Coriolanus

William Shakespeare

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780486153759
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Shakespeare Drama
• Index: Literature

A highly political play, Coriolanus concerns a military hero of ancient Rome who attempts to shift from his career as a general to become a candidate for public office — a disastrous move that leads to his collaborating with the enemy and heading an attack on Rome. Despite his battlefield confidence and accomplishments, Coriolanus proves psychologically ill-suited as a candidate for the office of consul and makes an easy scapegoat for the restless citizenry and his political opponents.
The last of Shakespeare's tragedies, Coriolanus was written in approximately 1608 and derived from Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans. A timeless tale of pride, revenge, and political chicanery, it remains ever-relevant for modern readers and audiences.

ACT I.

SCENE I. Rome. A Street.

Enter a company of mutinous Citizens, with staves, clubs, and other weapons

FIRST CITIZEN.

Before we proceed any further, hear me speak.

ALL.

Speak, speak.

FIRST CIT.

You are all resolved rather to die than to famish?

ALL.

Resolved, resolved.

FIRST CIT.

First, you know Caius Marcius is chief enemy to the people.

ALL.

We know’t, we know’t.

FIRST CIT.

Let us kill him, and we’ll have corn at our own price. Is ’t a verdict?

ALL.

No more talking on ’t; let it be done: away, away!

SEC. CIT.

One word, good citizens.

FIRST CIT.

We are accounted poor citizens; the patricians, good. What authority surfeits on would relieve us: if they would yield us but the superfluity while it were wholesome, we might guess they relieved us humanely; but they think we are too dear: the leanness that afflicts us, the object of our misery, is as an inventory to particularize their abundance; our sufferance is a gain to them. Let us revenge this with our pikes, ere we become rakes: for the gods know I speak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge.

9 Is ’t a verdict?] Is that our unanimous decision?

13 good] in the mercantile sense of substantial, well to do. Cf. Merch. of Ven., I, iii, 12: “Antonio is a good man.”

15–16 they think we are too dear] they think the expense of maintaining us is more than we are worth.

16 object] outward aspect, spectacle.

17 particularize] describe in detail.

18 our sufferance . . . to them] they gain by our suffering. The general sense is that our loss is their gain.

19 we become rakes] a reference to the proverbial expression “as lean as a rake.”

SEC. CIT.

Would you proceed especially against Caius Marcius?

ALL.

Against him first: he’s a very dog to the commonalty.

SEC. CIT.

Consider you what services he has done for his country?

FIRST CIT.

Very well; and could be content to give him good report for ’t, but that he pays himself with being proud.

SEC. CIT.

Nay, but speak not maliciously.

FIRST CIT.

I say unto you, what he hath done famously, he did it to that end: though soft-conscienced men can be content to say it was for his country, he did it to please his mother and to be partly proud; which he is, even to the altitude of his virtue.

SEC. CIT.

What he cannot help in his nature, you account a vice in him. You must in no way say he is covetous.

FIRST CIT.

If I must not, I need not be barren of accusations; he hath faults, with surplus, to tire in repetition. [Shouts within.] What shouts are these? The other side o’ the city is risen: why stay we prating here? to the Capitol!

ALL.

Come, come.

FIRST CIT.

Soft! who comes here?

Enter MENENIUS AGRIPPA

SEC. CIT.

Worthy Menenius Agrippa; one that hath always loved the people.

FIRST CIT.

He’s one honest enough: would all the rest were so!

MEN.

What work’s, my countrymen, in hand? where go you With bats and clubs? the matter? speak, I pray you.

FIRST CIT.

Our business is not unknown to the senate; they have had inkling, this fortnight, what we intend to do, which now we’ll show ’em in deeds. They say poor suitors have strong breaths: they shall know we have strong arms too.

MEN.

Why, masters, my good friends, mine honest neighbours, Will you undo yourselves?

FIRST CIT.

We cannot, sir, we are undone already.

MEN.

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 heaven with your staves as lift them
Against the Roman state; whose course will on
The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs
Of more strong link asunder than can ever
Appear in your impediment. For the dearth,
The gods, not the patricians, make it, and
Your knees to them, not arms, must help. Alack,
You are transported by calamity
Thither where more attends you, and you slander
The helms o’ the state, who care for you like fathers,
When you curse them as enemies.

32 and to be partly proud . . . virtue] and in part to indulge his pride; he is fully as proud as he is valorous.

FIRST CIT.

Care for us! True, indeed! They ne’er cared for us yet: suffer us to famish, and their storehouses crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act established against the rich, and provide more piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and there’s all the love they bear us.

MEN.

Either you must
Confess yourselves wondrous malicious,
Or be accused of folly. I shall tell you
A pretty tale: it may be you have heard it;
But, since it serves my purpose, I will venture
To stale ’t a little more.

FIRST CIT.

Well, I’ll hear it, sir: yet you must not think to fob off our disgrace with a tale: but, an ’t please you, deliver.

MEN.

There was a time when all the body’s members
Rebell’d against the belly; thus accused it:
That only like a gulf it did remain
I’ the midst o’ the body, idle and unactive,
Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing
Like labour with the rest; where the other instruments
Did see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel,
And, mutually participate, did minister
Unto the appetite and affection common
Of the whole body. The belly answer’d—

66 helms] helmsmen, pilots.

69–70 suffer us to famish . . . usurers] Plutarch distinguishes two separate popular outbreaks, one on account of the extortion...