text
stringlengths 0
63
|
---|
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. |
CORIOLANUS: |
Aufidius, and you Volsces, mark; for we'll |
Hear nought from Rome in private. Your request? |
VOLUMNIA: |
Should we be silent and not speak, our raiment |
And state of bodies would bewray 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 poor we |
Thine enmity's most capital: thou barr'st us |
Our prayers 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, or 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 thorough 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't, thou shalt not--on thy mother's womb, |
That brought thee to this world. |
VIRGILIA: |
Ay, and mine, |
That brought you forth this boy, to keep your name |
Living to time. |
Young MARCIUS: |
A' shall not tread on me; |
I'll run away till I am bigger, but then I'll fight. |
CORIOLANUS: |
Not of a woman's tenderness to be, |
Requires nor child nor woman's face to see. |
I have sat too long. |
VOLUMNIA: |
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, you might condemn us, |
As poisonous of your honour: no; our suit |
Is that you reconcile them: while the Volsces |
May say 'This mercy we have show'd;' the Romans, |
'This we received;' and each in either side |
Give the all-hail to thee and cry 'Be blest |
For making up this peace!' Thou know'st, 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 dogg'd with curses; |
Whose chronicle thus writ: 'The man was noble, |
But with his last attempt he wiped it out; |
Destroy'd his country, and his name remains |
To the ensuing age abhorr'd.' Speak to me, son: |
Thou hast affected the fine strains of honour, |
To imitate the graces of the gods; |
To tear with thunder the wide cheeks o' 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 's mother; yet here he lets me prate |
Like one i' the stocks. Thou hast never in thy life |
Show'd thy dear mother any courtesy, |
When she, poor hen, fond of no second brood, |
Has cluck'd thee to the wars and safely home, |
Loaden with honour. 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 restrain'st 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 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.