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In which the formidable Coriolanus stands resolute against the entreaties of his own kin, whose heartfelt supplications and humble prostrations seek to sway his stern purpose amidst a city rent by war and vengeance. Yet, as the tide of fate turns and reconciliations bloom through maternal grace, the fickle theatre of power unveils its cruel design, where honour and wrath intertwine upon the stage of public judgement.
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Act V of Coriolanus by William Shakespeare. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Act V. Scene 1. Rome. A public place. Enter Menenius, Cominius, Sicinius, Brutus, and others.
No, I'll not go. You hear what he hath said, which was sometime his general. who loved him in a most dear particular. He called me father, but what of that? Go, you that banished him, a mile before his tent fall down, and knee the way into his mercy. Nay, if he coied to hear Comenius speak, I'll keep it home.
He would not seem to know me.
Do you hear?
Yet one time he did call me by my name. I urged our old acquaintance, and the drops that we have bled together. Coriolanus he would not answer to. Forbade all names. He was a kind of nothing, titleless, till he had forged himself a name of the fire of burning Rome.
Why, sir, you have made good work. A pair of tribunes that have racked for Rome to make calls cheap. A noble memory.
I minded him how royal t'was to pardon when it was less expected. He replied, It was a bare petition of a state to one whom they had punished.
Very well. could he say less i offered.
To awaken his regard for his private friends his answer to me was he could not stay to pick them in a pile of noisome musty chaff he said twas folly for one poor grain or two to leave unburnt and still to nose the offence.
One poor grain or two i am one of those his mother wife his child and this brave fellow too we are the grains you are the musty chaff and you are smelt above the moon, we must be burnt for you.
Nay, pray, be patient. If you refuse your aid in this so never-needed help, yet do not upbraids with our distress. But, sure, if you would be your country's pleader, your good tongue, more than the instant army we can make, might stop our countrymen.
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 Coriolanus.
Well, and say that Coriolanus return me, as Cominius is returned, unheard? What then? But as a discontented friend, grief-shot with his unkindness? Say't be so?
Yet your good will must have that thanks from Rome, after the measure as you intended well.
I'll undertake it. I think he'll hear me. yet to bite his lip and hum at good Cominius much unhearts me. He was not taken well, he had not dined, the veins unfilled, our blood is cold, and then we pout upon the morning, are unapt to give or to forgive. But when we have stuffed these and these conveyances of our blood with wine and feeding, we have suppler souls than in our priest-like fasts. Therefore I'll watch him till he be dieted to my request, and then i'll set upon him.
You know the very road into his kindness, and cannot lose your way.
Good faith, I'll prove him. Speed how it will, I shall ere long have knowledge of my success.
Exit.
He'll never hear him.
Not?
I tell you, he does sit in gold, his eye red as t'would burn Rome, and his injury the jailer to his pity. I kneeled before him,' Twas very faintly he said,' Rise.'' Dismissed me thus, with his speechless hand.' What he would do he sent in writing after me,' but he would not, bound with an oath to yield to his conditions, 'so that all hope is vain, unless his noble mother and his wife,' who, as I hear, mean to solicit him for mercy to his country.' Therefore let's hence, and with our fair entreaties, haste them on.
EXIANT SCENE II Entrance of the Volscian camp before Rome. Two sentinels on guard. Enter to them Menenius.
Stay, whence are you?
Stand, and go back.
You godlike men, tis well, but by your leave I am an officer of state, and come to speak with Coriolanus.
From whence?
From Rome.
You may not pass, you must return. Our general will no more.
Hear from thence.
You'll see your Rome embraced with fire before you'll speak with Coriolanus.
Good, my friends, if you have heard your general talk of Rome and of his friends there, it is lots to blanks. My name hath touched your ears. It is Menenius.
Be it so, go back. The virtue of your name is not here possible.
I tell thee, fellow, the general is my lover. I have been the book of his good acts. Whence men have read his name unparalleled. haply amplified, for I have ever verified my friends, of whom he's chief, with all the sighs that verity would without lapsing suffer. Nay, sometimes, like to a bowl upon a settled ground, I have tumbled past the throw, and in his praise have almost stamped the leasing. Therefore, fellow, I must have leave to pass.
Faith, sir, if you had told as many lies in his behalf as you have uttered words in your own, You should not pass here, no, though it were as virtuous to lie as to live chastely.
Therefore go back.
Prithee, fellow, remember my name is Menenius, always factionary to the party of your general.
Howsoever you have been his liar, as you say you have, I am one, that telling truth under him, must say, you cannot pass.
Therefore go back.
Has he died? Canst thou tell? For I would not speak with him till after dinner.
You are a Roman, are you?
I am, as thy general is.
Then you should hate Rome, as he does. Can you, when you have pushed out your gates the very defender of them, and in a violent popular ignorance given your enemy your shield, think to front his revenges with the easy groans of old women, the virginal palms of your daughters, or with the palsied intercession of such a decayed dotund as you seem to be? Can you think to blow out the intended fire your city is ready to flame in, with such weak breath as this? Now you are deceived.
Therefore back to Rome, and prepare for your execution.
You are condemned.
Our general has sworn you out of reprieve and pardon.
Siddhar, if thy captain knew I were here, he would use me with estimation.
Come, my captain knows you not.
I mean thy general.
My general cares not for you. Back, I say, go. Lest I let forth your half-point of blood. Back. That's the utmost of your having.
Back.
Nay, but fellow, fellow.
Enter Coriolanus and Ophidius.
What's the matter?
Now, you companion, I'll say an errand for you. You shall know now that I am in estimation. You shall perceive that a jack-guardant cannot office me for my son Coriolanus. Guess but by my entertainment with him If thou standest not in a state of hanging, or of some death more long in spectatorship, and crueler in suffering, behold now presently, and swoon for what's to come upon thee.
To Coriolanus The glorious gods sit in hourly synod about thy particular prosperity, and love thee no worse than thy old father Menenius does.
O my son, my son, thou art preparing fire for us.' Look thee, here'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' and thy petitionary countrymen.' The good gods assuage thy wrath' and turn the dregs of it upon this varlet here,' this who, like a block, hath denied my access to thee.'' Away!
How, away?' Wife, mother, child, I know not. My affairs are servanted to others. Though I owe my revenge properly, my remission lies in Volscian breasts. That we have been familiar in great forgetfulness shall poison rather than pity note how much. Therefore, begone. Mine ears against your suits are stronger than your gates against my force. yet for i loved thee take this along i writ it for thy sake gives a letter and would have rent it another word menenius i will not hear thee speak this man ophidius was my beloved in rome yet thou behold'st.
You keep a constant temper exeunt coriolanus and ophidius.
Now sir is your name menenius tis a spell you see of much power you know the way home again.
Did you hear how we are shent for keeping your greatness back?
What cause do you think I have this wound?
I neither care for the world nor your general. For such things as you, I can scarce think there's any you're so slight. He that hath a will to die by himself fears it not from another. Let your general do his worst. For you, be that you are, long, and your misery increase with your age. I say to you, as I was said to, away.
Exit.
A noble fellow, I warrant him.
The worthy fellow is our general. He's the rock, the oak, not to be when shaken.
Axiom Scene 3 The Tent of Coriolanus Enter Coriolanus, Aphidius, and others.
We will before the walls of Rome tomorrow set down our host. My partner in this action, you must report to the Volscian lords how plainly I have borne this business.
Only their ends you have respected. stopped your ears against the general suit of Rome, never admitted a private whisper, no, not with such friends that thought them sure of you.
This last old man, whom with a cracked heart I have sent to Rome, loved me above the measure of a father, nay, godded me indeed. Their latest refuge was to send him, for whose old love I have, though I showed solely to him, once more offered the first conditions which they did refuse and cannot now accept to grace him only that thought he could do more a very little i have yielded to fresh embassies and suits nor from the state nor private friends hereafter will i lend hereto ha what show tis.
This shout within shall.
I be tempted to infringe my vow in the same time tis made i will not.
Enter in mourning habits virgilia volumnia leading young coriolanus valeria and attendants my.
Wife comes foremost then the honoured mould wherein this trunk was framed and in her hand the grandchild to her blood but out affection all bond and privilege of nature break let it be virtuous to be obstinate What is that curtsy worth, or those dove's eyes which can make gods forsworn? I melt, and am not of stronger earth than others. My mother bows, as if Olympus to a molehill should in supplication nod, and my young boy hath an aspect of intercession which great nature cries, Deny not!
Let the valses plough Rome and harrow Italy, I'll never be such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand as if a man were author of himself, and knew no other kin.
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.
Like a dull actor now. I have forgot my part, and I am out, even to a full disgrace. Best of my flesh, forgive my tyranny, But do not say for that forgive our Romans. O a kiss, long as my exile, Sweet as my revenge! Now, by the jealous Queen of Heaven, That kiss I carried from thee, dear, And my true lip hath virgin deter since. You gods, I prate, And the most noble mother of the world, leave unsaluted, sink my knee in the earth, of thy deep duty more impressions show than that of common sons.
Oh, stand up blessed! Whilst with no softer cushion than the flint, I kneel before thee, and improperly show duty, as mistaken all this while between the child and parent.
What is this? Your knees to me, to your corrected sun. Then let the pebbles on the hungry beach fill it the stars. Then let the mutinous wind strike the proud cedars against the fiery sun, murdering impossibility to make what cannot be slight work.
Thou art my warrior. I hope to frame thee. Do you know this lady?
The noble sister of Publicola, the moon of Rome. chased as the icicle that's curdled by the frost from purest snow, and hangs on Diane's temple. Dear Valeria, this.
Is a poor epitome of yours, which by the interpretation of full time may show like all yourself.
The god of soldiers, with the consent of supreme Jove, informed thy thoughts with nobleness, that thou mayest prove to shame invulnerable, and sticky the walls like a great sea-mark, standing every floor, and saving those that eye thee.
Your knee, Sarah.
That's my brave boy.
Even he, your wife, this lady, and myself are suitors to you.
I beseech you, peace, or, if you'd ask, remember this before, the thing I have forsworn to grant may never be held by you denials. Do not bid me dismiss my soldiers, or capitulate again with Rome's mechanics. Tell me not wherein I seem unnatural. Desire not to ally my rages and revenges with your colder reasons.
Oh, 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.
O Phidias, and you Volses, ma, 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 berate 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 to pour we thine enmities most capital. Thou barst us our prayer to the gods, which is a comfort that all but we enjoy. For how can we, alas, how can we for our country pray? Whereto we are bound, together with thy victory, whereto we are bound?
Alack!
For we must lose the country, our dear nurse, or else thy person, our comfort in the country. 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 of one, Thou shalt no sooner march to assault thy country than to tread. Trust to it thou shalt not. On thy mother's womb that brought thee to this world. I and mine that brought you forth this boy to keep your name living to time.
I shall not tread on me. I'll run away till I am bigger. But then I'll fight.
Not of a woman's tenderness to be. Requires nor child nor woman's face to see. I have sat too long.
Rising.
Nay, go not from us thus.' If it were so that our request did tend to save the Romans,' thereby to destroy the Volses whom you serve,' you might condemn us as poisonous of your honour.
No, our.
Suit is that you reconcile them.' While the Volses may say,' This mercy we have showed,' the Romans this we received,' and each in either side give thee all hail to thee and cry,' Be blessed for making up this peace.' Thou knowest, great son, the end of war's uncertain.' But this certain, that if thou conquer Rome,' the benefit which thou shalt thereby reap is such a name,' whose repetition will be dogged with curses,' whose chronicle thus writ.' The man was noble, but with his last attempt he wiped it out, 'destroyed his country, and his name remains to the ensuing age abhorred. Speak to me, son. Thou hast effected the fine strains of honour to imitate the graces of the gods, to tear with thunder the wide cheeks
of the air, and yet to charge thy sulphur with a bolt that should but rive an oak. Why dost not speak? Think'st thou it honourable for a noble man still to remember wrongs? Daughter, speak you. 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 of the stocks. thou hast never in thy life showed thy dear mother or any courtesy when she poor hen fond of no second brood has clucked thee to the wars and safely home loaden with honour.
Say my requests unjust and spurn me back but if it be not so thou art not honest and the gods will plague thee that thou restrainst from me the duty which to a mother's part belongs.
He turns away. Down, ladies, let us shame him with our knees. To his surname Coriolanus longs more pride than pity to our prayers.
Down!
An end!
This is the last. So we will home to Rome, and die among our neighbours. Nay, beholds, this boy that cannot tell what he would have, but kneels and holds up bands for fellowship— does reason our petition with more strength than thou hast to deny it. Come, let us go. This fellow had avulsion to his mother. His wife is in Corioli, and his child like him by chance.
Give us our dispatch.
I am hushed until our city be afire, and then I'll speak a little.
He holds her by the hand, silent.
O mother, mother, what have you done? Behold, the heavens do hope, the gods look down, and this unnatural scene they laugh at. O my mother, mother, O you have won a happy victory to Rome, but for your son, believe it, O believe it, most dangerously you have with him prevailed, if not most mortal to him. But let it come. Ophidius, Though I cannot make true wars, I'll frame convenient peace. Now, good Ophidius, were you in my stead, would you have heard a mother less, or granted less, Ophidius?
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. For my part, I'll not to roam. i'll back with you and pray you stand to me in this cause o mother wife aside.
I am glad thou hast set thy mercy and thy honour at difference in thee out of that i'll work myself a former fortune.
The ladies make signs to coriolanus ay by and by to volumnia virgilia c.
But we will drink together and you shall bear a better witness back than words, which we, on like conditions, will have counter-sealed. Come, enter with us. Ladies, you deserve to have a temple built you. All the swords in Italy and her confederate arms could not have made this peace.
Exeunt Scene 4 Rome, a public place Enter Menenius and Sassinius.
See you, yon coin of the capital, yon corner-stone?
Why, what of that?
If it be possible for you to displace it with your little finger, there is some hope the ladies of Rome, especially his mother, may prevail with him. But I say there is no hope in't. Our throats are sentenced, and stay upon execution.
Is't possible that so short a time can alter the condition of a man?
There is differency between a grub and a butterfly. Yet your butterfly was a grub. This Coriolanus is grown from man to dragon. He has wings. He's more than a creeping thing.
He loved his mother dearly.
So did he me. And he no more remembers his mother now than an eight-year-old horse. The tartness of his face sours ripe grapes. When he walks, he moves like an engine, and the ground shrinks before his treading. He's able to pierce a corslet with his eye, talks like a knell, and his hum is a battery. He sits in his state as a thing made for Alexander. What he bids be done is finished with his bidding. He wants nothing of a god but eternity and a heaven to throne in.
Yes, mercy, if you report him truly.
I paint him in the character. Mark what mercy his mother shall bring from him. There is no more mercy in him than there is milk in a male tiger. That shall our poor city find. And all this is long of you.
The gods be good unto us.
No in such a case the gods will not be good unto us when we banished him we respected not them and he returning to break our necks they respect not us enter a.
Messenger sir if you'd save your life fly to your house the plebeians have got your fellow tribune and hail him up and down all swearing if the roman ladies bring not comfort home they'll give him death by inches.
Enter a second messenger.
What's the news?
Good news, good news.
The ladies have prevailed, the Volscians are dislodged, and Coriolanus gone. A merrier day did never yet greet Rome. No, not the expulsion of the Tarquins.
Friend, art thou certain this is true? Is it most certain?
As certain as I know the sun is fire. Where have you learnt that you make doubt of it? Ne'er through an arch so hurried the blown tide as the recomforted through the gates. Why, hark you!
Trumpets, harboys, drums beat, all together.
The trumpets, sackpots, psalteries and fifes, tables and cymbals and the shouting Romans make the sun dance.
Hark you!
A shout within.
This is good news. I will go meet the ladies. This Volumnia is worthy of consuls, senators, patricians, a city full. Of tribunes such as you, a sea and land full. You have prayed well today. This morning, for ten thousand of your throats, I'd not have given a doit.
Hark!
How they joy!
Music still which out.
First, the gods bless you for your tidings. Next, Except my thankfulness.
Sir, we have all great cause to give great thanks.
They are near the city?
Almost at point to enter.
We will meet them, and help the joy.
Exeunt.
Scene 5. The same. A street near the gate. Enter two senators with Volumnia, Virgilia, Valeria, etc., passing over the stage, followed by patricians and others.
Behold our patroness, the life of Rome. Call all your tribes together, praise the gods, and make triumphant fires. Screw flowers before them. Unshout the noise that banished Coriolanus. Repeal him with the welcome of his mother. Cry, welcome, ladies, welcome.
Welcome, ladies, welcome.
A flourish with drums and trumpets. Exeunt. Scene 6. Antium. A public place. Enter Tullus Ophidius with attendants.
Go tell the lords of the city I am here. Deliver them this paper. Having read it, bid them repair to the marketplace, where I, even in theirs and in the common's ears, will vouch the truth of it. Him I accuse the city ports by this hath entered, and intends to appear before the people, hoping to purge herself with words. Dispatch.
Exeunt Attendance Enter three or four conspirators of Ophidius' faction.
Most welcome.
How is it with our general?
Even so as with a man by his own alms empoisoned, and with his charity slain.
Most noble sir, if you do hold the same intent wherein, you wished us parties will deliver you, of your great danger.
Sir, I cannot tell. We must proceed as we do find the people.
The people 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 honour for his truth, who being so heightened he watered his new plants with dews of flattery, seducing so my friends, and to this end he bowed his nature, never known before but to be rough, unswayable, and free.
Sir, his stoutness, when he did stand for consul, which he lost by lack of stooping.
That I would have spoke of. Being banished for it, he came unto my hearth, presented to my knife his throat. I took him, made him joint-servant with me, gave him way in all his own desires, nay, let him choose out of my files his projects to accomplish, mine best and freshest men, served his designments in mine own person— hope to reap the fame which he did end all his, and took some pride to do myself this wrong, till, 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 sinew shall be stretched upon him. At a few drops of women's room, 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. But hark!
Drums and trumpets sound, with great shouts of the people.
Your native town you entered like a post, and had no welcomes home. but he returns splitting the air with.
Noise and patient fools i whose children he hath slain their base throats tear with giving him.
Glory therefore at your vantage ere he express himself or move the people with what he would say let him feel your sword which we will second when he lies along after your way his tale pronounced shall bury his reasons with his body Say no more.
Here come the lords.
Enter the lords of the city.
You are most welcome home.
I have not deserved it. But, worthy lords, have you with heed perused what I have written to you?
We have.
And grieved to hear't. What faults he made before the last, I think might have found easy finds. But there to end, where he was to begin— and give away the benefit of our levies answering us with our own charge making a treaty where there was a yielding this admits no excuse.
He approaches you shall hear him answer coriolanus marching with drum and colors commoners being with him.
Hail lords 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 you are to know that prosperously i have attempted and with bloody passage led your wars even to the gates of rome our spoils we have brought home do more than counterpoise a full third part to the charges of the action we have made peace with no less honour to the antietes than shame to the romans and we here deliver subscribed by the consuls and patricians, together with the seal of the senate, what we have compounded on.
Read it not, noble lords, but tell the traitor, in the highest degree he hath abused your powers.
Traitor?
How now? I, traitor Martius.
Martius. I, Martius, Caius Martius.
Martius.
Dost thou think I'll grace thee with that robbery, thy stolen name Coriolanus in Corioli? You lords and heads of the state, perfidiously he has betrayed your business, and given up, for certain drops of salt, your city Rome, I say your city, to his wife and mother, breaking his oath and resolution like a twist of rotten silk, never admitting counsel at the war.
But at his.
Nurse's tears he whined and roared away your victory, that pages blushed at him, and men of heart looked wondering at each other.
Hearest thou, Mars?
Name not the god thou boy of tears.
Ha!
No more.
Measureless liar, thou hast made my heart too great for what contains it. Boy, O slave! Pardon me, lords, tis the first time that ever I was forced to scold. Your judgments, my grave lords, must give this cur the lie, and his own notion, who wears my stripes impressed upon him, that must bear my beating to his grave, shall join to thrust the lie unto him.
Peace, both, and hear me speak.
Cut me to pieces, Volses, men and lads. stain all your edges on me boy false hound if you have writ your annals true tis there that like an eagle in a dove-cut i fluttered your volscians in corioli alone i did it Why, noble lords, will.
You be put in mind of his blind fortune, which was your shame, by this unholy braggart for your own eyes and ears?
Let him die, Thoth.
Tear him to pieces.
Tear him. Tear him.
Tear him.
Tear him.
Yes.
Tear him. Do it, Presley.
Do it.
Do it.
He killed my father. Killed him.
Peace.
Hope.
No, outrage, peace.
The man is noble, and his fame folds in this orb of the earth.
His last offenses to us shall have judicious hearing.
Stand, Ophidius, trouble not the peace. O, that I had him with six Ophidiuses, or more, his tribe, to use my lawful sword.
Insolent villain, kill him, kill him, kill him, kill him.
The conspirators draw, and kill Coriolanus. Ophidius stands on his body.
Hold! Hold!
Hold!
Hold!
My noble masters, hear me speak.
O Tullus!
Thou hast done a deed whereat valour will weep.
Tread not upon him. Masters all, be quiet. Put up your swords.
My lords, when you shall know, as in this rage provoked by him you cannot— the great danger which this man's life did owe you, you will rejoice that he is thus cut off. Please it your honours to call me to your senate. I'll deliver myself your loyal servant, or endure your heaviest censure.
Bear from hence his body, and mourn you for him. Let him be regarded as the most noble course that ever Harold did follow to his urn.
His own impatience takes from Alphidius a great part of the blame.
Let's make the best of it.
My rage is gone, and I am struck with sorrow. Take him up. Help three of the chiefest soldiers.
I'll be one.
Beat thou the drum that it speak mournfully. Trail your steel pikes. Though in this city he hath widowed and unchilded many a one, which to this hour bewail the injury, yet he shall have a noble memory.
Assist. Exeunt, bearing the body of Coriolanus. A dead march sounded. End of Act V End of Coriolanus by William Shakespeare
