A room in CORIOLANUS’S house.
[Enter CORIOLANUS with Patricians]
CORIOLANUS
Let them puff 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. 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 thwartings of your dispositions, if
You had not show’d them how ye were disposed
Ere they lack’d power to cross you.
CORIOLANUS Let them hang.
VOLUMNIA Ay, and burn too.
[Enter MENENIUS and Senators]
MENENIUS 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 Pray, be counsell’d:
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 the herd, but that
The violent fit o’ the 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 the 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 unsever’d friends,
I’ the war do grow together: grant that, and tell me,
In peace what each of them by the 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 the people; not by your own instruction,
Nor by the matter which your heart prompts you,
But with such words that are but rooted 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!
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,
Go to them, with this bonnet in thy hand;
And thus far having stretch’d it–here be with them–
MENENIUS This but done,
Even as she speaks, why, their hearts were yours;
VOLUMNIA Here is Cominius.
[Enter COMINIUS]
COMINIUS I have been i’ the 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 unbarbed sconce?
Must I with base tongue give 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 Marcius, they to dust should grind it
And throw’t against the wind. To the market-place!
You have put me now to such a part which never
I shall discharge to the 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 turn’d,
Which quired with my drum, into a pipe
Small as an eunuch, or the virgin voice
That babies lulls asleep! the smiles of knaves
Tent in my cheeks, and schoolboys’ tears take up
The glasses of my sight! 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 suck’dst 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’ the way of flattery further.
VOLUMNIA Do your will.
[Exeunt]
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