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Translated Text |
Source: Folger Shakespeare Library |
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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. 5 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. 10 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. | Back in Rome, Menenius chats up our two scheming tribunes, Sicinius and Brutus, while waiting for news from the battlefield. |
BOTH Well, sir. 15 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. 20 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? BOTH Why, how are we censured? MENENIUS Because you talk of pride now, will you not 25 be angry? BOTH 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 30 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 35 your helps are many, or else your actions would grow wondrous single. Your abilities are too infantlike 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 40 your good selves! O, that you could! BOTH What then, sir? MENENIUS Why, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting, proud, violent, testy magistrates, alias fools, as any in Rome. 45 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 favoring the first complaint, hasty and tinder-like 50 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 55 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 60 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 65 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 70 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 75 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 80 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. 85 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 honorable a grave as to 90 stuff a botcher’s cushion or to be entombed in an ass’s packsaddle. 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 95 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 begins to exit. Brutus and Sicinius stand aside. | Sicinius and Brutus start with the Caius Martius hate, but Menenius
defends his pal and gives the tribunes a good tongue lashing before
storming off. |
Enter Volumnia, Virgilia, and Valeria. How now, my as fair as noble ladies—and the 100 moon, were she earthly, no nobler—whither do you follow your eyes so fast? | Just then, Volumnia, Virgilia, and Valeria (the three V's) show up and bump into Menenius. Sicinius and Brutus stand off to the side and eavesdrop. |
VOLUMNIA Honorable Menenius, my boy Martius approaches. For the love of Juno, let’s go! MENENIUS Ha? Martius coming home? 105 VOLUMNIA Ay, worthy Menenius, and with most prosperous approbation. MENENIUS Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee! (He throws his cap in the air.) Hoo! Martius coming home? 110 VALERIA, VIRGILIA Nay, ’tis true. VOLUMNIA Look, here’s a letter from him. She produces a paper. 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 115 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 120 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. 125 MENENIUS So do I too, if it be not too much. Brings he 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? 130 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 ’fidiused for all the chests in Corioles and 135 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 140 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. 145 VIRGILIA The gods grant them true. VOLUMNIA True? Pow waw! 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 150 more cause to be proud.—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. 155 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 160 enemy’s grave. (A shout and flourish.) Hark, the trumpets! | Volumnia (Martius' mom) describes all the gory details of the wounds her son has received in battle. So far, the grand total is a whopping 27. (We told you "wounds" are a big deal in this play.) There's some discussion about how Martius will have tons of scars and gashes to show off to the plebeians when he goes before them to ask for their
votes. (Apparently, Caius Martius plans to run for office and showing
off his scars can help him win.) |
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, 165 Which, being advanced, declines, and then men die. A sennet. Enter Cominius the General and Titus Lartius, between them Coriolanus crowned with an oaken garland, with Captains and Soldiers and a Herald. Trumpets sound. HERALD Know, Rome, that all alone Martius did fight Within Corioles’ gates, where he hath won, With fame, a name to Martius Caius; these In honor follows “Coriolanus.” 170 Welcome to Rome, renownèd Coriolanus. Sound flourish. | A Herald shows up and is all "Make way, people, because Caius Martius is in the house and he's got a new nickname: Coriolanus!" (Okay, fine. Since everyone in Rome starts using this new name, we will, too.) |
ALL Welcome to Rome, renownèd Coriolanus! CORIOLANUS No more of this. It does offend my heart. Pray now, no more. COMINIUS Look, sir, your mother. 175 CORIOLANUS O, You have, I know, petitioned all the gods For my prosperity. Kneels. VOLUMNIA Nay, my good soldier, up. He stands. My gentle Martius, worthy Caius, and 180 By deed-achieving honor 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 185 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 190 thee! CORIOLANUS And live you yet? (To Valeria.) O, my sweet lady, pardon. VOLUMNIA I know not where to turn. O, welcome home!— And, welcome, general.—And you’re welcome all. 195 | Coriolanus enters and kneels before his mother like he's her obedient
servant. Then he gets up and greets his wife. In that order. |
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, 200 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. 205 COMINIUS Ever right. CORIOLANUS Menenius ever, ever. HERALD Give way there, and go on! CORIOLANUS, to Volumnia and Virgilia Your hand and yours. 210 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 honors. VOLUMNIA I have lived 215 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, 220 I had rather be their servant in my way Than sway with them in theirs. COMINIUS On, to the Capitol. Flourish of cornets. They exit in state, as before. | After a quick hello to wife and mommy, Coriolanus rushes off to the Capitol to see the patricians who run the Senate. |
Brutus and Sicinius come forward. BRUTUS All tongues speak of him, and the blearèd sights Are spectacled to see him. Your prattling nurse 225 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 230 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 235 Commit the war of white and damask in Their nicely-gauded cheeks to th’ wanton spoil Of Phoebus’ burning kisses. Such a pother, As if that whatsoever god who leads him Were slyly crept into his human powers 240 And gave him graceful posture. SICINIUS On the sudden I warrant him consul. BRUTUS Then our office may, During his power, go sleep. 245 | Alone on stage, the trash-talking tribunes freak out because Coriolanus will probably be elected "consul" now that he's an even bigger war hero than he was before. Brain Snack: Being consul was kind of a big deal, like being the U.S. president. At the time of the story, "Consul" was the highest political office in early Republican
Rome, which had only recently set up a government of elected officials
after getting rid of the tyrant King Tarquin. |
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