CORIOLANUS
We will before the walls of Rome tomorrow
Set down our host. My partner in this action,
You must report to th’ Volscian lords how plainly
I have borne this business.
AUFIDIUS
Only their ends
You have respected, stopped your ears against
The general suit of Rome; never admitted
A private whisper, no, not with such friends
That thought them sure of you.
CORIOLANUS
This last old man,
Whom with cracked heart I have sent to Rome,
Loved me above the measure of a father,
Nay, godded me indeed. Their latest refuge
Was to send him, for whose old love I have—
Though I showed sourly to him—once more offered
The first conditions, which they did refuse
And cannot now accept, to grace him only
That thought he could do more. A very little
I have yielded to. Fresh embassies and suits,
Nor from the state nor private friends, hereafter
Will I lend ear to.
CORIOLANUS
Ha? What shout is this?
Shall I be tempted to infringe my vow
In the same time made? I will not.
CORIOLANUS
My wife comes foremost, then the honoured mold
Wherein this trunk was framed, and in her hand
The grandchild to her blood. But out, affection!
All bond and privilege of nature, break!
Let it be virtuous to be obstinate.
What is that curtsy worth? Or those doves’ eyes,
Which can make gods forsworn? I melt and am not
Of stronger earth than others. My mother bows,
As if Olympus to a molehill should
In supplication nod; and my young boy
an aspect of intercession which
Great Nature cries “Deny not!” Let the Volsces
Plough Rome and harrow Italy, I’ll never
Be such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand
As if a man were author of himself,
And knew no other kin.
VIRGILIA
My lord and husband.
CORIOLANUS
These eyes are not the same I wore in Rome.
VIRGILIA
The sorrow that delivers us thus changed
Makes you think so.
CORIOLANUS
Like a dull actor now,
I have forgot my part, and I am out,
Even to a full disgrace. Best of my flesh,
Forgive my tyranny, but do not say
For that, “Forgive our Romans.”
CORIOLANUS
O, a kiss
Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge!
Now, by the jealous queen of heaven, that kiss
I carried from , dear, and my true lip
virgined it e’er since. You gods! I prate
And the most noble mother of the world
Leave unsaluted. Sink, my knee, i’ th’ earth;
CORIOLANUS
Of deep duty more impression show
Than that of common sons.
VOLUMNIA
O, stand up blest,
VOLUMNIA
Whilst with no softer cushion than the flint
I kneel before and unproperly
Show duty, as mistaken all this while
Between the child and parent.
CORIOLANUS
What is this?
Your knees to me? To your corrected son?
CORIOLANUS
Then let the pebbles on the hungry beach
Fillip the stars! Then let the mutinous winds
Strike the proud cedars ’gainst the fiery sun,
Murdering impossibility to make
What cannot be slight work.
VOLUMNIA
art my warrior;
I holp to frame . Do you know this lady?
CORIOLANUS
The noble sister of Publicola,
The moon of Rome, chaste as the icicle
That’s curdied by the frost from purest snow
And hangs on Dian’s temple!—Dear Valeria.
VOLUMNIA
This is a poor epitome of yours,
Which by th’ interpretation of full time
May show like all yourself.
CORIOLANUS
The god of soldiers,
With the consent of supreme Jove, inform
thoughts with nobleness, that mayst prove
To shame unvulnerable, and stick i’ th’ wars
Like a great seamark standing every flaw
And saving those that eye .
VOLUMNIA
Your knee, .
CORIOLANUS
That’s my brave boy!
VOLUMNIA
Even he, your wife, this lady, and myself
Are suitors to you.
CORIOLANUS
I beseech you, peace;
Or, if you’d ask, remember this before:
The thing I have forsworn to grant may never
Be held by you denials. Do not bid me
Dismiss my soldiers or capitulate
Again with Rome’s mechanics. Tell me not
Wherein I seem unnatural; desire not
T’ allay my rages and revenges with
Your colder reasons.
VOLUMNIA
O, no more, no more!
You have said you will not grant us anything;
For we have nothing else to ask but that
Which you deny already. Yet we will ask,
That if you fail in our request, the blame
May hang upon your hardness. Therefore hear us.
CORIOLANUS
Aufidius, and you Volsces, mark, for we’ll
Hear from Rome in private. Your request?
VOLUMNIA
Should we be silent and not speak, our raiment
And state of bodies would bewray what life
We have led since exile. Think with thyself
How more unfortunate than all living women
Are we come ; since that sight, which should
Make our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance with comforts,
Constrains them weep and shake with fear and sorrow,
Making the mother, wife, and child to see
The son, the husband, and the father tearing
His country’s bowels out. And to poor we
enmity’s most capital. barr’st us
Our prayers to the gods, which is a comfort
That all but we enjoy. For how can we—
Alas, how can we—for our country pray,
Whereto we are bound, together with victory,
Whereto we are bound? , or we must lose
The country, our dear nurse, or else person,
Our comfort in the country. We must find
An evident calamity, though we had
Our wish, which side should win, for either
Must as a foreign recreant be led
With manacles through our streets, or else
Triumphantly tread on country’s ruin
And bear the palm for having bravely shed
wife and children’s blood. For myself, son,
I purpose not to wait on fortune till
These wars determine. If I cannot persuade
Rather to show a noble grace to both parts
Than seek the end of one, no sooner
March to assault country than to tread—
Trust to’t, not—on mother’s womb
That brought to this world.
VIRGILIA
Ay, and mine,
That brought you forth this boy to keep your name
Living to time.
YOUNG MARTIUS
He shall not tread on me.
I’ll run away till I am bigger, but then I’ll fight.
CORIOLANUS
Not of a woman’s tenderness to be
Requires nor child nor woman’s face to see.—
I have sat too long.
VOLUMNIA
Nay, go not from us thus.
If it were so, that our request did tend
To save the Romans, thereby to destroy
The Volsces whom you serve, you might condemn us
As poisonous of your honour. No, our suit
Is that you reconcile them, while the Volsces
May say “This mercy we have showed,” the Romans
“This we received,” and each in either side
Give the all-hail to and cry, “Be blessed
For making up this peace!” know’st, great son,
The end of war’s uncertain, but this certain,
That, if conquer Rome, the benefit
Which thereby reap is such a name
Whose repetition will be dogged with curses,
Whose chronicle thus writ: “The man was noble,
But with his last attempt he wiped it out;
Destroyed his country, and his name remains
To th’ ensuing age abhorred.” Speak to me, son.
affected the fine strains of honour
To imitate the graces of the gods,
To tear with thunder the wide cheeks o’ th’ air
And yet to charge sulphur with a bolt
That should but rive an oak. Why not speak?
Think’st it honourable for a noble man
Still to remember wrongs?—Daughter, speak you.
He cares not for your weeping.—Speak , boy.
Perhaps childishness will move him more
Than can our reasons.—There’s no man in the world
More bound to’s mother, yet here he lets me prate
Like one i’ th’ stocks. never in life
Showed dear mother any courtesy
When she, poor hen, fond of no second brood,
Has clucked to the wars and safely home,
Loaden with honour. Say my request’s unjust
And spurn me back; but if it be not so,
art not honest, and the gods will plague
That restrain’st from me the duty which
To a mother’s part belongs.—He turns away.—
Down, ladies! Let us shame him with our knees.
To his surname Coriolanus ’longs more pride
Than pity to our prayers. Down! An end.
VOLUMNIA
This is the last. So we will home to Rome
And die among our neighbours.—Nay, behold’s.
This boy that cannot tell what he would have,
But kneels and holds up hands for fellowship,
Does reason our petition with more strength
Than to deny’t.—Come, let us go.
VOLUMNIA
This fellow had a Volscian to his mother,
His wife is in Corioles, and his child
Like him by chance.—Yet give us our dispatch.
I am hushed until our city be afire,
And then I’ll speak a little.
CORIOLANUS
O mother, mother!
What have you done? Behold, the heavens do ope,
The gods look down, and this unnatural scene
They laugh at. O my mother, mother, O!
You have won a happy victory to Rome,
But, for your son—believe it, O, believe it!—
Most dangerously you have with him prevailed,
If not most mortal to him. But let it come.—
Aufidius, though I cannot make true wars,
I’ll frame convenient peace. Now, good Aufidius,
Were you in my stead, would you have heard
A mother less? Or granted less, Aufidius?
AUFIDIUS
I was moved .
CORIOLANUS
I dare be sworn you were.
And, sir, it is no little thing to make
Mine eyes to sweat compassion. But, good sir,
What peace you’ll make, advise me. For my part,
I’ll not to Rome, I’ll back with you; and pray you,
Stand to me in this cause.—O mother!—Wife!
AUFIDIUS
I am glad set mercy and honour
At difference in . Out of that I’ll work
Myself a former fortune.
CORIOLANUS
Ay, by and by;
But we’ll drink together, and you shall bear
A better witness back than words, which we,
On like conditions, will have countersealed.
Come, enter with us. Ladies, you deserve
To have a temple built you. All the swords
In Italy, and her confederate arms,
Could not have made this peace.