Coriolanus

Coriolanus

By William Shakespeare.

Table of Contents

1. Titlepage
2. Imprint
3. Dramatis Personae
4. Coriolanus
   1. Act I
      1. Scene I
      2. Scene II
      3. Scene III
      4. Scene IV
      5. Scene V
      6. Scene VI
      7. Scene VII
      8. Scene VIII
      9. Scene IX
      10. Scene X
   2. Act II
      1. Scene I
      2. Scene II
      3. Scene III
   3. Act III
      1. Scene I
      2. Scene II
      3. Scene III
   4. Act IV
      1. Scene I
      2. Scene II
      3. Scene III
      4. Scene IV
      5. Scene V
      6. Scene VI
      7. Scene VII
   5. Act V
      1. Scene I
      2. Scene II
      3. Scene III
      4. Scene IV
      5. Scene V
      6. Scene VI
5. Endnotes
6. Colophon
7. Uncopyright

Imprint

This ebook is the product of many hours of hard work by volunteers for Standard Ebooks, and builds on the hard work of other literature lovers made possible by the public domain.

This particular ebook is based on a transcription from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on digital scans from the HathiTrust Digital Library.

The source text and artwork in this ebook are believed to be in the United States public domain; that is, they are believed to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States. They may still be copyrighted in other countries, so users located outside of the United States must check their local laws before using this ebook. The creators of, and contributors to, this ebook dedicate their contributions to the worldwide public domain via the terms in the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. For full license information, see the Uncopyright at the end of this ebook.

Standard Ebooks is a volunteer-driven project that produces ebook editions of public domain literature using modern typography, technology, and editorial standards, and distributes them free of cost. You can download this and other ebooks carefully produced for true book lovers at standardebooks.org.

Dramatis Personae

• Caius Marcius, afterwards Caius Marcius Coriolanus

• Titus Lartius, general against the Volscians

• Cominius, general against the Volscians

• Menenius Agrippa, friend to Coriolanus

• Sicinius Velutus, tribune of the people

• Junius Brutus, tribune of the people

• Young Marcius, son to Coriolanus

• A Roman herald

• Tullus Aufidius, general of the Volscians

• Lieutenant to Aufidius

• Conspirators with Aufidius

• A citizen of Antium

• Volumnia, mother to Coriolanus

• Virgilia, wife to Coriolanus

• Valeria, friend to Virgilia

• Gentlewoman, attending on Virgilia

• Roman and Volscian senators, patricians, aediles, lictors, soldiers, citizens, messengers, servants to Aufidius, and other attendants

Scene: Rome and the neighbourhood; Corioli and the neighbourhood; Antium.

Coriolanus

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 Citizen	You are all resolved rather to die than to famish?
All	Resolved, resolved.
First Citizen	First, you know Caius Marcius is chief enemy to the people.
All	We know’t, we know’t.
First Citizen	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!
Second Citizen	One word, good citizens.
First Citizen	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.
Second Citizen	Would you proceed especially against Caius Marcius?
All	Against him first: he’s a very dog to the commonalty.
Second Citizen	Consider you what services he has done for his country?
First Citizen	Very well; and could be content to give him good report for’t, but that he pays himself with being proud.
Second Citizen	Nay, but speak not maliciously.
First Citizen	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.
Second Citizen	What he cannot help in his nature, you account a vice in him. You must in no way say he is covetous.
First Citizen	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 Citizen	Soft! who comes here?
	Enter Menenius Agrippa.
Second Citizen	Worthy Menenius Agrippa; one that hath always loved the people.
First Citizen	He’s one honest enough: would all the rest were so!
Menenius	What work’s, my countrymen, in hand? where go you With bats and clubs? The matter? speak, I pray you.
First Citizen	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.
Menenius	Why, masters, my good friends, mine honest neighbours, Will you undo yourselves?
First Citizen	We cannot, sir, we are undone already.
Menenius	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