Complete Plays, The (183 page)

Sicinius

This is a happier and more comely time
Than when these fellows ran about the streets,
Crying confusion.

Brutus

 
Caius Marcius was
A worthy officer i’ the war; but insolent,
O’ercome with pride, ambitious past all thinking,
Self-loving,—

Sicinius

 
And affecting one sole throne,
Without assistance.

Menenius

I think not so.

Sicinius

We should by this, to all our lamentation,
If he had gone forth consul, found it so.

Brutus

The gods have well prevented it, and Rome
Sits safe and still without him.

Enter an Aedile

Aedile

Worthy tribunes,
There is a slave, whom we have put in prison,
Reports, the Volsces with two several powers
Are enter’d in the Roman territories,
And with the deepest malice of the war
Destroy what lies before ’em.

Menenius

’Tis Aufidius,
Who, hearing of our Marcius’ banishment,
Thrusts forth his horns again into the world;
Which were inshell’d when Marcius stood for Rome,
And durst not once peep out.

Sicinius

Come, what talk you
Of Marcius?

Brutus

Go see this rumourer whipp’d. It cannot be
The Volsces dare break with us.

Menenius

Cannot be!
We have record that very well it can,
And three examples of the like have been
Within my age. But reason with the fellow,
Before you punish him, where he heard this,
Lest you shall chance to whip your information
And beat the messenger who bids beware
Of what is to be dreaded.

Sicinius

Tell not me:
I know this cannot be.

Brutus

Not possible.

Enter a Messenger

Messenger

The nobles in great earnestness are going
All to the senate-house: some news is come
That turns their countenances.

Sicinius

’Tis this slave;—
Go whip him, ’fore the people’s eyes:— his raising;
Nothing but his report.

Messenger

Yes, worthy sir,
The slave’s report is seconded; and more,
More fearful, is deliver’d.

Sicinius

What more fearful?

Messenger

It is spoke freely out of many mouths —
How probable I do not know — that Marcius,
Join’d with Aufidius, leads a power ’gainst Rome,
And vows revenge as spacious as between
The young’st and oldest thing.

Sicinius

This is most likely!

Brutus

Raised only, that the weaker sort may wish
Good Marcius home again.

Sicinius

The very trick on’t.

Menenius

This is unlikely:
He and Aufidius can no more atone
Than violentest contrariety.

Enter a second Messenger

Second Messenger

You are sent for to the senate:
A fearful army, led by Caius Marcius
Associated with Aufidius, rages
Upon our territories; and have already
O’erborne their way, consumed with fire, and took
What lay before them.

Enter Cominius

Cominius

O, you have made good work!

Menenius

What news? what news?

Cominius

You have holp to ravish your own daughters and
To melt the city leads upon your pates,
To see your wives dishonour’d to your noses,—

Menenius

What’s the news? what’s the news?

Cominius

Your temples burned in their cement, and
Your franchises, whereon you stood, confined
Into an auger’s bore.

Menenius

Pray now, your news?
You have made fair work, I fear me.— Pray, your news?—
If Marcius should be join’d with Volscians,—

Cominius

If!
He is their god: he leads them like a thing
Made by some other deity than nature,
That shapes man better; and they follow him,
Against us brats, with no less confidence
Than boys pursuing summer butterflies,
Or butchers killing flies.

Menenius

You have made good work,
You and your apron-men; you that stood so up much on the voice of occupation and
The breath of garlic-eaters!

Cominius

He will shake
Your Rome about your ears.

Menenius

As Hercules
Did shake down mellow fruit.
You have made fair work!

Brutus

But is this true, sir?

Cominius

Ay; and you’ll look pale
Before you find it other. All the regions
Do smilingly revolt; and who resist
Are mock’d for valiant ignorance,
And perish constant fools. Who is’t can blame him?
Your enemies and his find something in him.

Menenius

We are all undone, unless
The noble man have mercy.

Cominius

Who shall ask it?
The tribunes cannot do’t for shame; the people
Deserve such pity of him as the wolf
Does of the shepherds: for his best friends, if they
Should say ‘Be good to Rome,’ they charged him even
As those should do that had deserved his hate,
And therein show’d like enemies.

Menenius

’Tis true:
If he were putting to my house the brand
That should consume it, I have not the face
To say ‘Beseech you, cease.’ You have made fair hands,
You and your crafts! you have crafted fair!

Cominius

You have brought
A trembling upon Rome, such as was never
So incapable of help.

Both Tribunes

Say not we brought it.

Menenius

How! Was it we? we loved him but, like beasts
And cowardly nobles, gave way unto your clusters,
Who did hoot him out o’ the city.

Cominius

But I fear
They’ll roar him in again. Tullus Aufidius,
The second name of men, obeys his points
As if he were his officer: desperation
Is all the policy, strength and defence,
That Rome can make against them.

Enter a troop of Citizens

Menenius

Here come the clusters.
And is Aufidius with him? You are they
That made the air unwholesome, when you cast
Your stinking greasy caps in hooting at
Coriolanus’ exile. Now he’s coming;
And not a hair upon a soldier’s head
Which will not prove a whip: as many coxcombs
As you threw caps up will he tumble down,
And pay you for your voices. ’Tis no matter;
If he could burn us all into one coal,
We have deserved it.

Citizens

Faith, we hear fearful news.

First Citizen

For mine own part,
When I said, banish him, I said ’twas pity.

Second Citizen

And so did I.

Third Citizen

And so did I; and, to say the truth, so did very many of us: that we did, we did for the best; and though we willingly consented to his banishment, yet it was against our will.

Cominius

Ye re goodly things, you voices!

Menenius

You have made
Good work, you and your cry! Shall’s to the Capitol?

Cominius

O, ay, what else?

Exeunt Cominius and Menenius

Sicinius

Go, masters, get you home; be not dismay’d:
These are a side that would be glad to have
This true which they so seem to fear. Go home,
And show no sign of fear.

First Citizen

The gods be good to us! Come, masters, let’s home.
I ever said we were i’ the wrong when we banished him.

Second Citizen

So did we all. But, come, let’s home.

Exeunt Citizens

Brutus

I do not like this news.

Sicinius

Nor I.

Brutus

Let’s to the Capitol. Would half my wealth
Would buy this for a lie!

Sicinius

Pray, let us go.

Exeunt

S
CENE
VII. A
CAMP
,
AT
A
SMALL
DISTANCE
FROM
R
OME
.

Enter Aufidius and his Lieutenant

Aufidius

Do they still fly to the Roman?

Lieutenant

I do not know what witchcraft’s in him, but
Your soldiers use him as the grace ’fore meat,
Their talk at table, and their thanks at end;
And you are darken’d in this action, sir,
Even by your own.

Aufidius

 
I cannot help it now,
Unless, by using means, I lame the foot
Of our design. He bears himself more proudlier,
Even to my person, than I thought he would
When first I did embrace him: yet his nature
In that’s no changeling; and I must excuse
What cannot be amended.

Lieutenant

Yet I wish, sir,—
I mean for your particular,— you had not
Join’d in commission with him; but either
Had borne the action of yourself, or else
To him had left it solely.

Aufidius

I understand thee well; and be thou sure,
When he shall come to his account, he knows not
What I can urge against him. Although it seems,
And so he thinks, and is no less apparent
To the vulgar eye, that he bears all things fairly.
And shows good husbandry for the Volscian state,
Fights dragon-like, and does achieve as soon
As draw his sword; yet he hath left undone
That which shall break his neck or hazard mine,
Whene’er we come to our account.

Lieutenant

Sir, I beseech you, think you he’ll carry Rome?

Aufidius

All places yield to him ere he sits down;
And the nobility of Rome are his:
The senators and patricians love him too:
The tribunes are no soldiers; and their people
Will be as rash in the repeal, as hasty
To expel him thence. I think he’ll be to Rome
As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it
By sovereignty of nature. First he was
A noble servant to them; but he could not
Carry his honours even: whether ’twas pride,
Which out of daily fortune ever taints
The happy man; whether defect of judgment,
To fail in the disposing of those chances
Which he was lord of; or whether nature,
Not to be other than one thing, not moving
From the casque to the cushion, but commanding peace
Even with the same austerity and garb
As he controll’d the war; but one of these —
As he hath spices of them all, not all,
For I dare so far free him — made him fear’d,
So hated, and so banish’d: but he has a merit,
To choke it in the utterance. So our virtues
Lie in the interpretation of the time:
And power, unto itself most commendable,
Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair
To extol what it hath done.
One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail;
Rights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail.
Come, let’s away. When, Caius, Rome is thine,
Thou art poor’st of all; then shortly art thou mine.

Exeunt

A
CT
V

S
CENE
I. R
OME
. A
PUBLIC
PLACE
.

Enter Menenius, Cominius, Sicinius, Brutus, and others

Menenius

No, I’ll not go: you hear what he hath said
Which was sometime his general; who loved him
In a most dear particular. He call’d me father:
But what o’ that? Go, you that banish’d him;
A mile before his tent fall down, and knee
The way into his mercy: nay, if he coy’d
To hear Cominius speak, I’ll keep at home.

Cominius

He would not seem to know me.

Menenius

Do you hear?

Cominius

Yet one time he did call me by my name:
I urged our old acquaintance, and the drops
That we have bled together. Coriolanus
He would not answer to: forbad all names;
He was a kind of nothing, titleless,
Till he had forged himself a name o’ the fire
Of burning Rome.

Menenius

Why, so: you have made good work!
A pair of tribunes that have rack’d for Rome,
To make coals cheap,— a noble memory!

Cominius

I minded him how royal ’twas to pardon
When it was less expected: he replied,
It was a bare petition of a state
To one whom they had punish’d.

Menenius

Very well:
Could he say less?

Cominius

I offer’d to awaken his regard
For’s private friends: his answer to me was,
He could not stay to pick them in a pile
Of noisome musty chaff: he said ’twas folly,
For one poor grain or two, to leave unburnt,
And still to nose the offence.

Menenius

For one poor grain or two!
I am one of those; his mother, wife, his child,
And this brave fellow too, we are the grains:
You are the musty chaff; and you are smelt
Above the moon: we must be burnt for you.

Sicinius

Nay, pray, be patient: if you refuse your aid
In this so never-needed help, yet do not
Upbraid’s with our distress. But, sure, if you
Would be your country’s pleader, your good tongue,
More than the instant army we can make,
Might stop our countryman.

Menenius

No, I’ll not meddle.

Sicinius

Pray you, go to him.

Menenius

What should I do?

Brutus

Only make trial what your love can do
For Rome, towards Marcius.

Menenius

Well, and say that Marcius
Return me, as Cominius is return’d,
Unheard; what then?
But as a discontented friend, grief-shot
With his unkindness? say’t be so?

Sicinius