feats,

When he might act the woman in the scene,

He proved best man i‘th’ field, and for his meed

Was brow-bound with the oak. His pupil age

Man-entered thus, he waxed like a sea,

And in the brunt of seventeen battles since

He lurched all swords of the garland. For this last

Before and in Corioles, let me say

I cannot speak him home. He stopped the fliers,

And by his rare example made the coward

Turn terror into sport. As weeds before

A vessel under sail, so men obeyed

And fell below his stem. His sword, death’s stamp,

Where it did mark, it took. From face to foot

He was a thing of blood, whose every motion

Was timed with dying cries. Alone he entered

The mortal gate of th’ city, which he, painted

With shunless destiny, aidless came off,

And with a sudden reinforcement struck

Corioles like a planet. Now all’s his.

When by and by the din of war gan pierce

His ready sense, then straight his doubled spirit

Requickened what in flesh was fatigate,

And to the battle came he, where he did

Run reeking o’er the lives of men as if

’Twere a perpetual spoil; and till we called

Both field and city ours he never stood

To ease his breast with panting.

MENENIUS Worthy man.

⌈FIRST⌉ SENATOR

He cannot but with measure fit the honours

Which we devise him.

COMINIUS Our spoils he kicked at,

And looked upon things precious as they were

The common muck of the world. He covets less

Than misery itself would give, rewards

His deeds with doing them, and is content

To spend the time to end it.

MENENIUS He’s right noble.

Let him be called for.

⌈FIRST⌉ SENATOR Call Coriolanus.

OFFICER He doth appear.

Enter Coriolanus

MENENIUS

The senate, Coriolanus, are well pleased

To make thee consul.

CORIOLANUS I do owe them still

My life and services.

MENENIUS It then remains

That you do speak to the people.

CORIOLANUS I do beseech you,

Let me o’erleap that custom, for I cannot

Put on the gown, stand naked, and entreat them

For my wounds’ sake to give their suffrage.

Please you that I may pass this doing.

SICINIUS Sir, the people

Must have their voices, neither will they bate

One jot of ceremony.

MENENIUS (to Coriolanus) Put them not to’t.

Pray you, go fit you to the custom and

Take to you, as your predecessors have,

Your honour with your form.

CORIOLANUS It is a part

That I shall blush in acting, and might well

Be taken from the people.

BRUTUS (to Sicinius) Mark you that?

CORIOLANUS

To brag unto them ‘Thus I did, and thus’,

Show them th’unaching scars, which I should hide,

As if I had received them for the hire

Of their breath only!

MENENIUS Do not stand upon’t.—

We recommend to you, tribunes of the people,

Our purpose to them; and to our noble consul

Wish we all joy and honour.

SENATORS

To Coriolanus come all joy and honour!

A flourish of cornetts, then exeunt all but Sicinius and Brutus

BRUTUS

You see how he intends to use the people.

SICINIUS

May they perceive’s intent! He will require them

As if he did contemn what he requested

Should be in them to give.

BRUTUS Come, we’ll inform them

Of our proceedings here. On th’ market-place

I know they do attend us. Exeunt