PERSONS REPRESENTED.

CAIUS MARCIUS CORIOLANUS, a noble Roman.

TITUS LARTIUS, Generals against the Volcians.

COMINIUS,

MENENIUS AGRIPPA, Friend to Coriolanus.

SICINIUS VELUTUS,

JUNIUS BRUTus,

Tribunes of the People.

Young MARCIUS, Son to Coriolanus.

A Roman Herald.

TULLUS AUFIDIUS, General of the Volcians.

Lieutenant to Aufidius.

Conspirators with Aufidius.

A Citizen of Antium.

Two Volcian Guards.

VOLUMNIA, Mother to Coriolanus.

VIRGILIA, Wife to Coriolanus.

VALERIA, Friend to Virgilia.

Gentlewoman, attending Virgilia.

Roman and Volcian Senators, Patricians, Ediles, Lictors, Soldiers, Citizens, Messenger, Servants to Aufidius, and other Attendants.

SCENE, partly in Rome, and partly in the Territories of the Volcians and Antiates.

CORIOLANUS.

ACT I.

SCENE 1. Rome. A Street.

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

1 Citizen. BEFORE we proceed any further, hear me speak.

Cit. Speak, speak.

[Several speaking at once.

1 Cit. You are all resolved rather to die, than to famish?

Cit. Resolved, resolved.

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

Cit. We know't, we know't.

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

Cit. No more talking on't; let it be done. Away,

away.

2 Cit. One word, good citizens.

1 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

1 Good, in a commercial sense.

1

pikes, ere we become rakes; for the gods know, I speak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for re

venge.

2 Cit. Would you proceed especially against Caius Marcius?

Cit. Against him first; he's a very dog to the commonalty.

2 Cit. Consider you what services he has done for his country?

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

2 Cit. Nay, but speak not maliciously.

1 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.

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

covetous.

1 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. here? To the capitol.

Cit. Come, come.

1 Cit. Soft; who comes here?

Why stay we prating

Enter MENENIUS AGRIPPA.

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

1 Cit. He's one honest enough; 'would all the rest were so!

1 "As lean as a rake" is an old proverbial expression. There is, as Warburton observes, a miserable joke intended:-"Let us now revenge this with forks, before we become rakes;” a pike or pike-fork, being the ancient term for a pitchfork. The origin of the proverb is, doubtless, "as lean as a rache or race" (pronounced rake), and signifying a greyhound.

Men. What work's, my countrymen, in hand?

Where go you

With bats and clubs? The matter? Speak, I

you.

pray

1 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 neighbors,

Will you undo yourselves?

1 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.

1 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.

1 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

Rebelled against the belly; thus accused it :-
That only like a gulf it did remain

I' the midst o' the body, idle and inactive,

Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing

3

Like labor 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 answered,

1 Cit. Well, sir, what answer made the belly? Men. Sir, I shall tell you.-With a kind of smile, Which ne'er came from the lungs, but even thus, (For, look you, I may make the belly smile, As well as speak,) it tauntingly replied

To the discontented members, the mutinous parts
That envied his receipt; even so most fitly

As you malign our senators, for that

They are not such as you.

1 Cit. Your belly's answer; what? Men. The kingly-crowned head, the vigilant eye, The counsellor heart,5 the arm our soldier,

1 i. e. render it more common: "the old copies have 'scale't a little more;' for which Theobald judiciously proposed stale. To this Warburton objects, because to scale signifies to weigh; so indeed it does, and many other things; none of which, however, bear any relation to the text. Steevens, too, prefers scale, which he proves from a variety of authorities to mean 'scatter, disperse, spread:' to make any of them, however, suit his purpose, he is obliged to give an unfaithful version of

the text.'

2 Disgraces are hardships, injuries.

3 Where for whereas.

4 i. e. exactly.

5 The heart was anciently esteemed the seat of the understanding. See the next note. There have been, in former editions, some inaccuracies in the appropriation of some portions of this dialogue, which Mr. Singer has judiciously rectified.