Coriolanus by William Shakespeare
Act 4 - Scene 5
The same. A hall in Aufidius’s house.
First Servingman : Wine, wine, wine! What service
[p]is here! I think our fellows are
asleep.
Second Servingman : Where's Cotus? my master calls
[p]for him. Cotus!
Coriolanus : A goodly house: the feast smells well; but I
[p]Appear not like a
guest.
First Servingman : What would you have, friend? whence are you?
[p]Here's no place for
you: pray, go to the door.
Coriolanus : I have deserved no better entertainment,
[p]In being Coriolanus.
Second Servingman : Whence are you, sir? Has the porter his eyes in his
[p]head; that he
gives entrance to such companions?
[p]Pray, get you out.
Coriolanus : Away!
Second Servingman : Away! get you away.
Coriolanus : Now thou'rt troublesome.
Second Servingman : Are you so brave? I'll have you talked with anon.
Third Servingman : What fellow's this?
First Servingman : A strange one as ever I looked on: I cannot get him
[p]out of the
house: prithee, call my master to him.
Third Servingman : What have you to do here, fellow? Pray you, avoid
[p]the house.
Coriolanus : Let me but stand; I will not hurt your hearth.
Third Servingman : What are you?
Coriolanus : A gentleman.
Third Servingman : A marvellous poor one.
Coriolanus : True, so I am.
Third Servingman : Pray you, poor gentleman, take up some other
[p]station; here's no
place for you; pray you, avoid: come.
Coriolanus : Follow your function, go, and batten on cold bits.
Third Servingman : What, you will not? Prithee, tell my master what a
[p]strange guest he
has here.
Second Servingman : And I shall.
Third Servingman : Where dwellest thou?
Coriolanus : Under the canopy.
Third Servingman : Under the canopy!
Coriolanus : Ay.
Third Servingman : Where's that?
Coriolanus : I' the city of kites and crows.
Third Servingman : I' the city of kites and crows! What an ass it is!
[p]Then thou
dwellest with daws too?
Coriolanus : No, I serve not thy master.
Third Servingman : How, sir! do you meddle with my master?
Coriolanus : Ay; 'tis an honester service than to meddle with thy
[p]mistress. Thou
pratest, and pratest; serve with thy
[p]trencher, hence!
Tullus Aufidius : Where is this fellow?
Second Servingman : Here, sir: I'ld have beaten him like a dog, but for
[p]disturbing the
lords within.
Tullus Aufidius : Whence comest thou? what wouldst thou? thy name?
[p]Why speak'st not?
speak, man: what's thy name?
Coriolanus : If, Tullus,
[p][Unmuffling]
[p]Not yet thou knowest me, and, seeing
me, dost not
[p]Think me for the man I am, necessity
[p]Commands me
name myself.
Tullus Aufidius : What is thy name?
Coriolanus : A name unmusical to the Volscians' ears,
[p]And harsh in sound to
thine.
Tullus Aufidius : Say, what's thy name?
[p]Thou hast a grim appearance, and thy
face
[p]Bears a command in't; though thy tackle's torn.
[p]Thou
show'st a noble vessel: what's thy name?
Coriolanus : Prepare thy brow to frown: know'st
[p]thou me yet?
Tullus Aufidius : I know thee not: thy name?
Coriolanus : My name is Caius CORIOLANUS, who hath done
[p]To thee particularly and
to all the Volsces
[p]Great hurt and mischief; thereto witness
may
[p]My surname, Coriolanus: the painful service,
[p]The extreme
dangers and the drops of blood
[p]Shed for my thankless country are
requited
[p]But with that surname; a good memory,
[p]And witness of
the malice and displeasure
[p]Which thou shouldst bear me: only that
name remains;
[p]The cruelty and envy of the people,
[p]Permitted by
our dastard nobles, who
[p]Have all forsook me, hath devour'd the
rest;
[p]And suffer'd me by the voice of slaves to be
[p]Whoop'd out
of Rome. Now this extremity
[p]Hath brought me to thy hearth; not out
of hope--
[p]Mistake me not--to save my life, for if
[p]I had fear'd
death, of all the men i' the world
[p]I would have 'voided thee, but
in mere spite,
[p]To be full quit of those my banishers,
[p]Stand I
before thee here. Then if thou hast
[p]A heart of wreak in thee, that
wilt revenge
[p]Thine own particular wrongs and stop those maims
[p]Of
shame seen through thy country, speed
[p]thee straight,
[p]And make my
misery serve thy turn: so use it
[p]That my revengeful services may
prove
[p]As benefits to thee, for I will fight
[p]Against my canker'd
country with the spleen
[p]Of all the under fiends. But if so
be
[p]Thou darest not this and that to prove more fortunes
[p]Thou'rt
tired, then, in a word, I also am
[p]Longer to live most weary, and
present
[p]My throat to thee and to thy ancient malice;
[p]Which not
to cut would show thee but a fool,
[p]Since I have ever follow'd thee
with hate,
[p]Drawn tuns of blood out of thy country's breast,
[p]And
cannot live but to thy shame, unless
[p]It be to do thee service.
Tullus Aufidius : O CORIOLANUS, CORIOLANUS!
[p]Each word thou hast spoke hath weeded
from my heart
[p]A root of ancient envy. If Jupiter
[p]Should from
yond cloud speak divine things,
[p]And say 'Tis true,' I'ld not
believe them more
[p]Than thee, all noble CORIOLANUS. Let me
twine
[p]Mine arms about that body, where against
[p]My grained ash an
hundred times hath broke
[p]And scarr'd the moon with splinters: here
I clip
[p]The anvil of my sword, and do contest
[p]As hotly and as
nobly with thy love
[p]As ever in ambitious strength I did
[p]Contend
against thy valour. Know thou first,
[p]I loved the maid I married;
never man
[p]Sigh'd truer breath; but that I see thee here,
[p]Thou
noble thing! more dances my rapt heart
[p]Than when I first my wedded
mistress saw
[p]Bestride my threshold. Why, thou Mars! I tell
thee,
[p]We have a power on foot; and I had purpose
[p]Once more to
hew thy target from thy brawn,
[p]Or lose mine arm fort: thou hast
beat me out
[p]Twelve several times, and I have nightly
since
[p]Dreamt of encounters 'twixt thyself and me;
[p]We have been
down together in my sleep,
[p]Unbuckling helms, fisting each other's
throat,
[p]And waked half dead with nothing. Worthy CORIOLANUS,
[p]Had
we no quarrel else to Rome, but that
[p]Thou art thence banish'd, we
would muster all
[p]From twelve to seventy, and pouring war
[p]Into
the bowels of ungrateful Rome,
[p]Like a bold flood o'er-bear. O,
come, go in,
[p]And take our friendly senators by the hands;
[p]Who
now are here, taking their leaves of me,
[p]Who am prepared against
your territories,
[p]Though not for Rome itself.
Coriolanus : You bless me, gods!
Tullus Aufidius : Therefore, most absolute sir, if thou wilt have
[p]The leading of
thine own revenges, take
[p]The one half of my commission; and set
down--
[p]As best thou art experienced, since thou know'st
[p]Thy
country's strength and weakness,--thine own ways;
[p]Whether to knock
against the gates of Rome,
[p]Or rudely visit them in parts
remote,
[p]To fright them, ere destroy. But come in:
[p]Let me commend
thee first to those that shall
[p]Say yea to thy desires. A thousand
welcomes!
[p]And more a friend than e'er an enemy;
[p]Yet, CORIOLANUS,
that was much. Your hand: most welcome!
[p][Exeunt CORIOLANUS and
AUFIDIUS. The two]
[p]Servingmen come forward]
First Servingman : Here's a strange alteration!
Second Servingman : By my hand, I had thought to have strucken him with
[p]a cudgel; and
yet my mind gave me his clothes made a
[p]false report of him.
First Servingman : What an arm he has! he turned me about with his
[p]finger and his
thumb, as one would set up a top.
Second Servingman : Nay, I knew by his face that there was something in
[p]him: he had,
sir, a kind of face, methought,--I
[p]cannot tell how to term it.
First Servingman : He had so; looking as it were--would I were hanged,
[p]but I thought
there was more in him than I could think.
Second Servingman : So did I, I'll be sworn: he is simply the rarest
[p]man i' the world.
First Servingman : I think he is: but a greater soldier than he you wot on.
Second Servingman : Who, my master?
First Servingman : Nay, it's no matter for that.
Second Servingman : Worth six on him.
First Servingman : Nay, not so neither: but I take him to be the
[p]greater soldier.
Second Servingman : Faith, look you, one cannot tell how to say that:
[p]for the defence
of a town, our general is excellent.
First Servingman : Ay, and for an assault too.
Third Servingman : O slaves, I can tell you news,-- news, you rascals!
First Servingman : [together] What, what, what? let's partake.
Second Servingman : [together] What, what, what? let's partake.
Third Servingman : I would not be a Roman, of all nations; I had as
[p]lieve be a
condemned man.
First Servingman : [together] Wherefore? wherefore?
Second Servingman : [together] wherefore?
Third Servingman : Why, here's he that was wont to thwack our general,
[p]Caius
CORIOLANUS.
First Servingman : Why do you say 'thwack our general '?
Third Servingman : I do not say 'thwack our general;' but he was always
[p]good enough
for him.
Second Servingman : Come, we are fellows and friends: he was ever too
[p]hard for him; I
have heard him say so himself.
First Servingman : He was too hard for him directly, to say the troth
[p]on't: before
Corioli he scotched him and notched
[p]him like a carbon ado.
Second Servingman : An he had been cannibally given, he might have
[p]broiled and eaten
him too.
First Servingman : But, more of thy news?
Third Servingman : Why, he is so made on here within, as if he were son
[p]and heir to
Mars; set at upper end o' the table; no
[p]question asked him by any
of the senators, but they
[p]stand bald before him: our general
himself makes a
[p]mistress of him: sanctifies himself with's hand
and
[p]turns up the white o' the eye to his discourse. But
[p]the
bottom of the news is that our general is cut i'
[p]the middle and but
one half of what he was
[p]yesterday; for the other has half, by the
entreaty
[p]and grant of the whole table. He'll go, he says,
[p]and
sowl the porter of Rome gates by the ears: he
[p]will mow all down
before him, and leave his passage polled.
Second Servingman : And he's as like to do't as any man I can imagine.
Third Servingman : Do't! he will do't; for, look you, sir, he has as
[p]many friends as
enemies; which friends, sir, as it
[p]were, durst not, look you, sir,
show themselves, as
[p]we term it, his friends whilst he's in
directitude.
First Servingman : Directitude! what's that?
Third Servingman : But when they shall see, sir, his crest up again,
[p]and the man in
blood, they will out of their
[p]burrows, like conies after rain, and
revel all with
[p]him.
First Servingman : But when goes this forward?
Third Servingman : To-morrow; to-day; presently; you shall have the
[p]drum struck up
this afternoon: 'tis, as it were, a
[p]parcel of their feast, and to
be executed ere they
[p]wipe their lips.
Second Servingman : Why, then we shall have a stirring world again.
[p]This peace is
nothing, but to rust iron, increase
[p]tailors, and breed
ballad-makers.
First Servingman : Let me have war, say I; it exceeds peace as far as
[p]day does night;
it's spritely, waking, audible, and
[p]full of vent. Peace is a very
apoplexy, lethargy;
[p]mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of
more
[p]bastard children than war's a destroyer of men.
Second Servingman : 'Tis so: and as war, in some sort, may be said to
[p]be a ravisher, so
it cannot be denied but peace is a
[p]great maker of cuckolds.
First Servingman : Ay, and it makes men hate one another.
Third Servingman : Reason; because they then less need one another.
[p]The wars for my
money. I hope to see Romans as cheap
[p]as Volscians. They are rising,
they are rising.
All : In, in, in, in!
Previous: Act 4 - Scene 4
Next: Act 4 - Scene 6
