William Shakespeare Coriolanus Act Iv Scene V

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

William Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act IV

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William Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act V, Scene II

• William Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act V, Scene II

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• Current Events This Week: January 2023
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• Andersen’s Fairy Tales: Contents
• The Celtic Twilight: A Teller of Tales