Coriolanus quotes

We have ever your good word.

He that will give good words to thee will flatter Beneath abhorring.

What would you have, you curs, That like nor peace nor war? the one affrights you, The other makes you proud. He that trusts to you, Where he should find you lions, finds you hares; Where foxes, geese:

He that will give good words to thee will flatter Beneath abhorring. What would you have, you curs, That like nor peace nor war? the one affrights you, The other makes you proud.

He that trusts to you, Where he should find you lions, finds you hares; Where foxes, geese:

you are no surer, no, Than is the coal of fire upon the ice, Or hailstone in the sun. Your virtue is To make him worthy whose offence subdues him And curse that justice did it. Who deserves greatness Deserves your hate;

But had he died in the business, madam; how then?

Then his good report should have been my son; I therein would have found issue.

Hear me profess sincerely: had I a dozen sons, each in my love alike and none less dear than thine and my good Marcius, I had rather had eleven die nobly for their country than one voluptuously surfeit out of action

We hate alike: Not Afric owns a serpent I abhor More than thy fame and envy. Fix thy foot.

Let the first budger die the other’s slave, And the gods doom him after!

If I fly, Marcius, Holloa me like a hare.

and to silence that, Which, to the spire and top of praises vouch’d, Would seem but modest: therefore, I beseech you— In sign of what you are, not to reward What you have done—before our army hear me.

I have some wounds upon me, and they smart To hear themselves remember’d.

Should they not, Well might they fester ’gainst ingratitude, And tent themselves with death.

Now it’s twenty-seven: every gash was an enemy’s grave. A shout and flourish. Hark! the trumpets.

These are the ushers of Marcius: before him he carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears:

Death, that dark spirit, in’s nervy arm doth lie; Which, being advanced, declines, and then men die.

These are the ushers of Marcius: before him he carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears:

Death, that dark spirit, in’s nervy arm doth lie; Which, being advanced, declines, and then men die.

A sennet. Trumpets sound. Enter Cominius the general, and Titus Lartius; between them, Coriolanus, crowned with an oaken garland; with Captains and Soldiers, and a Herald.

No, sir: yet oft, When blows have made me stay, I fled from words. You soothed not, therefore hurt not: but your people, I love them as they weigh.

I had rather have one scratch my head i’ the sun When the alarum were struck than idly sit To hear my nothings monster’d.

Exit.

for if he show us his wounds and tell us his deeds, we are to put our tongues into those wounds and speak for them; so, if he tell us his noble deeds, we must also tell him our noble acceptance of them.

Ingratitude is monstrous, and for the multitude to be ingrateful, were to make a monster of the multitude;

of the which we being members, should bring ourselves to be monstrous members.

To unbuild the city and to lay all flat.

What is the city but the people?

True, The people are the city.

His nature is too noble for the world: He would not flatter Neptune for his trident, Or Jove for’s power to thunder.

His heart’s his mouth: What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent;

And, being angry, does forget that ever He heard the name of death. A noise within. Here’s goodly work!

His nature is too noble for the world:

He would not flatter Neptune for his trident, Or Jove for’s power to thunder.

His heart’s his mouth: What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent; And, being angry, does forget that ever He heard the name of death. A noise within. Here’s goodly work!

I talk of you: Why did you wish me milder? would you have me False to my nature?

Rather say I play The man I am.

O, sir, sir, sir, I would have had you put your power well on, Before you had worn it out.

It shall be so, it shall be so.

You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate As reek o’ the rotten fens, whose loves I prize As the dead carcasses of unburied men That do corrupt my air, I banish you;

And here remain with your uncertainty! Let every feeble rumour shake your hearts! Your enemies, with nodding of their plumes, Fan you into despair! Have the power still To banish your defenders;

Have the power still To banish your defenders; till at length Your ignorance, which finds not till it feels, Making not reservation of yourselves, Still your own foes, deliver you as most Abated captives to some nation That won you without blows!

Despising, For you, the city, thus I turn my back: There is a world elsewhere.

Exeunt Coriolanus, Cominius, Menenius, Senators, and Patricians.

What, what, what!

I shall be loved when I am lack’d.

Nay, mother, Resume that spirit, when you were wont to say, If you had been the wife of Hercules, Six of his labours you’ld have done, and saved Your husband so much sweat. Cominius, Droop not; adieu. Farewell, my wife, my mother:

Take my prayers with you. Exeunt Tribunes.

I would the gods had nothing else to do But to confirm my curses!

Could I meet ’em But once a-day, it would unclog my heart Of what lies heavy to’t.

You have told them home; And, by my troth, you have cause. You’ll sup with me?

Anger’s my meat; I sup upon myself, And so shall starve with feeding.

Come, let’s go: Leave this faint puling and lament as I do, In anger, Juno-like. Come, come, come.

The day serves well for them now.

I have heard it said, the fittest time to corrupt a man’s wife is when she’s fallen out with her husband.

Your noble Tullus Aufidius will appear well in these wars, his great opposer, Coriolanus, being now in no request of his country.

and I had purpose Once more to hew thy target from thy brawn, Or lose mine arm for’t: thou hast beat me out Twelve several times, and I have nightly since Dreamt of encounters ’twixt thyself and me;

We have been down together in my sleep, Unbuckling helms, fisting each other’s throat, And waked half dead with nothing.

Worthy Marcius, Had we no quarrel else to Rome, but that Thou art thence banish’d, we would muster all From twelve to seventy, and pouring war Into the bowels of ungrateful Rome, Like a bold flood o’er-bear.

Why, then we shall have a stirring world again. This peace is nothing, but to rust iron, increase tailors, and breed ballad-makers.

Let me have war, say I; it exceeds peace as far as day does night; it’s spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent.

Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more bastard children than war’s a destroyer of men.

Let me have war, say I; it exceeds peace as far as day does night; it’s spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent.

Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more bastard children than war’s a destroyer of men.

’Tis so: and as war, in some sort, may be said to be a ravisher, so it cannot be denied but peace is a great maker of cuckolds.

but he has a merit, To choke it in the utterance. So our virtues Lie in the interpretation of the time: And power, unto itself most commendable, Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair To extol what it hath done.

One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail; Rights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail.

Come, let’s away. When, Caius, Rome is thine, Thou art poor’st of all; then shortly art thou mine. Exeunt.

but one of these— As he hath spices of them all, not all, For I dare so far free him—made him fear’d, So hated, and so banish’d: but he has a merit, To choke it in the utterance.

So our virtues Lie in the interpretation of the time:

And power, unto itself most commendable, Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair To extol what it hath done. One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail; Rights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail. Come, let’s away.

As if Olympus to a molehill should In supplication nod: and my young boy Hath an aspect of intercession, which Great nature cries “Deny not.” Let the Volsces Plough Rome and harrow Italy: I’ll never Be such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand,

As if a man were author of himself And knew no other kin.

These eyes are not the same I wore in Rome.

The sorrow that delivers us thus changed Makes you think so.

Like a dull actor now, I have forgot my part, and I am out, Even to a full disgrace.

Best of my flesh, Forgive my tyranny; but do not say For that “Forgive our Romans.” O, a kiss Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge! Now, by the jealous queen of heaven, that kiss I carried from thee, dear;

Like a dull actor now, I have forgot my part, and I am out, Even to a full disgrace. Best of my flesh, Forgive my tyranny; but do not say For that “Forgive our Romans.”

O, a kiss Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge!

Now, by the jealous queen of heaven, that kiss I carried from thee, dear; and my true lip Hath virgin’d it e’er since. You gods! I prate, And the most noble mother of the world Leave unsaluted: sink, my knee, i’ the earth; Kneels.

What is this? Your knees to me? to your corrected son? Then let the pebbles on the hungry beach Fillip the stars; then let the mutinous winds Strike the proud cedars ’gainst the fiery sun; Murdering impossibility, to make What cannot be, slight work.

Thou art my warrior; I holp to frame thee.

Do you know this lady?

Is’t possible that so short a time can alter the condition of a man?

There is differency between a grub and a butterfly; yet your butterfly was a grub.

This Marcius is grown from man to dragon: he has wings; he’s more than a creeping thing.

he is able to pierce a corslet with his eye; talks like a knell, and his hum is a battery. He sits in his state, as a thing made for Alexander. What he bids be done is finished with his bidding.

He wants nothing of a god but eternity and a heaven to throne in.

Yes, mercy, if you report him truly.