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. A Patrician You do the nobler. CORIOLANUS I muse my mother Does not approve me further, who was wont To call them woollen vassals, things created To buy and sell with groats, to show bare heads In congregations, to yawn, be still and wonder, When one but of my ordinance stood up To speak of peace or war.
Enter VOLUMNIA I talk of you:
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. A Patrician 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!
