Sir, sir, I would have had you put your power well on
before you had worn it out.
- Let go. - You might have been enough
the man you are, with striving less to be so.
- Let them hang. - Aye, and burn, too.
Come, come, you've been too rough, something too rough.
You must return and mend it.
There's no remedy, unless, by not so doing, our good city
cleave in the midst and perish.
Pray, be counseled.
I have a heart as little apt as yours,
but yet a brain that leads my use of anger to better vantage.
- Well said, noble woman. - And what must I do?
- Return to the tribunes. - What then? What then?
- Repent what you have spoke. - For them? I cannot do it to the gods.
Must I then do it to them?
You are too absolute.
I've heard you say that honor and policy,
like unsevered friends in war, do grow together.
Why force you this?
Because that now it lies you on to speak to the people,
not by your own instruction,
nor by the matter your heart prompts you,
but with such words that are but roted in your tongue,
though but bastards and syllables of no allowance to your bosom's truth.
I would dissemble with my nature where my fortune
and my friends at stake required I should do so in honor.
I am, in this, your wife, your son, the senators,
nobles... and you.
I prithee now, my son, go to them, be with them,
say to them thou art their soldier.
And being bred in broils
has not the soft way in asking their good loves.
But thou wilt frame thyself,
forsooth, hereafter theirs.
This but done, even as she speaks, why their hearts were yours.
I prithee, go and be ruled.
Sir, it is fit you make strong party,
or defend yourself by calmness or by absence.
- All's in anger. - Only fair speech.
I think it will serve if he can thereto frame his spirit.
He must.
He will.
Prithee now, say you will, and go about it.
Must I, with base tongue, give my noble heart
a lie that it must bear?
Well, I'll do it.
Away, my disposition, and possess me some harlot's spirit.
A beggar's tongue make motion through my lips.
I will not do it.
Lest I cease to honor mine own truth,
and by my body's action teach my mind a most inherent baseness.
At thy choice, then.
To beg of thee is more my dishonor 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 you like.
Thy valiantness was mine, thou suck'st it from me,
but owe thy pride thyself.
Pray, be content, Mother, I'm going.
Chide me no more. Look, I am going.
I'll return consul, or never trust to what my tongue can do
- in the way of flattery further. - Do your will.
In this point, charge him home: that he affects tyrannical power.
If he evade us there, enforce him with his hatred to the people.
Have you a catalog of all the voices
that we have procured set down by the poll?
I have. It's ready.
When the people hear me say
"It shall be so in the right and strength of the commons,"
be it either for death, for fine, or banishment,
then, let them, if they hear me say "Fine," cry "Fine."
- If "Death," cry "Death." - We shall inform them.
God preserve thee.
The people are the city.
Put not your worthy rage into your tongue.
Calmly, I beseech you.
The honored gods...
The honored gods keep Rome in safety,
and the chairs of justice supplied with worthy men,
plant love among us,
throng our large temples with the shows of peace,
and not our streets with war.
- Amen, amen. - A noble wish.
Shall I be charged no further than this present?
Must all determine here?
I do demand, if you submit you to the people's voices.
Aye.
- I am content. - Lo, citizens, he says he is content.
The warlike service he has done, consider.
Think upon the wounds his body bears,
which show like graves in the holy churchyard.
Scratches with briers, scars to move laughter only.
Consider further, that when he speaks not like a citizen,
you find him like a soldier.
Do not take his rougher accents for malicious sounds, but, as I say,
such as become a soldier.
What is the matter that being passed for consul with full voice,
I am so dishonored that the very hour you take it off again?
We charge you that you have contrived to take from Rome all seasoned office,
and to wind yourself into a power tyrannical,
for which you are a traitor to the people.
How... traitor?
- Traitor! - Nay, temperately. Your promise.
The fires in the lowest hell fold in the people.
Call me their traitor, thou injurious tribune?
- Mark you this, people? - Yes.
Traitor!
But since he hath served well for Rome...
What do you prate of service?
- I talk of that, that know it. - You?
Is this the promise you made your mother?
I'll know no further. Let them pronounce death, exile, flaying,
I would not buy their mercy at the price of one fair word.
In the name of the people, and in the power of us, the tribunes,
we, even from this instant, banish him our city.
In the people's name, I say... it shall be so.
- It shall be so! - He's banished. It shall be so!
It shall be so!
- It shall be so! - Hear me, my masters,
and my common friends...
- He's sentenced. No more hearing. - Let me speak.
- It shall be so! - I have been consul
and can show for Rome her enemies' marks upon me...
There is no more to be said, but he is banished as enemy
- to the people and his country! - It shall be so!
- It shall be so!
It shall be so! It shall be so!
- It shall be so! - It shall be so!
It shall be so! It shall be so!
You common cry of curs!
Whose breath I hate as reeks of the rotten fens,
whose loves I prize as the dead carcasses
of unburied men that do corrupt my air.
I... banish... you!
And there remain with your uncertainty.
Let every feeble rumor shake your hearts.
Your enemies, with nodding of their caps,
fan you into despair.
Have the power still to banish your defenders, till at length
your ignorance, which finds not till it feels,
making but reservation of yourselves,
still your own foes deliver you
as most abated captives to some nation
that won you without blows.
Despising, for you, the city...
...thus...
...I turn my back.
There is a world... elsewhere.
The people's enemy is gone!
Whoo!
Nay, Mother, where is your ancient courage?
You are too absolute.
Nay, Mother, I shall be loved when I am lacked.
I go alone, like to a lonely dragon.
- The gods preserve you both. - Good day to you all.
The gods keep you.
This is a happier and more comely time.
- Yeah. - Good day. Good day.
- O, here comes his mother. - Let's not meet her.
- They say she's mad. - O, you're well met.
The hoarded plague of the gods requite thy love.
- Will you be gone? - You shall stay, too!
I would I had the power to say so to my husband.
- Are you mad? - Aye, fool, is that a shame?
I tell thee what, fool, hadst thou craft to banish him
that struck more blows for Rome than thou hast spoken words?
Blessed heavens...
More noble blows than ever thou wise words,
and for Rome's good. Yet go.
Nay, thou shalt stay, too.
I tell thee what.
I would my son were in Arabia, and thy tribe before him,
- his good sword in his hand. - What then?
What then? He'd make an end of thy posterity!
- Bastards and all. - Come! Come, peace!
Well, well, we'll leave you.
Why stay we to be baited by one who wants her wits?
I would the gods had nothing else to do
but to confirm my curses!
Could I meet them but once a day,
it would unclog my heart of what lies heavy to it.
You have told them home. And, by my troth, you have cause.
You'll sup with me?
Anger's my meat.
I sup upon myself...
...and so shall starve with feeding.
- Come. - Come, madam.
Hey.
Aufidius!
Ah, general.
Yes.
Well, well.
Hey, hey!
Whence comes thou?
Thy name?
Speak, man. What's thy name?
A name unmusical to the Volscians' ears,
and harsh in sound to thine.
Say... what's thy name?
Thou has a grim appearance.
What's thy name?
- Know'st thou me yet? - I know thee not.
Thy name?
My name is Caius Martius...
...who hath done to thee, particularly,
and to all the Volsces great hurt and mischief.
Thereto witness may my surname...
...Coriolanus.
Only that name remains.
The cruelty and envy of the people
who have all forsook me hath devoured the rest,
and suffered me by the voice of slaves to be whooped 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 feared death, of all men in the world
I would have avoided thee.
But, in mere spite, to be full quit of those, my banishers,
stand I before thee here.
I will fight against my cankered country
with the spleen of all the under fiends.
But if thou dares not this,
then I present my throat to thee and to thy ancient malice,
which not to cut would show thee but a fool,
since I have ever followed thee with hate,
and cannot live but to thy shame
unless it be to do thee service.
O Martius...
Martius...
Each word thou hast spoke
hath weeded from my heart a root of ancient envy.
Let me twine mine arms about that body.
Know thou...
...I loved the maid I married, never man sighed 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, thou hast beat me out 12 several times.
and I have nightly since dreamt of encounters 'twixt thyself and me.
Worthy Martius, had we no quarrel else to Rome,
but that thou art thence banished, we would muster all from 12 to 70,
and, pouring war into the bowels of ungrateful Rome,
like a bold flood, overbear it.
Come, go in, and take our friendly senators by the hands.
You bless me, gods.
Therefore, 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 knows 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.
- Is this Menenius? - O, 'tis he, 'tis he.
O, he's grown most kind of late.
- Hail, sir. - Hail to you both.
Your Coriolanus is not much missed, but with his friends.
All's well, and might have been much better
- if he could have temporized. - Where is he, hear you?
I hear nothing.
His mother and his wife hear nothing from him.
Caius Martius was a worthy officer in the war,
but insolent, overcome with pride,
ambitious past all thinking, self-loving...
I think not so.
And Rome sits safe and still without him.
- Shh! - Shh!
There are reports the Volsces, with two several powers,
are entered in the Roman territories,
and with the deepest malice of the war, destroy what lies before them.
- Shh! - 'Tis Aufidius,
who, hearing of our Martius' banishment,
thrusts forth his horns into the world again.
Come, what talk you of Martius?
It cannot be the Volsces dare break with us.
Cannot be? We have record that it can.
The nobles in great earnestness are going all to the Senate House.
Some news is coming that turns their countenances.
Yes, the first report is seconded, and more...
...more fearful is delivered.
Martius has joined with Aufidius.
He leads a power against Rome,
and vows revenge as spacious as between
the youngest and oldest thing.
A fearful army, led by Caius Martius,
associated with Aufidius, rages upon our territories,
and have already overborne their way,
consumed with fire, and took what lay before them.
Martius has joined with the Volscians.
He is their god. He leads them like boys
pursuing summer butterflies or butchers killing flies.
Do they still fly to the Roman?
I do not know what witchcraft's in him,
but your soldiers use him as the grace before meat,
their talk at table, and their thanks at end.
And you are darkened in this action, sir.
He bears himself more proud, even to my person,
than I thought he would when first I did embrace him.
Sir, I beseech you, think you he'll carry Rome?
I think he'll be to Rome as is the osprey to the fish,
who takes it by sovereignty of nature.
Whether it was pride, whether defect of judgment...
...or whether nature, not to be other than one thing,
made him feared, so hated, and so banished...
...so our virtues lie in the interpretation of the time.
One fire drives out one fire...
...one nail, one nail.
Rights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail.
When, Caius,
Rome is thine, thou art poorest of all...
...then shortly art thou mine.
No, I'll not go.
- Good Menenius... - Go, you that banished him.
A mile before his tent, fall down, and kneel the way into his mercy.
He would not seem to know me.
I urged our old acquaintance, and the drops
that we have bled together.
"Coriolanus" he would not answer to, forbad all names.
He was...
...a kind of nothing.
Titleless.
Till he had forged himself a name in the fire of burning Rome.
If you refuse your aid in this...
If you would be your country's pleader, your good tongue,
more than the instant army we can make, might stop our countryman.
- No, I'll not meddle. - Pray you, go to him.
- What should I do? - Only make trial what your love can do
for Rome towards Martius.
Well, and say "Martius return me, as Titus is returned, unhurt."
What then?
Yet your good will must have that thanks from Rome.
You know the very road into his kindness, and cannot lose your way.
I'll undertake it.
I think he'll hear me.
- He'll never hear him. - No?
I tell you, he does sit in gold...
...his eye, red, as it would burn Rome.
The glorious gods sit in hourly synod about thy particular prosperity...
...and love thee no worse than thy old friend Menenius does.
O Martius, Martius.
Thou art preparing fire for us.
Look thee...
...there's water to quench it.
I was hardly moved to come to thee,
but being assured none but myself could move thee,
I have been blown out of your gates with sighs...
...and conjure thee to pardon Rome.
Away.
How? Away?
Wife... mother... child... I know not.
My affairs are servanted to others.
- Sir... - Therefore be gone.
Another word, Menenius, I will not hear thee speak.
This Martius is grown from man to dragon.
He has wings.
He's more than a creeping thing.
There is no more mercy in him than there is milk in a male tiger.
My lord and husband.
These eyes are not the same I wore in Rome.
The sorrow that delivers us thus changed makes you think so.
Best of my flesh, forgive my tyranny,
but do not say for that "Forgive our Romans."
O, a kiss...
...long as my exile...
...sweet as my revenge.
Ye gods, I prate,
and the most noble mother of the world leave unsaluted.
Sink, my knee, in the earth.
Stand up, blest.
Whilst with no softer cushion than the flint
- I kneel before thee. - What's this?
Your knees to me?
To your corrected son?
Thou art my warrior. I helped to frame thee.
This is a poor epitome of yours,
which by the interpretation of full time may show like all yourself.
The god of soldiers, inform thy thoughts with nobleness,
that thou may'st prove to shame, invulnerable.
Your knee, sir.
Even he, your wife, this lady and myself,
- are suitors to you. - I beseech you, peace.
Or, if you'd ask, remember this:
Do not bid me dismiss my soldiers,
or capitulate again with Rome's mechanics.
Tell me not wherein I seem unnatural.
Desire not to allay my rages and revenges with your colder reasons.
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.
Aufidius, and you Volsces, mark.
For we'll hear naught from Rome in private.
Your request?
Should we be silent and not speak, our raiment
and state of bodies would betray what life we have led since thy exile.
Think with thyself.
How more unfortunate than all living women are we come hither,
since that thy 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 we must find an evident calamity,
though we had our wish, which side should win.
For either thou must, as a foreign recreant,
be led with manacles through our streets,
or else, triumphantly, tread on thy country's ruin,
and bear the palm for having bravely shed
thy wife and children's blood.
For myself... son...
...I purpose not to wait on fortune till these wars determine.
If I cannot persuade thee rather to show a noble grace
to both parts than seek the end to one,
thou shalt no sooner march to assault thy country
than to tread on thy mother's womb...
...that brought thee to this world.
Aye, and mine, that brought you forth this boy
to keep your name living to time.
You shall not tread on me.
I'll run away till I'm bigger...
...but then I'll fight!
- I have sat too long. - 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,
thou might'st condemn us as poisonous of your honor.
No. Our suit is that you reconcile them.
So that the Voices may say "This mercy we have showed,"
the Romans, "This we've received,"
and each on either side give the all-hail to thee and cry,
"Be blest for making up this peace!"
Speak to me, son.
Why dost not speak?
Speak you, daughter.
He cares not for your weeping.
Speak thou, boy.
Perhaps thy childishness will move him more than can our reasons.
There's no man in the world more bound to his mother,
yet here he lets me prate like one in the stocks!
Thou hast never, in thy life, shown thy dear mother any courtesy,
when she, poor hen, has clucked thee to the wars
and safely home loaded with honor.
Say my request's unjust and spurn me back, but if it be not so...
...thou art not honest and the gods will plague thee,
that thou restrains from me the duty which to a mother's part belongs.
Down, ladies. Let us shame him with our knees!
Down!
This is the last.
An end.
So we will home to Rome, and die among our neighbors.
Nay.
Behold'st, this boy, that cannot tell what he would have...
...yet kneels and holds up hands for fellowship.
Does reason our petition with more strength than thou hast to deny it.
Come, let us go.
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.
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 prevailed with him.
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?
I was moved withal.
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.
A merrier day did never yet greet Rome.
No, not the expulsion of the Tarquins.
We have all great cause to give great thanks.
Behold our patroness, the life of Rome.
How is it with our general?
As with a man by his own charity slain.
Our soldiers will remain uncertain whilst 'twixt you there's difference,
but the fall of either makes the survivor heir of all.
I know it.
And my pretext to strike at him admits a good construction.
I raised him, and I pawned mine honor for his truth,
who, being so heightened,
he watered his new plants with dews of flattery,
seducing so my friends.
At the last, I seemed his follower, not partner,
and he waged me with his countenance as if I had been mercenary.
So he did, my lord. The army marveled at it.
And, in the last, when he had carried Rome
and that we looked for no less spoil than glory...
There was it!
For which my sinews shall be stretched upon him.
At a few drops of women's rheum, which are as cheap as lies,
he sold the blood and labor of our great action.
Therefore shall he die...
...and I'll renew me in his fall.
Say no more.
I am returned your soldier,
no more infected with my country's love than when I parted hence,
but still subsisting under your great command.
We have made peace with no less honor to the Volscians
than shame to the Romans.
Tell the traitor, in the highest degree
- he hath abused your powers. - Traitor? How now?
Aye, traitor, Martius.
- "Martius"? - Aye, Martius.
Caius Martius.
Dost thou think I'll grace thee with that robbery,
thy stolen name "Coriolanus"?
Perfidiously he hath betrayed your business
and given up, for certain drops of salt,
your city, Rome.
I say "your city," for his wife and mother.
Breaking his oath and resolution like a twist of rotten silk.
Never admitting counsel of the war, but at his nurse's tears,
he whined and roared away your victory.
Hear'st thou, Mars?
Name not the god, thou boy of tears.
Measureless liar, thou has made my heart too great for what contains it.
"Boy"? O slave.
Cut me to pieces, Volsces!
Men and lads, stain all your edges on me!
"Boy"?
If you have writ your annals true,
'tis there that, like an eagle in a dovecote,
I fluttered your Volscians in Corioles.
Alone I did it.
"Boy."
Let him die for it.