Shall pass his quarter, or offend the stream
Of regular justice in your city's bounds,
But shall be remedied, to your public laws,
At heaviest answer.

Both.

'Tis most nobly spoken.
Alcib. Descend, and keep your words.

The Senators descend, and open the gates.
Enter a Soldier.

Sol. My noble general, Timon is dead;
Entombed upon the very hem o'the sea:
And on his gravestone, this insculpture; which
With wax I brought away, whose soft impression
Interprets for my poor ignorance.

Alcib. [Reads.] Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft;

Seek not my name.

left!

A plague consume you wicked caitiffs

Here lie I, Timon; who, alive, all living men did hate. Pass by, and curse thy fill; but pass, and stay not here thy

gait.

These well express in thee thy latter spirits.

Though thou abhorr'dst in us our human griefs,

Scorn'dst our brains' flow, and those our droplets which

From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit

Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye
On thy low grave, on faults forgiven. Dead
Is noble Timon; of whose memory

Hereafter more.-Bring me into your city,
And I will use the olive with my sword.

Make war breed peace; make peace stint war; make each
Prescribe to other, as each other's leech.
Let our drums strike.

[Exeunt.

CORIOLANUS.

VOL. III.-31

29

(481)

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

CAIUS MARCIUS CORIOLANUS, a noble Roman.
TITUS LARTIUS, Generals against the Volcians
COMINIUS,

LARTIUS,}

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.

(482)

CORIOLANUS.

ACT I.

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

Is not the causer of the timeless deaths

Of these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward,

As blameful as the executioner?

Anne. Thou wast the cause, and most accursed effect
Glo. Your beauty was the cause of that effect;
Your beauty, which did haunt me in my sleep,
To undertake the death of all the world,

So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.
Anne. If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide,
These nails should rend that beauty from my cheeks.
Glo. These eyes could not endure that beauty's wreck
You should not blemish it, if I stood by;

As all the world is cheered by the sun,

So I by that; it is my day, my life.

Anne. Black night o'ershade thy day, and death thy life!
Glo. Curse not thyself, fair creature, thou art both.
Anne. I would I were, to be revenged on thee.
Glo. It is a quarrel most unnatural,

To be revenged on him that loveth thee.

Anne. It is a quarrel just and reasonable,
To be revenged on him that killed my husband.
Glo. He that bereft thee, lady, of thy husband,
Did it to help thee to a better husband.

Anne. His better doth not breathe upon the earth.
Glo. He lives, that loves you better than he could.
Anne. Name him.

Glo.

Anne.

Plantagenet.

Why, that was he. Glo. The self-same name, but one of better nature. Anne. Where is he?

Glo.

Here.

[She spits at him.] Why dost thou spit at me?

Anne. 'Would it were mortal poison, for thy sake! Glo. Never came poison from so sweet a place. Anne. Never hung poison on a fouler toad. Out of my sight! thou dost infect mine eyes.

Glo. Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine. Anne. 'Would they were basilisks, to strike thee dead! Glo. I would they were, that I might die at once; For now they kill me with a living death. Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears, Shamed their aspécts with store of childish drops. These eyes, which never shed remorseful tear,No, when my father York and Edward wept, To hear the piteous moan that Rutland made, When black-faced Clifford shook his sword at him;