Coriolanus (2011) Movie Script
Before we proceed any further,
hear me speak.
You are all resolved
rather to die than to famish?
Resolved.
First, you know Caius Martius
is chief enemy to the people.
- We know it.
- Let us kill him.
And we'll have corn at our own price.
We are accounted poor citizens,
the patricians good.
The leanness that afflicts us,
the object of our misery,
our suffering, is a gain to them.
Aye...
Let us revenge this with our sticks,
ere we become rakes.
No more talking on it. Come!
Soft, soft, who comes here?
...friends, mine honest neighbors...
Worthy Senator Menenius,
one that has always loved the people.
I tell you, friends, most charitable
care have the patricians of you.
For your wants,
your suffering in this dearth,
you may as well strike
at the heavens with your staves
as lift them against the Roman state.
Suffer us to famish, and their
storehouses crammed with grain.
Bread!
- Bread!
- Bread.
Bread!
Bread, bread, bread...!
Bread, bread, bread...
Stop!
Stop! Stop!
What's the matter,
you dissentious rogues,
that, rubbing the poor itch of
your opinion, make yourselves scabs?
We have ever your good word.
He that will give good words to thee
will flatter beneath abhorring.
What would you have, you curs,
that like nor peace nor war?
The one affrights you,
the other makes you proud.
He that trusts to you,
where he should find you lions,
finds you hares, where foxes, geese.
Who deserves greatness,
deserves your hate.
Hang ye. Trust ye?
With every minute
you do change your mind,
and call him noble
that was now your hate,
him vile that was your garland.
What's the matter, that in these
several places of the city
you cry against the noble senate,
who, under the gods, keep you in awe,
which else would feed on one another?
Go.
Get you home...
...you fragments.
- Go back!
- Forward!
Go back!
- Please...
- Know you me yet?
I know you well.
Your name, I think, is Aufidius.
It is so.
- I'm a Roman.
- What's the news in Rome?
What's the news in Rome?
There hath been in Rome
strange insurrections.
- The people against the senators.
- Hath been? Is it ended then?
The main blaze of it is past,
but a small thing
would make it flame again.
You have ended my business.
The news is the Volsces are in arms.
They have a leader, Tullus Aufidius,
that'll put you to it.
I sin in envying his nobility.
And were I anything but what I am,
I would wish me only he.
You have fought together?
He is a lion that I am proud to hunt.
Titus Lartius, thou shalt see me
once more strike at Tullus' face.
Lead you on.
So your opinion is, Aufidius,
that they of Rome
are entered in our counsels
- and know how we proceed.
- Is it not yours?
'Tis not four days gone
since I heard thence.
By the discovery,
we shall be shortened in our aim.
And it is rumored Martius, your
old enemy, leads on this preparation.
If we and Caius Martius
chance to meet, 'tis sworn between us
we shall ever strike
till one can do no more.
If ever again I meet him beard to beard,
he's mine or I am his.
Mark me!
They do disdain us much
beyond our thoughts.
He that retires, I'll take him for
a Volsce and he shall feel mine edge!
Go!
Come on.
Away!
The citizens
of Corioles have issued
and given to Titus
and to Martius battle.
We've heard their drums.
I saw our forces to their trenches
driven, and then I came away...
I pray you, daughter, sing,
or express yourself
in a more comfortable sort.
If my son were my husband,
I would more freely
rejoice in that absence
wherein he won honor
than in the embracements of his bed
where he would show most love.
When yet he was but tender-bodied
and the only son of my womb,
I, considering how honor
would become such a person,
was pleased to let him seek danger,
where he was like to find fame.
To a cruel war I sent him,
from whence he returned,
his brows bound with oak.
But had he died in the business,
madam, how then?
Then...
...his good report
should have been my son.
Hear me.
Had I a dozen sons,
I had rather eleven die
nobly for their country,
than one voluptuously
surfeit out of action.
Heavens bless my lord
from fell Aufidius.
He'll beat Aufidius' head
below his knee and tread upon his neck.
Methinks I hear hither
your husband's drum.
I see him stamp thus,
cry thus:
"Come on, you cowards!
You were got in fear,
though you were born in Rome."
You souls of geese
that bear the shapes of men!
Pluto and hell.
Look to it. Come on!
Mend and charge home,
or, by the fires of heaven, I'll leave
the foe and make my wars on you.
His bloody brow then wiping,
forth he goes.
His bloody brow?
O Jupiter, no blood.
Away, you fool.
It more becomes a man
than gold his trophy.
Senator Menenius is come to visit you.
Tell him we are fit to bid him welcome.
Beseech you,
give me leave to retire myself.
- Indeed, you shall not.
- My ladies both, good day to you.
How do you both?
And how does your little son?
I thank you, sir. Well, good.
He'd rather play
with swords and hear a drum
- than look upon his schoolmaster.
- On my word, the father's son.
Come, I must have you play the idle
housewife with me this afternoon.
No, good sir, I will not out of doors.
- Not out of doors?
- She shall, she shall.
Indeed, no, by your patience.
I'll not over the threshold
till my lord return from the wars.
Fie, you confine yourself
most unreasonably.
- I cannot go hither.
- O you would be another Penelope.
Yet they say, all the yarn she spun
in Ulysses' absence
did but fill Ithaca full of moths.
No, good sir. Pardon me.
Indeed, I will not forth.
Go with me, and I'll tell you
excellent news of your husband.
No, good sir,
there can be none yet.
- There came news from him last night.
- Indeed?
Your lord and Titus Lartius are set down
before the Volscian city of Carioles.
They nothing doubt prevailing,
and to make it brief wars.
This is true, on mine honor.
So, I pray, go out with us.
Give me excuse, good sir.
I will obey you in everything hereafter.
Let her alone. As she is now,
she will but disease our better mirth.
- What is become of Martius?
- Slain, sir, doubtless.
He is himself alone,
to answer all the city.
Thou art lost, Martius.
Who's yonder,
that does appear as he were flayed?
O gods! He has the stamp of Martius.
Come I too late?!
Come I too late?!
Aye, if you come not in the blood
of others, but mantled in your own.
Let me hold you in arms
as sound as when I wooed,
in heart as merry as when
our nuptial day was done.
There is the man of my soul's hate.
Aufidius, piercing our Romans.
Worthy sir, thou bleeds.
Thy exercise has been too violent
for a second course of fight.
Sir, praise me not.
My work hath not yet warmed me.
The blood I drop is more
medicinal than dangerous to me.
To Aufidius thus
I will appear and fight.
If any such be here,
as it were sin to doubt,
that love this painting
wherein you see me smeared,
if any fear lesser his person
than an ill report,
if any think brave death
outweighs bad life,
and that his country
is dearer than himself,
let him alone, or so many so minded
wave thus, to express his disposition,
and follow Martius!
O... me alone.
Make you a sword of me!
Oi!
Advance, brave Titus!
Away!
Come! Come!
I'll fight with none but thee,
for I do hate thee.
We hate alike.
Five times, Martius,
I have fought with thee.
So often has thou beat me,
and would do so, I fear,
should we encounter as often as we eat.
For where I thought to crush him
in an equal force,
true sword to sword,
I'll potch at him some way.
Or wrath or craft may get him.
He's the devil.
Bolder, though not so subtle.
Nor sleep, nor sanctuary,
being naked, sick,
the prayers of priests,
nor times of sacrifice
shall lift up their rotten
privilege and custom
against my hate to Martius.
Where I find him, were it at home,
upon my brother's guard,
even there, will I wash
my fierce hand in his heart.
Honorable Menenius!
My boy, Martius, approaches.
For the love of Juno, let's go.
Is he not wounded?
He was wont to come home wounded.
O yes, he is wounded.
I thank the gods for it.
O, so do I too,
if it be not too much.
Brings a victory in his pocket,
the wounds become him.
Has he disciplined Aufidius soundly?
Titus Lartius said they fought together,
but Aufidius got off.
In truth, there's wondrous
things spoke of him.
Gods grant them true.
- True.
- I'll be sworn they're true.
Where is he wounded?
In the shoulder and in the left arm.
There will be large
scars to show the people
when he shall stand for his place.
He had, before this last expedition,
- 25 wounds upon him.
- Now it's 27.
Every gash was an enemy's grave.
Before him he carries noise,
and behind him he leaves tears.
Death, that dark spirit,
in his nervy arm doth lie.
Which, being advanced,
declines, and then men die.
Be it known,
as to us, to all the world,
that Caius Martius
wears this war's garland.
And, from this time,
for what he did before Corioles,
call him, with all the applause
and clamor of the host:
"Caius Martius Coriolanus."
Bear the addition nobly ever.
Caius Martius Coriolanus!
No more of this. It does offend
my heart. Pray now, no more.
Look, sir, your mother.
O, you have, I know, petitioned
all the gods for my prosperity.
Nay, my good soldier, up.
Ah, my gentle Martius, worthy Caius,
and by deed-achieving honor
newly named... What is it?
"Coriolanus" must I call thee?
But, O, thy wife...
My gracious silence, hail.
Wouldst thou have laughed
had I come coffined home,
that weeps to see me triumph?
Aye, my dear, such eyes
the widows in Corioles wear,
and mothers that lack sons.
- Now, the gods crown thee!
- And live you yet?
I could weep and I could laugh.
I'm light and heavy.
I know not where to turn.
O, you are welcome home.
You are welcome all.
- A hundred thousand welcomes!
- Welcome all!
Welcome, Coriolanus!
Welcome!
'Tis thought that
Martius shall be consul.
I have seen the dumb men
throng to see him,
and the blind to hear him speak.
Matrons flung gloves,
ladies and maids their scarves
and handkerchiefs
upon him as he passed.
The nobles bended as to Jove's statue.
And the commons made a shower
and thunder with their caps and shouts.
I never saw the like.
Was ever a man
so proud as is this Martius?
He has no equal.
When we were chosen tribunes
for the people...
- Marked you his lip and eyes?
- Nay, but his taunts.
The augurer tells me
we shall have news tonight.
Good or bad?
Not according to the prayer of
the people, for they love not Martius.
Nature teaches beasts
to know their friends.
You blame Martius for being proud?
- We do it not alone, sir.
- I know you can do very little alone.
You talk of pride.
O that you could turn your eyes
towards the napes of your necks
and make but an interior
survey of your good selves.
- O that you could.
- What then, sir?
Why, then you should discover
a brace of unmeriting, proud,
violent, testy politicians,
alias fools, as any in Rome.
Menenius, you are known
well enough too.
I am known to be a humorous patrician,
and one that loves a cup of hot wine
with not a drop of allaying water in it.
One that converses more
with the buttock of the night
than with the forehead of the morning.
What I think I utter,
and spend my malice in my breath.
Come, sir, come,
we know you well enough.
You know neither me,
yourselves, nor anything.
You're ambitious.
Good e'en to your worships.
More of your conversation
would infect my brain.
- How many stand for the consulship?
- Three, they say,
but 'tis thought of everyone
Coriolanus will carry it.
That's a brave fellow,
but he is vengeance proud
and loves not the common people.
There have been many great men
that have flattered the people
who never loved them.
Therefore, for Coriolanus, neither
to care whether they love or hate him
manifests the true knowledge
he has in their disposition.
And, out of his noble carelessness,
lets them plainly see it.
But he seeks their hate with greater
devotion than they can render at him.
Now to seem to desire the malice
and displeasure of the people
is as bad as that which he dislikes,
to flatter them for their love.
Consider you what services
he has done for his country?
Very well. And would be content
to give him good report for it,
but that he pays
himself with being proud.
Nay, but speak not maliciously.
He hath deserve worthily of his country.
The good senators must be visited,
from whom I have received
not only greetings,
but with them change of honors.
I have lived to see inherited
my very wishes
and the buildings of my fancy.
Only there's one thing wanting,
which I doubt not
but our Rome will cast upon thee.
Good mother, I'd rather
be their servant in my way,
than sway with them in theirs.
Coriolanus will carry it.
He's a worthy man. He will carry it.
- All tongues speak of him.
- On the sudden, I warrant him consul.
Then our office may,
during his power, go asleep.
He cannot temperately
transport his honors
from where he should begin and end,
but will lose those he hath won.
I heard him swear,
were he to stand for consul,
never would he appear
in the marketplace,
nor showing, as the manner is,
his wounds to the people,
beg their stinking breaths.
It was his word. It shall be to him
then, a sure destruction.
So it must fall out to him,
or our authorities, for an end.
We must suggest to the people
in what hatred
he still hath held them.
Kindle their dry stubble,
and their blaze
shall darken him forever.
It remains, as the main point
of this our after-meeting,
to gratify his noble service
that hath thus stood for his country.
Therefore, please you,
most grave and reverend elders,
to desire the present consul, and last
general in our well-found successes,
to report a little of that worthy work
performed by Caius Martius Coriolanus.
- Speak, good Cominius.
- Aye.
- Nay, keep your place.
- Sit, Coriolanus.
Never shame to hear
what you have nobly done.
Your honor's pardon. I'd rather
have my wounds to heal again
- than hear say how I got them.
- Pray you, sit down.
I'd rather have one
scratch my head in the sun
when the alarm were struck
than idly sit to hear
my nothings monstered.
- Speak, good Cominius.
- Aye, proceed.
The deeds of Coriolanus
should not be uttered feebly.
It is held that valor
is the chiefest virtue,
and most dignifies the haver.
If it be, the man I speak of
cannot in the world
be singly counterpoised.
At 16 years,
he fought beyond the mark of others.
When he might act
the woman in the scene,
he proved best man in the field.
And in the brunt of 17 battles since,
he lurched all swords of the garland.
For this last, before and in Corioles,
let me say I cannot speak him home.
He stopped the fliers,
and by his rare example,
made coward turn terror into sport,
from face to foot.
He was a thing of blood, whose every
motion was timed with dying cries.
Alone, he entered
the mortal gate of the city,
which he painted with shunless destiny.
Aidless came off,
and with a sudden re-enforcement
struck Corioles like a planet.
Until we called
both field and city ours,
he never stood to ease
his breast with panting.
Our spoils he kicked at,
and looked upon things precious
as they were the common
muck of the world.
He covets less
than misery itself would give,
rewards his deeds with doing them,
and is content to spend
the time to end it.
The senate, Coriolanus,
are well pleased to make thee consul.
Aye.
I do owe them still
my life and services.
It then remains
that you do speak to the people.
I do beseech you,
let me overleap that custom,
for I cannot entreat them for my wounds'
sake to give their suffrage.
Please you that I may pass this doing.
Sir! The people must have their voices.
Pray you, go fit you to the custom.
It is a part that I shall blush
in acting, and might well be taken
- from the people.
- Mark you that?
To brag unto them
"Thus I did, and thus!"
Show them the unaching scars
which I should hide,
as if I had received them
for the hire of their breath only.
To our noble consul
wish we all joy and honor!
The senate, Coriolanus, are
well pleased to make thee consul!
I do owe them still
my life and services.
It then remains that
you do speak to the people.
Let me overleap that custom.
The people must have their voices.
Have you not known
the worthiest men have done it?
Custom calls me to it.
What custom wills,
in all things should we do it.
What must I say?
"Look, sir, my wounds.
I got them in my country's service."
O me, the gods!
You must not speak like that.
You must desire them to think upon you.
Think upon me?
Hang 'em.
I would they would forget me.
Pray you, speak to them.
I pray you, in wholesome manner.
Bid them wash their faces
and keep their teeth clean.
You know the cause, sir,
of my standing here?
We do, sir. Tell us
what hath brought you to it.
- Mine own desert.
- Your own desert?
- Aye, but not mine own desire.
- How not your own desire?
No, it was never my desire
yet to trouble the poor with begging.
You must think, if we give you anything,
we hope to gain by you.
Well then, I pray,
your price of the consulship?
The price is to ask it kindly.
Kindly, sir, I pray, let me have it.
I have wounds to show you,
which shall be yours in private.
Your good voice, sir. What say you?
- You shall have it, worthy sir.
- A match, sir.
There's in all two
worthy voices begged. Adieu.
But this is something odd.
Pray you now, if it may stand
with the tune of your voice
that I may be consul.
You've deserved nobly of your country,
and you've not deserved nobly.
Your enigma?
You've been a scourge to her enemies,
you've been a rod to her friends.
You've not indeed loved
the common people.
You should account me the more virtuous
that I have not been common in my love.
We hope to find you our friend,
and therefore give you
our voices heartily.
I'll make much of your voices,
and so trouble you no further.
Gods give you joy, sir, heartily.
Your voices!
For your voices I have fought.
Watched for your voices.
For your voices
bear of wounds two dozen odd.
Battles thrice six
I have seen and heard of!
For your voices have done many things,
some less, some more.
Your voices!
Indeed, I would be consul.
He has done nobly, and cannot go
without any honest man's voice!
- Aye.
- Aye.
Therefore, let him be consul!
- Amen!
- Amen!
Amen!
Amen!
Amen!
Worthy voices!
Worthy voices, worthy voices.
You have
stood your limitation.
And the tribunes now endow you
with the people's voice.
Is this done?
The custom of request
you have discharged.
The people do admit you,
and are summoned to meet anon
upon your approbation.
- Where? At the senate?
- There, Coriolanus.
- May I change these garments?
- You may, sir.
I'll keep you company. Will you along?
We stay here for the people.
God save thee, noble consul!
Consul! Consul!
Consul! Consul! Consul! Consul!
How now, my masters!
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
hey, whoa, whoa, whoa!
Whoa, my masters! My masters!
My masters, how now!
- Have you chose this man?
- Aye!
He has our voices, sir.
We pray the gods
he may deserve your loves.
Amen, sir.
To my poor, unworthy notice,
he mocked us when he begged our voices.
- He mocked us!
- Flouted us downright.
O, no, no, no,
it is his kind of speech.
- Aye.
- He did not mock us.
He should have showed us
his marks of merit,
- wounds received for his country.
- Yes!
- Why, I'm sure, so he did.
- No, he didn't!
No, no, no! No! No!
No one saw them!
Was this mockery?
Yes!
When he had no power, but was a petty
servant to the state, he was your enemy.
Ever spake against your liberties.
Did you perceive he did solicit
you in free contempt
when he did need your loves,
and do you think that his contempt
shall not be bruising to you
when he hath power to crush?
Aye!
It is not confirmed.
It is not confirmed!
We may deny him yet!
And will deny him!
I'll have 500 voices of that sound.
- Yes!
- I twice 500 and their friends!
Yes!
Get you hence instantly
and tell those friends
they have chose a consul that will
from them take their liberties!
Let them assemble,
and on a safer judgment,
all revoke your ignorant election.
Enforce his pride,
and his old hate unto you!
And, presently, when you have drawn
the number, repair to the senate.
Tullus Aufidius then
has assembled a new army?
He has, my lord.
- Saw you Aufidius?
- He's retired to Antium.
- Spoke he of me?
- He did, my lord.
How? What?
How often he had met you,
sword to sword.
That of all things upon the earth,
he hated your person most.
- At Antium lives he?
- At Antium.
I wish I had a cause to seek him there,
to oppose his hatred fully.
Come, Rome must know
the value of her own.
Behold, these are the tribunes
of the people,
the tongues of the common mouth.
- Pass no further.
- Ah? What is that?
It will be dangerous to go on.
No further.
- What makes this change?
- The matter?
Hath he not passed
the nobles and the commons?
- Cominius, no.
- Have I had children's voices?
- Tribunes, give away.
- The people are incensed against him.
- Are these your herd?
- Be calm, be calm.
The people cry you mocked them,
and of late called them time-pleasers,
- flatterers, foes to nobleness.
- Why, this was known before.
You show too much of that
for which the people stir.
If you will pass to where you are bound,
you must inquire your way
with a gentler spirit.
- Let's be calm.
- The people are abused, set on.
This was my speech,
and I'll speak it again.
- Not now, not now.
- Not in this heat, sir.
My nobler friends,
I crave their pardons.
For the mutable, rank-scented many,
let them regard me as I do not flatter,
and therein behold themselves.
I say again, in soothing them,
we nourish against our senate
the cockle of rebellion,
insolence, sedition,
which we ourselves have ploughed for,
sowed, and scattered
by mingling them with us,
the honored number
who lack not virtue, no, nor power,
but that which we have given to beggars!
- Well, no more!
- No more words, we beseech you.
You speak of the people
as if you were a god to punish,
not a man of their infirmity.
It were well we let the people know it.
Were I as patient as the midnight sleep,
by Jove, it would be my mind!
It is a mind that shall remain a poison
where it is, not poison any further.
Shall remain.
Hear you this Triton of the minnows?
Mark you his absolute "shall"?
Why should the people give one
that speaks thus their voice?
I'll give my reasons,
more worthier than their voices!
By Jove himself,
it makes the consuls base,
and my soul aches to know,
when two authorities are up,
neither supreme,
how soon confusion
may enter twixt the gap of both
and take the one by the other.
Thus we debase
the nature of our seats
and make the rabble call our cares
fears, which will, in time,
break open the locks of the senate,
and bring in the crows
to peck the eagles!
- Come, enough!
- Enough, with over-measure.
He has spoken like a traitor,
and shall answer as traitors do!
Thou wretch,
despite overwhelm thee!
- Manifest treason!
- This is a consul? No!
Seize him!
Hence, old goat!
On both sides more respect!
Shh! Shh!
Here's he that would
take from you all your power!
You are at point to lose your liberties!
Martius would have all from you,
Martius, whom late
you have named for consul.
- What is the city but the people?!
- True!
The people are the city!
The people are the city!
We do here pronounce,
upon the part of the people,
Martius is worthy of present death!
Death!
- Guards, seize him!
- No, I'll die here!
Get you to your house! Be gone, away!
- All will be naught else!
- Come, sir, along with us!
As I do know the consul's worthiness,
so can I name his faults.
Consul? What consul?
- The Consul Coriolanus.
- He, consul?
It is decreed he dies tonight.
He's a disease that must be cut away.
O, he's a limb that hath but a disease.
Mortal, to cut it off,
to cure it, easy.
What has he done to Rome
that's worth his death, eh?
Killing our enemies?
The blood he hath lost,
he dropped it for his country.
- This is clean kam.
- We'll hear no more...
Consider this:
He's been bred in the wars
since he could draw a sword,
and is ill-schooled
in graceful language.
Give me leave. I'll go to him
and undertake to bring him
where he shall answer
by a lawful form, in peace,
to his utmost peril.
Noble tribunes,
it is the humane way.
- Menenius...
- Be you then as the people's officer.
In you bring not Martius,
we'll proceed in our first way.
I'll bring him to you.
Let them pull all about mine ears,
present me death on the wheel
or at wild horses' heels,
- yet will I still be thus to them!
- Martius...
I muse my mother
does not approve me further.
I talk of you.
Why would you wish me milder?
Would you have me false to my nature?
Rather say I play the man I am.
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!
- 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.
hear me speak.
You are all resolved
rather to die than to famish?
Resolved.
First, you know Caius Martius
is chief enemy to the people.
- We know it.
- Let us kill him.
And we'll have corn at our own price.
We are accounted poor citizens,
the patricians good.
The leanness that afflicts us,
the object of our misery,
our suffering, is a gain to them.
Aye...
Let us revenge this with our sticks,
ere we become rakes.
No more talking on it. Come!
Soft, soft, who comes here?
...friends, mine honest neighbors...
Worthy Senator Menenius,
one that has always loved the people.
I tell you, friends, most charitable
care have the patricians of you.
For your wants,
your suffering in this dearth,
you may as well strike
at the heavens with your staves
as lift them against the Roman state.
Suffer us to famish, and their
storehouses crammed with grain.
Bread!
- Bread!
- Bread.
Bread!
Bread, bread, bread...!
Bread, bread, bread...
Stop!
Stop! Stop!
What's the matter,
you dissentious rogues,
that, rubbing the poor itch of
your opinion, make yourselves scabs?
We have ever your good word.
He that will give good words to thee
will flatter beneath abhorring.
What would you have, you curs,
that like nor peace nor war?
The one affrights you,
the other makes you proud.
He that trusts to you,
where he should find you lions,
finds you hares, where foxes, geese.
Who deserves greatness,
deserves your hate.
Hang ye. Trust ye?
With every minute
you do change your mind,
and call him noble
that was now your hate,
him vile that was your garland.
What's the matter, that in these
several places of the city
you cry against the noble senate,
who, under the gods, keep you in awe,
which else would feed on one another?
Go.
Get you home...
...you fragments.
- Go back!
- Forward!
Go back!
- Please...
- Know you me yet?
I know you well.
Your name, I think, is Aufidius.
It is so.
- I'm a Roman.
- What's the news in Rome?
What's the news in Rome?
There hath been in Rome
strange insurrections.
- The people against the senators.
- Hath been? Is it ended then?
The main blaze of it is past,
but a small thing
would make it flame again.
You have ended my business.
The news is the Volsces are in arms.
They have a leader, Tullus Aufidius,
that'll put you to it.
I sin in envying his nobility.
And were I anything but what I am,
I would wish me only he.
You have fought together?
He is a lion that I am proud to hunt.
Titus Lartius, thou shalt see me
once more strike at Tullus' face.
Lead you on.
So your opinion is, Aufidius,
that they of Rome
are entered in our counsels
- and know how we proceed.
- Is it not yours?
'Tis not four days gone
since I heard thence.
By the discovery,
we shall be shortened in our aim.
And it is rumored Martius, your
old enemy, leads on this preparation.
If we and Caius Martius
chance to meet, 'tis sworn between us
we shall ever strike
till one can do no more.
If ever again I meet him beard to beard,
he's mine or I am his.
Mark me!
They do disdain us much
beyond our thoughts.
He that retires, I'll take him for
a Volsce and he shall feel mine edge!
Go!
Come on.
Away!
The citizens
of Corioles have issued
and given to Titus
and to Martius battle.
We've heard their drums.
I saw our forces to their trenches
driven, and then I came away...
I pray you, daughter, sing,
or express yourself
in a more comfortable sort.
If my son were my husband,
I would more freely
rejoice in that absence
wherein he won honor
than in the embracements of his bed
where he would show most love.
When yet he was but tender-bodied
and the only son of my womb,
I, considering how honor
would become such a person,
was pleased to let him seek danger,
where he was like to find fame.
To a cruel war I sent him,
from whence he returned,
his brows bound with oak.
But had he died in the business,
madam, how then?
Then...
...his good report
should have been my son.
Hear me.
Had I a dozen sons,
I had rather eleven die
nobly for their country,
than one voluptuously
surfeit out of action.
Heavens bless my lord
from fell Aufidius.
He'll beat Aufidius' head
below his knee and tread upon his neck.
Methinks I hear hither
your husband's drum.
I see him stamp thus,
cry thus:
"Come on, you cowards!
You were got in fear,
though you were born in Rome."
You souls of geese
that bear the shapes of men!
Pluto and hell.
Look to it. Come on!
Mend and charge home,
or, by the fires of heaven, I'll leave
the foe and make my wars on you.
His bloody brow then wiping,
forth he goes.
His bloody brow?
O Jupiter, no blood.
Away, you fool.
It more becomes a man
than gold his trophy.
Senator Menenius is come to visit you.
Tell him we are fit to bid him welcome.
Beseech you,
give me leave to retire myself.
- Indeed, you shall not.
- My ladies both, good day to you.
How do you both?
And how does your little son?
I thank you, sir. Well, good.
He'd rather play
with swords and hear a drum
- than look upon his schoolmaster.
- On my word, the father's son.
Come, I must have you play the idle
housewife with me this afternoon.
No, good sir, I will not out of doors.
- Not out of doors?
- She shall, she shall.
Indeed, no, by your patience.
I'll not over the threshold
till my lord return from the wars.
Fie, you confine yourself
most unreasonably.
- I cannot go hither.
- O you would be another Penelope.
Yet they say, all the yarn she spun
in Ulysses' absence
did but fill Ithaca full of moths.
No, good sir. Pardon me.
Indeed, I will not forth.
Go with me, and I'll tell you
excellent news of your husband.
No, good sir,
there can be none yet.
- There came news from him last night.
- Indeed?
Your lord and Titus Lartius are set down
before the Volscian city of Carioles.
They nothing doubt prevailing,
and to make it brief wars.
This is true, on mine honor.
So, I pray, go out with us.
Give me excuse, good sir.
I will obey you in everything hereafter.
Let her alone. As she is now,
she will but disease our better mirth.
- What is become of Martius?
- Slain, sir, doubtless.
He is himself alone,
to answer all the city.
Thou art lost, Martius.
Who's yonder,
that does appear as he were flayed?
O gods! He has the stamp of Martius.
Come I too late?!
Come I too late?!
Aye, if you come not in the blood
of others, but mantled in your own.
Let me hold you in arms
as sound as when I wooed,
in heart as merry as when
our nuptial day was done.
There is the man of my soul's hate.
Aufidius, piercing our Romans.
Worthy sir, thou bleeds.
Thy exercise has been too violent
for a second course of fight.
Sir, praise me not.
My work hath not yet warmed me.
The blood I drop is more
medicinal than dangerous to me.
To Aufidius thus
I will appear and fight.
If any such be here,
as it were sin to doubt,
that love this painting
wherein you see me smeared,
if any fear lesser his person
than an ill report,
if any think brave death
outweighs bad life,
and that his country
is dearer than himself,
let him alone, or so many so minded
wave thus, to express his disposition,
and follow Martius!
O... me alone.
Make you a sword of me!
Oi!
Advance, brave Titus!
Away!
Come! Come!
I'll fight with none but thee,
for I do hate thee.
We hate alike.
Five times, Martius,
I have fought with thee.
So often has thou beat me,
and would do so, I fear,
should we encounter as often as we eat.
For where I thought to crush him
in an equal force,
true sword to sword,
I'll potch at him some way.
Or wrath or craft may get him.
He's the devil.
Bolder, though not so subtle.
Nor sleep, nor sanctuary,
being naked, sick,
the prayers of priests,
nor times of sacrifice
shall lift up their rotten
privilege and custom
against my hate to Martius.
Where I find him, were it at home,
upon my brother's guard,
even there, will I wash
my fierce hand in his heart.
Honorable Menenius!
My boy, Martius, approaches.
For the love of Juno, let's go.
Is he not wounded?
He was wont to come home wounded.
O yes, he is wounded.
I thank the gods for it.
O, so do I too,
if it be not too much.
Brings a victory in his pocket,
the wounds become him.
Has he disciplined Aufidius soundly?
Titus Lartius said they fought together,
but Aufidius got off.
In truth, there's wondrous
things spoke of him.
Gods grant them true.
- True.
- I'll be sworn they're true.
Where is he wounded?
In the shoulder and in the left arm.
There will be large
scars to show the people
when he shall stand for his place.
He had, before this last expedition,
- 25 wounds upon him.
- Now it's 27.
Every gash was an enemy's grave.
Before him he carries noise,
and behind him he leaves tears.
Death, that dark spirit,
in his nervy arm doth lie.
Which, being advanced,
declines, and then men die.
Be it known,
as to us, to all the world,
that Caius Martius
wears this war's garland.
And, from this time,
for what he did before Corioles,
call him, with all the applause
and clamor of the host:
"Caius Martius Coriolanus."
Bear the addition nobly ever.
Caius Martius Coriolanus!
No more of this. It does offend
my heart. Pray now, no more.
Look, sir, your mother.
O, you have, I know, petitioned
all the gods for my prosperity.
Nay, my good soldier, up.
Ah, my gentle Martius, worthy Caius,
and by deed-achieving honor
newly named... What is it?
"Coriolanus" must I call thee?
But, O, thy wife...
My gracious silence, hail.
Wouldst thou have laughed
had I come coffined home,
that weeps to see me triumph?
Aye, my dear, such eyes
the widows in Corioles wear,
and mothers that lack sons.
- Now, the gods crown thee!
- And live you yet?
I could weep and I could laugh.
I'm light and heavy.
I know not where to turn.
O, you are welcome home.
You are welcome all.
- A hundred thousand welcomes!
- Welcome all!
Welcome, Coriolanus!
Welcome!
'Tis thought that
Martius shall be consul.
I have seen the dumb men
throng to see him,
and the blind to hear him speak.
Matrons flung gloves,
ladies and maids their scarves
and handkerchiefs
upon him as he passed.
The nobles bended as to Jove's statue.
And the commons made a shower
and thunder with their caps and shouts.
I never saw the like.
Was ever a man
so proud as is this Martius?
He has no equal.
When we were chosen tribunes
for the people...
- Marked you his lip and eyes?
- Nay, but his taunts.
The augurer tells me
we shall have news tonight.
Good or bad?
Not according to the prayer of
the people, for they love not Martius.
Nature teaches beasts
to know their friends.
You blame Martius for being proud?
- We do it not alone, sir.
- I know you can do very little alone.
You talk of pride.
O that you could turn your eyes
towards the napes of your necks
and make but an interior
survey of your good selves.
- O that you could.
- What then, sir?
Why, then you should discover
a brace of unmeriting, proud,
violent, testy politicians,
alias fools, as any in Rome.
Menenius, you are known
well enough too.
I am known to be a humorous patrician,
and one that loves a cup of hot wine
with not a drop of allaying water in it.
One that converses more
with the buttock of the night
than with the forehead of the morning.
What I think I utter,
and spend my malice in my breath.
Come, sir, come,
we know you well enough.
You know neither me,
yourselves, nor anything.
You're ambitious.
Good e'en to your worships.
More of your conversation
would infect my brain.
- How many stand for the consulship?
- Three, they say,
but 'tis thought of everyone
Coriolanus will carry it.
That's a brave fellow,
but he is vengeance proud
and loves not the common people.
There have been many great men
that have flattered the people
who never loved them.
Therefore, for Coriolanus, neither
to care whether they love or hate him
manifests the true knowledge
he has in their disposition.
And, out of his noble carelessness,
lets them plainly see it.
But he seeks their hate with greater
devotion than they can render at him.
Now to seem to desire the malice
and displeasure of the people
is as bad as that which he dislikes,
to flatter them for their love.
Consider you what services
he has done for his country?
Very well. And would be content
to give him good report for it,
but that he pays
himself with being proud.
Nay, but speak not maliciously.
He hath deserve worthily of his country.
The good senators must be visited,
from whom I have received
not only greetings,
but with them change of honors.
I have lived to see inherited
my very wishes
and the buildings of my fancy.
Only there's one thing wanting,
which I doubt not
but our Rome will cast upon thee.
Good mother, I'd rather
be their servant in my way,
than sway with them in theirs.
Coriolanus will carry it.
He's a worthy man. He will carry it.
- All tongues speak of him.
- On the sudden, I warrant him consul.
Then our office may,
during his power, go asleep.
He cannot temperately
transport his honors
from where he should begin and end,
but will lose those he hath won.
I heard him swear,
were he to stand for consul,
never would he appear
in the marketplace,
nor showing, as the manner is,
his wounds to the people,
beg their stinking breaths.
It was his word. It shall be to him
then, a sure destruction.
So it must fall out to him,
or our authorities, for an end.
We must suggest to the people
in what hatred
he still hath held them.
Kindle their dry stubble,
and their blaze
shall darken him forever.
It remains, as the main point
of this our after-meeting,
to gratify his noble service
that hath thus stood for his country.
Therefore, please you,
most grave and reverend elders,
to desire the present consul, and last
general in our well-found successes,
to report a little of that worthy work
performed by Caius Martius Coriolanus.
- Speak, good Cominius.
- Aye.
- Nay, keep your place.
- Sit, Coriolanus.
Never shame to hear
what you have nobly done.
Your honor's pardon. I'd rather
have my wounds to heal again
- than hear say how I got them.
- Pray you, sit down.
I'd rather have one
scratch my head in the sun
when the alarm were struck
than idly sit to hear
my nothings monstered.
- Speak, good Cominius.
- Aye, proceed.
The deeds of Coriolanus
should not be uttered feebly.
It is held that valor
is the chiefest virtue,
and most dignifies the haver.
If it be, the man I speak of
cannot in the world
be singly counterpoised.
At 16 years,
he fought beyond the mark of others.
When he might act
the woman in the scene,
he proved best man in the field.
And in the brunt of 17 battles since,
he lurched all swords of the garland.
For this last, before and in Corioles,
let me say I cannot speak him home.
He stopped the fliers,
and by his rare example,
made coward turn terror into sport,
from face to foot.
He was a thing of blood, whose every
motion was timed with dying cries.
Alone, he entered
the mortal gate of the city,
which he painted with shunless destiny.
Aidless came off,
and with a sudden re-enforcement
struck Corioles like a planet.
Until we called
both field and city ours,
he never stood to ease
his breast with panting.
Our spoils he kicked at,
and looked upon things precious
as they were the common
muck of the world.
He covets less
than misery itself would give,
rewards his deeds with doing them,
and is content to spend
the time to end it.
The senate, Coriolanus,
are well pleased to make thee consul.
Aye.
I do owe them still
my life and services.
It then remains
that you do speak to the people.
I do beseech you,
let me overleap that custom,
for I cannot entreat them for my wounds'
sake to give their suffrage.
Please you that I may pass this doing.
Sir! The people must have their voices.
Pray you, go fit you to the custom.
It is a part that I shall blush
in acting, and might well be taken
- from the people.
- Mark you that?
To brag unto them
"Thus I did, and thus!"
Show them the unaching scars
which I should hide,
as if I had received them
for the hire of their breath only.
To our noble consul
wish we all joy and honor!
The senate, Coriolanus, are
well pleased to make thee consul!
I do owe them still
my life and services.
It then remains that
you do speak to the people.
Let me overleap that custom.
The people must have their voices.
Have you not known
the worthiest men have done it?
Custom calls me to it.
What custom wills,
in all things should we do it.
What must I say?
"Look, sir, my wounds.
I got them in my country's service."
O me, the gods!
You must not speak like that.
You must desire them to think upon you.
Think upon me?
Hang 'em.
I would they would forget me.
Pray you, speak to them.
I pray you, in wholesome manner.
Bid them wash their faces
and keep their teeth clean.
You know the cause, sir,
of my standing here?
We do, sir. Tell us
what hath brought you to it.
- Mine own desert.
- Your own desert?
- Aye, but not mine own desire.
- How not your own desire?
No, it was never my desire
yet to trouble the poor with begging.
You must think, if we give you anything,
we hope to gain by you.
Well then, I pray,
your price of the consulship?
The price is to ask it kindly.
Kindly, sir, I pray, let me have it.
I have wounds to show you,
which shall be yours in private.
Your good voice, sir. What say you?
- You shall have it, worthy sir.
- A match, sir.
There's in all two
worthy voices begged. Adieu.
But this is something odd.
Pray you now, if it may stand
with the tune of your voice
that I may be consul.
You've deserved nobly of your country,
and you've not deserved nobly.
Your enigma?
You've been a scourge to her enemies,
you've been a rod to her friends.
You've not indeed loved
the common people.
You should account me the more virtuous
that I have not been common in my love.
We hope to find you our friend,
and therefore give you
our voices heartily.
I'll make much of your voices,
and so trouble you no further.
Gods give you joy, sir, heartily.
Your voices!
For your voices I have fought.
Watched for your voices.
For your voices
bear of wounds two dozen odd.
Battles thrice six
I have seen and heard of!
For your voices have done many things,
some less, some more.
Your voices!
Indeed, I would be consul.
He has done nobly, and cannot go
without any honest man's voice!
- Aye.
- Aye.
Therefore, let him be consul!
- Amen!
- Amen!
Amen!
Amen!
Amen!
Worthy voices!
Worthy voices, worthy voices.
You have
stood your limitation.
And the tribunes now endow you
with the people's voice.
Is this done?
The custom of request
you have discharged.
The people do admit you,
and are summoned to meet anon
upon your approbation.
- Where? At the senate?
- There, Coriolanus.
- May I change these garments?
- You may, sir.
I'll keep you company. Will you along?
We stay here for the people.
God save thee, noble consul!
Consul! Consul!
Consul! Consul! Consul! Consul!
How now, my masters!
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
hey, whoa, whoa, whoa!
Whoa, my masters! My masters!
My masters, how now!
- Have you chose this man?
- Aye!
He has our voices, sir.
We pray the gods
he may deserve your loves.
Amen, sir.
To my poor, unworthy notice,
he mocked us when he begged our voices.
- He mocked us!
- Flouted us downright.
O, no, no, no,
it is his kind of speech.
- Aye.
- He did not mock us.
He should have showed us
his marks of merit,
- wounds received for his country.
- Yes!
- Why, I'm sure, so he did.
- No, he didn't!
No, no, no! No! No!
No one saw them!
Was this mockery?
Yes!
When he had no power, but was a petty
servant to the state, he was your enemy.
Ever spake against your liberties.
Did you perceive he did solicit
you in free contempt
when he did need your loves,
and do you think that his contempt
shall not be bruising to you
when he hath power to crush?
Aye!
It is not confirmed.
It is not confirmed!
We may deny him yet!
And will deny him!
I'll have 500 voices of that sound.
- Yes!
- I twice 500 and their friends!
Yes!
Get you hence instantly
and tell those friends
they have chose a consul that will
from them take their liberties!
Let them assemble,
and on a safer judgment,
all revoke your ignorant election.
Enforce his pride,
and his old hate unto you!
And, presently, when you have drawn
the number, repair to the senate.
Tullus Aufidius then
has assembled a new army?
He has, my lord.
- Saw you Aufidius?
- He's retired to Antium.
- Spoke he of me?
- He did, my lord.
How? What?
How often he had met you,
sword to sword.
That of all things upon the earth,
he hated your person most.
- At Antium lives he?
- At Antium.
I wish I had a cause to seek him there,
to oppose his hatred fully.
Come, Rome must know
the value of her own.
Behold, these are the tribunes
of the people,
the tongues of the common mouth.
- Pass no further.
- Ah? What is that?
It will be dangerous to go on.
No further.
- What makes this change?
- The matter?
Hath he not passed
the nobles and the commons?
- Cominius, no.
- Have I had children's voices?
- Tribunes, give away.
- The people are incensed against him.
- Are these your herd?
- Be calm, be calm.
The people cry you mocked them,
and of late called them time-pleasers,
- flatterers, foes to nobleness.
- Why, this was known before.
You show too much of that
for which the people stir.
If you will pass to where you are bound,
you must inquire your way
with a gentler spirit.
- Let's be calm.
- The people are abused, set on.
This was my speech,
and I'll speak it again.
- Not now, not now.
- Not in this heat, sir.
My nobler friends,
I crave their pardons.
For the mutable, rank-scented many,
let them regard me as I do not flatter,
and therein behold themselves.
I say again, in soothing them,
we nourish against our senate
the cockle of rebellion,
insolence, sedition,
which we ourselves have ploughed for,
sowed, and scattered
by mingling them with us,
the honored number
who lack not virtue, no, nor power,
but that which we have given to beggars!
- Well, no more!
- No more words, we beseech you.
You speak of the people
as if you were a god to punish,
not a man of their infirmity.
It were well we let the people know it.
Were I as patient as the midnight sleep,
by Jove, it would be my mind!
It is a mind that shall remain a poison
where it is, not poison any further.
Shall remain.
Hear you this Triton of the minnows?
Mark you his absolute "shall"?
Why should the people give one
that speaks thus their voice?
I'll give my reasons,
more worthier than their voices!
By Jove himself,
it makes the consuls base,
and my soul aches to know,
when two authorities are up,
neither supreme,
how soon confusion
may enter twixt the gap of both
and take the one by the other.
Thus we debase
the nature of our seats
and make the rabble call our cares
fears, which will, in time,
break open the locks of the senate,
and bring in the crows
to peck the eagles!
- Come, enough!
- Enough, with over-measure.
He has spoken like a traitor,
and shall answer as traitors do!
Thou wretch,
despite overwhelm thee!
- Manifest treason!
- This is a consul? No!
Seize him!
Hence, old goat!
On both sides more respect!
Shh! Shh!
Here's he that would
take from you all your power!
You are at point to lose your liberties!
Martius would have all from you,
Martius, whom late
you have named for consul.
- What is the city but the people?!
- True!
The people are the city!
The people are the city!
We do here pronounce,
upon the part of the people,
Martius is worthy of present death!
Death!
- Guards, seize him!
- No, I'll die here!
Get you to your house! Be gone, away!
- All will be naught else!
- Come, sir, along with us!
As I do know the consul's worthiness,
so can I name his faults.
Consul? What consul?
- The Consul Coriolanus.
- He, consul?
It is decreed he dies tonight.
He's a disease that must be cut away.
O, he's a limb that hath but a disease.
Mortal, to cut it off,
to cure it, easy.
What has he done to Rome
that's worth his death, eh?
Killing our enemies?
The blood he hath lost,
he dropped it for his country.
- This is clean kam.
- We'll hear no more...
Consider this:
He's been bred in the wars
since he could draw a sword,
and is ill-schooled
in graceful language.
Give me leave. I'll go to him
and undertake to bring him
where he shall answer
by a lawful form, in peace,
to his utmost peril.
Noble tribunes,
it is the humane way.
- Menenius...
- Be you then as the people's officer.
In you bring not Martius,
we'll proceed in our first way.
I'll bring him to you.
Let them pull all about mine ears,
present me death on the wheel
or at wild horses' heels,
- yet will I still be thus to them!
- Martius...
I muse my mother
does not approve me further.
I talk of you.
Why would you wish me milder?
Would you have me false to my nature?
Rather say I play the man I am.
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!
- 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.