ARKCODEX
Act IV, Scene 5
1The same. A hall in Aufidius’s house.
2Music within. Enter a Servingman.
3First ServingmanWine, wine, wine! What service is here! I think our fellows are asleep. Exit.
4Enter a Second Servingman.
5Second ServingmanWhere’s Cotus? my master calls for him. Cotus! Exit.
6Enter Coriolanus.
7CoriolanusA goodly house: the feast smells well; but I
Appear not like a guest.
8Reenter the First Servingman.
9First ServingmanWhat would you have, friend? whence are you? Here’s no place for you: pray, go to the door. Exit.
10CoriolanusI have deserved no better entertainment,
In being Coriolanus.
11Reenter Second Servingman.
12Second ServingmanWhence are you, sir? Has the porter his eyes in his head, that he gives entrance to such companions? Pray, get you out.
13CoriolanusAway!
14Second ServingmanAway! get you away.
15CoriolanusNow thou’rt troublesome.
16Second ServingmanAre you so brave? I’ll have you talked with anon.
17Enter a Third Servingman. The First meets him.
18Third ServingmanWhat fellow’s this?
19First ServingmanA strange one as ever I looked on: I cannot get him out o’ the house: prithee, call my master to him. Retires.
20Third ServingmanWhat have you to do here, fellow? Pray you, avoid the house.
21CoriolanusLet me but stand; I will not hurt your hearth.
22Third ServingmanWhat are you?
23CoriolanusA gentleman.
24Third ServingmanA marvellous poor one.
25CoriolanusTrue, so I am.
26Third ServingmanPray you, poor gentleman, take up some other station; here’s no place for you; pray you, avoid: come.
27CoriolanusFollow your function, go, and batten on cold bits. Pushes him away.
28Third ServingmanWhat, you will not? Prithee, tell my master what a strange guest he has here.
29Second ServingmanAnd I shall. Exit.
30Third ServingmanWhere dwellest thou?
31CoriolanusUnder the canopy.
32Third ServingmanUnder the canopy!
33CoriolanusAy.
34Third ServingmanWhere’s that?
35CoriolanusI’ the city of kites and crows.
36Third ServingmanI’ the city of kites and crows! What an ass it is! Then thou dwellest with daws too?
37CoriolanusNo, I serve not thy master.
38Third ServingmanHow, sir! do you meddle with my master?
39CoriolanusAy; ’tis an honester service than to meddle with thy mistress.
Thou pratest, and pratest; serve with thy trencher, hence! Beats him away. Exit Third Servingman.
40Enter Aufidius with the Second Servingman.
41AufidiusWhere is this fellow?
42Second ServingmanHere, sir: I’ld have beaten him like a dog, but for disturbing the lords within. Retires.
43AufidiusWhence comest thou? what wouldst thou? thy name?
Why speak’st not? speak, man: what’s thy name?
44CoriolanusIf, Tullus, Unmuffling.
Not yet thou knowest me, and, seeing me, dost not
Think me for the man I am, necessity
Commands me name myself.
45AufidiusWhat is thy name?
46CoriolanusA name unmusical to the Volscians’ ears,
And harsh in sound to thine.
47AufidiusSay, what’s thy name?
Thou hast a grim appearance, and thy face
Bears a command in’t; though thy tackle’s torn,
Thou show’st a noble vessel: what’s thy name?
48CoriolanusPrepare thy brow to frown: know’st thou me yet?
49AufidiusI know thee not: thy name?
50CoriolanusMy name is Caius Marcius, who hath done
To thee particularly and to all the Volsces
Great hurt and mischief; thereto witness may
My surname, Coriolanus: the painful service,
The extreme dangers and the drops of blood
Shed for my thankless country are requited
But with that surname; a good memory,
And witness of the malice and displeasure
Which thou shouldst bear me: only that name remains;
The cruelty and envy of the people,
Permitted by our dastard nobles, who
Have all forsook me, hath devour’d the rest;
And suffer’d me by the voice of slaves to be
Whoop’d out of Rome. Now this extremity
Hath brought me to thy hearth; not out of hope—
Mistake me not—to save my life, for if
I had fear’d death, of all the men i’ the world
I would have ’voided thee, but in mere spite,
To be full quit of those my banishers,
Stand I before thee here. Then if thou hast
A heart of wreak in thee, that wilt revenge
Thine own particular wrongs and stop those maims
Of shame seen through thy country, speed thee straight,
And make my misery serve thy turn: so use it
That my revengeful services may prove
As benefits to thee, for I will fight
Against my canker’d country with the spleen
Of all the under fiends. But if so be
Thou darest not this and that to prove more fortunes
Thou’rt tired, then, in a word, I also am
Longer to live most weary, and present
My throat to thee and to thy ancient malice;
Which not to cut would show thee but a fool,
Since I have ever follow’d thee with hate,
Drawn tuns of blood out of thy country’s breast,
And cannot live but to thy shame, unless
It be to do thee service.
51AufidiusO Marcius, Marcius!
Each word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heart
A root of ancient envy. If Jupiter
Should from yond cloud speak divine things,
And say “ ’Tis true,” I’ld not believe them more
Than thee, all noble Marcius. Let me twine
Mine arms about that body, where against
My grained ash an hundred times hath broke,
And scarr’d the moon with splinters: here I clip
The anvil of my sword, and do contest
As hotly and as nobly with thy love
As ever in ambitious strength I did
Contend against thy valour. Know thou first,
I loved the maid I married; never man
Sigh’d truer breath; but that I see thee here,
Thou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart
Than when I first my wedded mistress saw
Bestride my threshold. Why, thou Mars! I tell thee,
We have a power on foot; and I had purpose
Once more to hew thy target from thy brawn,
Or lose mine arm for’t: thou hast beat me out
Twelve several times, and I have nightly since
Dreamt of encounters ’twixt thyself and me;
We have been down together in my sleep,
Unbuckling helms, fisting each other’s throat,
And waked half dead with nothing. Worthy Marcius,
Had we no quarrel else to Rome, but that
Thou art thence banish’d, we would muster all
From twelve to seventy, and pouring war
Into the bowels of ungrateful Rome,
Like a bold flood o’er-bear. O, come, go in,
And take our friendly senators by the hands;
Who now are here, taking their leaves of me,
Who am prepared against your territories,
Though not for Rome itself.
52CoriolanusYou bless me, gods!
53AufidiusTherefore, most absolute sir, if thou wilt have
The leading of thine own revenges, take
The one half of my commission; and set down—
As best thou art experienced, since thou know’st
Thy country’s strength and weakness—thine own ways;
Whether to knock against the gates of Rome,
Or rudely visit them in parts remote,
To fright them, ere destroy. But come in:
Let me commend thee first to those that shall
Say yea to thy desires. A thousand welcomes!
And more a friend than e’er an enemy;
Yet, Marcius, that was much. Your hand: most welcome! Exeunt Coriolanus and Aufidius. The two Servingmen come forward.
54First ServingmanHere’s a strange alteration!
55Second ServingmanBy my hand, I had thought to have strucken him with a cudgel; and yet my mind gave me his clothes made a false report of him.
56First ServingmanWhat an arm he has! he turned me about with his finger and his thumb, as one would set up a top.
57Second ServingmanNay, I knew by his face that there was something in him: he had, sir, a kind of face, methought—I cannot tell how to term it.
58First ServingmanHe had so; looking as it were—would I were hanged, but I thought there was more in him than I could think.
59Second ServingmanSo did I, I’ll be sworn: he is simply the rarest man i’ the world.
60First ServingmanI think he is: but a greater soldier than he, you wot on.
61Second ServingmanWho, my master?
62First ServingmanNay, it’s no matter for that.
63Second ServingmanWorth six on him.
64First ServingmanNay, not so neither: but I take him to be the greater soldier.
65Second ServingmanFaith, look you, one cannot tell how to say that: for the defence of a town, our general is excellent.
66First ServingmanAy, and for an assault too.
67Reenter Third Servingman.
68Third ServingmanO slaves, I can tell you news—news, you rascals!
69First Servingman
Second Servingman What, what, what? let’s partake.
70Third ServingmanI would not be a Roman, of all nations; I had as lieve be a condemned man.
71First Servingman
Second Servingman Wherefore? wherefore?
72Third ServingmanWhy, here’s he that was wont to thwack our general, Caius Marcius.
73First ServingmanWhy do you say “thwack our general”?
74Third ServingmanI do not say “thwack our general;” but he was always good enough for him.
75Second ServingmanCome, we are fellows and friends: he was ever too hard for him; I have heard him say so himself.
76First ServingmanHe was too hard for him directly, to say the troth on’t: before Corioli he scotched him and notched him like a carbonado.
77Second ServingmanAn he had been cannibally given, he might have broiled and eaten him too.
78First ServingmanBut, more of thy news?
79Third ServingmanWhy, he is so made on here within, as if he were son and heir to Mars; set at upper end o’ the table; no question asked him by any of the senators, but they stand bald before him: our general himself makes a mistress of him; sanctifies himself with’s hand and turns up the white o’ the eye to his discourse. But the bottom of the news is, our general is cut i’ the middle and but one half of what he was yesterday; for the other has half, by the entreaty and grant of the whole table. He’ll go, he says, and sowl the porter of Rome gates by the ears: he will mow all down before him, and leave his passage polled.
80Second ServingmanAnd he’s as like to do’t as any man I can imagine.
81Third ServingmanDo’t! he will do’t; for, look you, sir, he has as many friends as enemies; which friends, sir, as it were, durst not, look you, sir, show themselves, as we term it, his friends whilst he’s in directitude.
82First ServingmanDirectitude! what’s that?
83Third ServingmanBut when they shall see, sir, his crest up again, and the man in blood, they will out of their burrows, like conies after rain, and revel all with him.
84First ServingmanBut when goes this forward?
85Third ServingmanTo-morrow; to-day; presently; you shall have the drum struck up this afternoon: ’tis, as it were, a parcel of their feast, and to be executed ere they wipe their lips.
86Second ServingmanWhy, then we shall have a stirring world again. This peace is nothing, but to rust iron, increase tailors, and breed ballad-makers.
87First ServingmanLet me have war, say I; it exceeds peace as far as day does night; it’s spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more bastard children than war’s a destroyer of men.
88Second Servingman’Tis so: and as war, in some sort, may be said to be a ravisher, so it cannot be denied but peace is a great maker of cuckolds.
89First ServingmanAy, and it makes men hate one another.
90Third ServingmanReason; because they then less need one another. The wars for my money. I hope to see Romans as cheap as Volscians. They are rising, they are rising.
91AllIn, in, in, in! Exeunt.