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

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 205 (всего у книги 250 страниц)

3.2 Enter Coriolanus, with Nobles

CORIOLANUS

Let them pull all about mine ears, present me

Death on the wheel or at wild horses’ heels,

Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock,

That the precipitation might down stretch

Below the beam of sight, yet will I still

Be thus to them.

Enter Volumnia

A PATRICIAN

You do the nobler.

CORIOLANUS

I muse my mother

Does not approve me further, who was wont

To call them woollen vassals, things created

To buy and sell with groats, to show bare heads

In congregations, to yawn, be still, and wonder,

When one but of my ordinance stood up

To speak of peace or war. (To Volumnia) I talk of you.

Why did you wish me milder? Would you have me

False to my nature? Rather say I play

The man I am.

VOLUMNIA

O, sir, sir, sir,

I would have had you put your power well on

Before you had worn it out.

CORIOLANUS

Let go.

VOLUMNIA

You might have been enough the man you are

With striving less to be so. Lesser had been

The taxings of your dispositions if

You had not showed them how ye were disposed

Ere they lacked power to cross you.

CORIOLANUS

Let them hang.

VOLUMNIA Ay, and burn too.

Enter Menenius, with the Senators

MENENIUS (to Coriolanus)

Come, come, you have been too rough, something too

rough.

You must return and mend it.

⌈FIRST⌉ SENATOR

There’s no remedy

Unless, by not so doing, our good city

Cleave in the midst and perish.

VOLUMNIA (to Coriolanus)

Pray be counselled.

I have a heart as little apt as yours,

But yet a brain that leads my use of anger

To better vantage.

MENENIUS

Well said, noble woman.

Before he should thus stoop to th’ herd, but that

The violent fit o’th’ time craves it as physic

For the whole state, I would put mine armour on,

Which I can scarcely bear.

CORIOLANUS What must I do?

MENENIUS Return to th’ tribunes.

CORIOLANUS Well, what then, what then?

MENENIUS Repent what you have spoke.

CORIOLANUS

For them? I cannot do it to the gods.

Must I then do’t to them?

VOLUMNIA

You are too absolute,

Though therein you can never be too noble,

But when extremities speak. I have heard you say,

Honour and policy, like unsevered friends,

I’th’ war do grow together. Grant that, and tell me

In peace what each of them by th’ other lose

That they combine not there.

CORIOLANUS

Tush, tush!

MENENIUS

A good demand.

VOLUMNIA

If it be honour in your wars to seem

The same you are not, which for your best ends

You adopt your policy, how is it less or worse

That it shall hold companionship in peace

With honour, as in war, since that to both

It stands in like request?

CORIOLANUS

Why force you this?

VOLUMNIA

Because that now it lies you on to speak to th’ people,

Not by your own instruction, nor by th’ matter

Which 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. Now this no more

Dishonours you at all than to take in

A town with gentle words, which else would put you

To your fortune and the hazard of much blood.

I would dissemble with my nature where

My fortunes and my friends at stake required

I should do so in honour. I am in this

Your wife, your son, these senators, the nobles;

And you will rather show our general louts

How you can frown than spend a fawn upon ’em

For the inheritance of their loves and safeguard

Of what that want might ruin.

MENENIUS

Noble lady!

(To Coriolanus) Come, go with us, speak fair. You may

salve so,

Not what is dangerous present, but the loss

Of what is past.

VOLUMNIA

I prithee now, my son,

⌈She takes his bonnet⌉

Go to them with this bonnet in thy hand,

And thus far having stretched it—here be with

them—

Thy knee bussing the stones—for in such business

Action is eloquence, and the eyes of th’ ignorant

More learnèd than the ears—waving thy head,

With often, thus, correcting thy stout heart,

Now humble as the ripest mulberry

That will not hold the handling; or say to them

Thou art their soldier and, being bred in broils,

Hast not the soft way which, thou dost confess,

Were fit for thee to use as they to claim,

In asking their good loves; but thou wilt frame

Thyself, forsooth, hereafter theirs so far

As thou hast power and person.

MENENIUS (to Coriolanus) This but done

Even as she speaks, why, their hearts were yours;

For they have pardons, being asked, as free

As words to little purpose.

VOLUMNIA (to Coriolanus) Prithee now,

Go, and be ruled, although I know thou hadst rather

Follow thine enemy in a fiery gulf

Than flatter him in a bower.

Enter Cominius

Here is Cominius.

COMINIUS

I have been i‘th’ market-place; and, sir, ’tis fit

You make strong party, or defend yourself

By calmness or by absence. All’s in anger.

MENENIUS

Only fair speech.

COMINIUS I think ’twill serve, if he

Can thereto frame his spirit.

VOLUMNIA He must, and will.

Prithee now, say you will, and go about it.

CORIOLANUS

Must I go show them my unbarbèd sconce?

Must I with my base tongue give to my noble heart

A lie that it must bear? Well, I will do’t.

Yet were there but this single plot to lose,

This mould of Martius they to dust should grind it

And throw’t against the wind. To th’ market-place.

You have put me now to such a part which never

I shall discharge to th’ life.

COMINIUS

Come, come, we’ll prompt you.

VOLUMNIA

I prithee now, sweet son, as thou hast said

My praises made thee first a soldier, so,

To have my praise for this, perform a part

Thou hast not done before.

CORIOLANUS

Well, I must do’t.

Away, my disposition; and possess me

Some harlot’s spirit! My throat of war be turned,

Which choired with my drum, into a pipe

Small as an eunuch or the virgin voice

That babies lull asleep! The smiles of knaves

Tent in my cheeks, and schoolboys’ tears take up

The glasses of my sight! A beggar’s tongue

Make motion through my lips, and my armed knees,

Who bowed but in my stirrup, bend like his

That hath received an alms! I will not do’t,

Lest I surcease to honour mine own truth,

And by my body’s action teach my mind

A most inherent baseness.

VOLUMNIA

At thy choice, then.

To beg of thee it is my more dishonour

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 thou list.

Thy valiantness was mine, thou sucked’st it from me,

But owe thy pride thyself.

CORIOLANUS

Pray be content.

Mother, I am going to the market-place.

Chide me no more. I’ll mountebank their loves,

Cog their hearts from them, and come home beloved

Of all the trades in Rome. Look, I am going.

Commend me to my wife. I’ll return consul,

Or never trust to what my tongue can do

I’th’ way of flattery further.

VOLUMNIA

Do your will.

Exit Volumnia

COMINIUS

Away! The tribunes do attend you. Arm yourself

To answer mildly, for they are prepared

With accusations, as I hear, more strong

Than are upon you yet.

CORIOLANUS

The word is ‘mildly’. Pray you let us go.

Let them accuse me by invention, I

Will answer in mine honour.

MENENIUS Ay, but mildly.

CORIOLANUS Well, mildly be it, then—mitd)y.

Exeunt

3.3 Enter Sicinius and Brutus

BRUTUS

In this point charge him home: that he affects

Tyrannical power. If he evade us there,

Enforce him with his envy to the people,

And that the spoil got on the Antiats

Was ne’er distributed.

Enter an Aedile

What, will he come?

AEDILE

He’s coming.

BRUTUS How accompanied?

AEDILE

With old Menenius, and those senators

That always favoured him.

SICINIUS Have you a catalogue

Of all the voices that we have procured,

Set down by th’ poll?

AEDILE I have, ’tis ready.

SICINIUS

Have you collected them by tribes?

AEDILE I have.

SICINIUS

Assemble presently the people hither,

And when they hear me say ‘It shall be so

I’th’ right and strength o‘th’ commons’, be it either

For death, for fine, or banishment, then let them,

If I say ‘Fine’, cry ‘Fine!’, if ‘Death’, cry ‘Death!’,

Insisting on the old prerogative

And power i‘th’ truth o’th’ cause.

AEDILE

I shall inform them.

BRUTUS

And when such time they have begun to cry,

Let them not cease, but with a din confused

Enforce the present execution

Of what we chance to sentence.

AEDILE

Very well.

SICINIUS

Make them be strong, and ready for this hint

When we shall hap to give’t them.

BRUTUS ⌈to the Aedile⌉ Go about it.

⌈Exit Aedile⌉

Put him to choler straight. He hath been used

Ever to conquer and to have his worth

Of contradiction. Being once chafed, he cannot

Be reined again to temperance. Then he speaks

What’s in his heart, and that is there which looks

With us to break his neck.

Enter Coriolanus, Menenius, and Cominius, with other ⌈Senators and Patricians⌉

SICINIUS Well, here he comes.

MENENIUS (to Coriolanus) Calmly, I do beseech you.

CORIOLANUS

Ay, as an hostler that for th’ poorest piece

Will bear the knave by th’ volume.—Th‘honoured

gods

Keep Rome in safety and the chairs of justice

Supplied with worthy men, plant love among’s,

Throng our large temples with the shows of peace,

And not our streets with war!

FIRST SENATOR Amen, amen.

MENENIUS A noble wish.

Enter the Aedile with the Citizens

SICINIUS

Draw near, ye people.

AEDILE List to your tribunes. Audience!

Peace, I say.

CORIOLANUS First, hear me speak.

SICINIUS and BRUTUS Well, say.—Peace ho!

CORIOLANUS

Shall I be charged no further than this present?

Must all determine here?

SICINIUS I do demand

If you submit you to the people’s voices,

Allow their officers, and are content

To suffer lawful censure for such faults

As shall be proved upon you.

CORIOLANUS

I am content.

MENENIUS

Lo, citizens, he says he is content.

The warlike service he has done, consider. Think

Upon the wounds his body bears, which show

Like graves i’th’ holy churchyard.

CORIOLANUS

Scratches with briers,

Scars to move laughter only.

MENENIUS Consider further

That when he speaks not like a citizen,

You find him like a soldier. Do not take

His rougher accents for malicious sounds,

But, as I say, such as become a soldier

Rather than envy you.

COMINIUS Well, well, no more.

CORIOLANUS What is the matter

That, being passed for consul with full voice,

I am so dishonoured that the very hour

You take it off again?

SICINUS Answer to us.

CORIOLANUS Say, then. ’Tis true I ought so.

SICINIUS

We charge you that you have contrived to take

From Rome all seasoned office, and to wind

Yourself into a power tyrannical,

For which you are a traitor to the people.

CORIOLANUS

How, traitor?

MENENIUS Nay, temperatety—your promise.

CORIOLANUS

The fires i‘th’ lowest hell fold in the people!

Call me their traitor, thou injurious tribune?

Within thine eyes sat twenty thousand deaths,

In thy hands clutched as many millions, in

Thy lying tongue both numbers, I would say

‘Thou liest’ unto thee with a voice as free

As I do pray the gods.

SICINIUS Mark you this, people?

ALL ⌈THE CITIZENS⌉ ⌉ To th’ rock, to th’ rock with him!

SICINIUS Peace!

We need not put new matter to his charge.

What you have seen him do and heard him speak,

Beating your officers, cursing yourselves,

Opposing laws with strokes, and here defying

Those whose great power must try him—

Even this, so criminal and in such capital kind,

Deserves th’extremest death.

BRUTUS

But since he hath

Served well for Rome—

CORIOLANUS

What do you prate of service?

BRUTUS

I talk of that that know it.

CORIOLANUS You?

MENENIUS

Is this the promise that you made your mother?

COMINIUS

Know, I pray you—

CORIOLANUS I’ll know no further.

Let them pronounce the steep Tarpeian death,

Vagabond exile, flaying, pent to linger

But with a grain a day, I would not buy

Their mercy at the price of one fair word,

Nor check my courage for what they can give

To have’t with saying ‘Good morrow’.

SICINIUS For that he has,

As much as in him lies, from time to time

Inveighed against the people, seeking means

To pluck away their power, as now at last

Given hostile strokes, and that not in the presence

Of dreaded justice, but on the ministers

That doth distribute it, in the name o‘th’ people,

And in the power of us the tribunes, we

E’en from this instant banish him our city

In peril of precipitation

From off the rock Tarpeian, never more

To enter our Rome gates. I’th’ people’s name

I say it shall be so.

ALL ⌈THE CITIZENS⌉ It shall be so,

It shall be so. Let him away. He’s banished,

And it shall be so.

COMINIUS

Hear me, my masters and my common friends.

SICINIUS

He’s sentenced. No more hearing.

COMINIUS

Let me speak.

I have been consul, and can show for Rome

Her enemies’ marks upon me. I do love

My country’s good with a respect more tender,

More holy and profound, than mine own life,

My dear wife’s estimate, her womb’s increase,

And treasure of my loins. Then if I would

Speak that—

SICINIUS

We know your drift. Speak what?

BRUTUS

There’s no more to be said, but he is banished,

As enemy to the people and his country.

It shall be so.

ALL ⌈THE CITIZENS⌉ It shall be so, it shall be so.

CORIOLANUS

You common cry of curs, whose breath I hate

As reek o’th’ rotten fens, whose loves I prize

As the dead carcasses of unburied men

That do corrupt my air: I banish you.

And here remain with your uncertainty.

Let every feeble rumour shake your hearts;

Your enemies, with nodding of their plumes,

Fan you into despair! Have the power still

To banish your defenders, till at length

Your ignorance—which finds not till it feels—

Making but reservation of yourselves,

Still your own foes, deliver you

As most abated captives to some nation

That won you without blows! Despising

For you the city, thus I turn my back.

There is a world elsewhere.

Exeunt Coriolanus, Cominius, and Menenius, with the rest of the Patricians. The Citizens all shout, and throw up their caps

AEDILE

The people’s enemy is gone, is gone.

ALL THE CITIZENS

Our enemy is banished, he is gone. Hoo-oo!

SICINIUS

Go see him out at gates, and follow him

As he hath followed you, with all despite.

Give him deserved vexation. Let a guard

Attend us through the city.

ALL THE CITIZENS

Come, come, let’s see him out at gates. Come.

The gods preserve our noble tribunes! Come. Exeunt

4.1 Enter Coriolanus, Volumnia, Virgilia, Menenius, and Cominius, with the young nobility of Rome

CORIOLANUS

Come, leave your tears. A brief farewell. The beast

With many heads butts me away. Nay, mother,

Where is your ancient courage? You were used

To say extremities was the trier of spirits,

That common chances common men could bear,

That when the sea was calm all boats alike

Showed mastership in floating; fortune’s blows

When most struck home, being gentle wounded craves

A noble cunning. You were used to load me

With precepts that would make invincible

The heart that conned them.

VIRGILIA O heavens, O heavens!

CORIOLANUS Nay, I prithee, woman—

VOLUMNIA

Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome,

And occupations perish!

CORIOLANUS What, what, what?

I shall be loved when I am lacked. Nay, mother,

Resume that spirit when you were wont to say,

If you had been the wife of Hercules

Six of his labours you’d have done, and saved

Your husband so much sweat. Cominius,

Droop not. Adieu. Farewell, my wife, my mother.

I’ll do well yet. Thou old and true Menenius,

Thy tears are salter than a younger man‘s,

And venomous to thine eyes. My sometime general,

I have seen thee stern, and thou hast oft beheld

Heart-hard’ning spectacles. Tell these sad women

‘Tis fond to wail inevitable strokes

As ’tis to laugh at ’em. My mother, you wot well

My hazards still have been your solace, and—

Believe’t not lightly—though I go alone,

Like to a lonely dragon that his fen

Makes feared and talked of more than seen, your son

Will or exceed the common or be caught

With cautelous baits and practice.

VOLUMNIA My first son,

Whither will thou go? Take good Cominius

With thee a while. Determine on some course

More than a wild exposure to each chance

That starts i’th’ way before thee.

⌈VIRGILIA⌉ O the gods!

COMINIUS

I’ll follow thee a month, devise with thee

Where thou shalt rest, that thou mayst hear of us

And we of thee. So, if the time thrust forth

A cause for thy repeal, we shall not send

O‘er the vast world to seek a single man,

And lose advantage, which doth ever cool

I’th’ absence of the needer.

CORIOLANUS Fare ye well.

Thou hast years upon thee, and thou art too full

Of the wars’ surfeits to go rove with one

That’s yet unbruised. Bring me but out at gate.

Come, my sweet wife, my dearest mother, and

My friends of noble touch. When I am forth,

Bid me farewell, and smile. I pray you come.

While I remain above the ground you shall

Hear from me still, and never of me aught

But what is like me formerly.

MENENIUS That’s worthily

As any ear can hear. Come, let’s not weep.

If I could shake off but one seven years

From these old arms and legs, by the good gods,

I’d with thee every foot.

CORIOLANUS Give me thy hand. Come.

Exeunt

4.2 Enter the two tribunes, Sicinius and Brutus, with the Aedile

SICINIUS (to the Aedile)

Bid them all home. He’s gone, and we’ll no further.

The nobility are vexed, whom we see have sided

In his behalf.

BRUTUS Now we have shown our power,

Let us seem humbler after it is done

Than when it was a-doing.

SICINIUS (to the Aedile) Bid them home.

Say their great enemy is gone, and they

Stand in their ancient strength.

BRUTUS

Dismiss them home.

Exit Aedile

Enter Volumnia, Virgilia, ⌈weeping,⌉ and Menenius

Here comes his mother.

SICINIUS Let’s not meet her.

BRUTUS Why?

SICINIUS They say she’s mad.

BRUTUS

They have ta’en note of us. Keep on your way.

VOLUMNIA

O, you’re well met! Th‘hoarded plague o’th’ gods

Requite your love!

MENENIUS Peace, peace, be not so loud.

VOLUMNIA (to the tribunes)

If that I could for weeping, you should hear—

Nay, and you shall hear some. Will you be gone?

VIRGILIA (to the tribunes)

You shall stay, too. I would I had the power

To say so to my husband.

SICINIUS (to Volumnia) Are you mankind?

VOLUMNIA

Ay, fool. Is that a shame? Note but this, fool:

Was not a man my father? Hadst thou foxship

To banish him that struck more blows for Rome

Than thou hast spoken words?

SICINIUS O blessed heavens!

VOLUMNIA

More noble blows than ever thou wise words,

And for Rome’s good. I’ll tell thee what—yet go.

Nay, but thou shalt stay too. I would my son

Were in Arabia, and thy tribe before him,

His good sword in his hand.

SICINIUS

What then?

VIRGILIA

What then?

He’d make an end of thy posterity.

VOLUMNIA Bastards and all.

Good man, the wounds that he does bear for Romeǃ MENENIUS Come, come, peace.

SICINIUS

I would he had continued to his country

As he began, and not unknit himself

The noble knot he made.

BRUTUS

I would he had.

VOLUMNIA

‘I would he had’! ’Twas you incensed the rabble—

Cats that can judge as fitly of his worth

As I can of those mysteries which heaven

Will not have earth to know.

BRUTUS (to Sicinius) Pray, let’s go.

VOLUMNIA Now pray, sir, get you gone.

You have done a brave deed. Ere you go, hear this:

As far as doth the Capitol exceed

The meanest house in Rome, so far my son—

This lady’s husband here, this, do you see?—

Whom you have banished does exceed you all.

BRUTUS

Well, well, we’ll leave you.

SICINIUS

Why stay we to be baited

With one that wants her wits?

Exeunt tribunes

VOLUMNIA Take my prayers with you.

I would the gods had nothing else to do

But to confirm my curses. Could I meet ’em

But once a day, it would unclog my heart

Of what lies heavy to’t.

MENENIUS

You have told them home

And, by my troth, you have cause. You’ll sup with me?

VOLUMNIA

Anger’s my meat, I sup upon myself,

And so shall starve with feeding.

(To Virgilia) Come, let’s go.

Leave this faint puling and lament as I do,

In anger, Juno-like. Come, come, come.

Exeunt Volumnia and Virgilia

MENENIUS

Fie, fie, fie.

Exit

4.3 Enter Nicanor, a Roman, and Adrian, a Volscian

NICANOR I know you well, sir, and you know me. Your name, I think, is Adrian.

ADRIAN It is so, sir. Truly, I have forgot you.

NICANOR I am a Roman, and my services are, as you are, against ’em. Know you me yet?

ADRIAN Nicanor, no?

NICANOR The same, sir.

ADRIAN You had more beard when I last saw you, but your favour is well approved by your tongue. What’s the news in Rome? I have a note from the Volscian state to find you out there. You have well saved me a day’s journey.

NICANOR There hath been in Rome strange insurrections, the people against the senators, patricians, and nobles.

ADRIAN Hath been?—is it ended then? Our state thinks not so. They are in a most warlike preparation, and hope to come upon them in the heat of their division.

NICANOR The main blaze of it is past, but a small thing would make it flame again, for the nobles receive so to heart the banishment of that worthy Coriolanus that they are in a ripe aptness to take all power from the people, and to pluck from them their tribunes for ever. This lies glowing, I can tell you, and is almost mature for the violent breaking out.

ADRIAN Coriolanus banished?

NICANOR Banished, sir.

ADRIAN You will be welcome with this intelligence, Nicanor.

NICANOR The day serves well for them now. I have heard it said the fittest time to corrupt a man’s wife is when she’s fallen out with her husband. Your noble Tullus Aufidius will appear well in these wars, his great opposer Coriolanus being now in no request of his country.

ADRIAN He cannot choose. I am most fortunate thus accidentally to encounter you. You have ended my business, and I will merrily accompany you home.

NICANOR I shall between this and supper tell you most strange things from Rome, all tending to the good of their adversaries. Have you an army ready, say you?

ADRIAN A most royal one—the centurions and their charges distinctly billeted already in th’entertainment, and to be on foot at an hour’s warning.

NICANOR I am joyful to hear of their readiness, and am the man, I think, that shall set them in present action. So, sir, heartily well met, and most glad of your company.

ADRIAN You take my part from me, sir. I have the most cause to be glad of yours.

NICANOR Well, let us go together. Exeunt