CORIOLANUS - Menenius Agrippa Monologue

Original: I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in’t;

Modern: I’m known as a moody nobleman who likes his wine hot and undiluted—not watered down with a single drop from the Tiber River.

Original: said to be something imperfect in favouring the first complaint;

Modern: People say I’m too quick to take sides with whoever complains first.

Original: hasty and tinder-like upon too trivial motion;

Modern: I’m quick-tempered and easily set off over small things, like dry kindling catching fire.

Original: one that converses more with the buttock of the night than with the forehead of the morning:

Modern: I’m someone who stays up late into the night rather than rising early in the morning.

Original: what I think I utter, and spend my malice in my breath.

Modern: I say whatever I think, and I let out all my spite through my words.

Original: Meeting two such wealsmen as you are—I cannot call you Lycurguses—

Modern: Meeting two public officials like you—though I can’t call you wise lawmakers like Lycurgus—

Original: if the drink you give me touch my palate adversely, I make a crooked face at it.

Modern: if I don’t like the drink you offer me, I’ll make a disgusted face at it.

Original: I can’t say your worships have delivered the matter well, when I find the ass in compound with the major part of your syllables:

Modern: I can’t say you’ve spoken well when most of your words sound like the braying of a donkey.

Original: and though I must be content to bear with those that say you are reverend grave men,

Modern: And though I have to put up with people who say you’re respectable and serious men,

Original: yet they lie deadly that tell you you have good faces.

Modern: anyone who tells you you’re good-looking is a complete liar.

Original: If you see this in the map of my microcosm, follows it that I am known well enough too?

Modern: If you can read all this in my face, doesn’t that prove that I’m pretty well understood too?

Original: what barm can your bisson conspectuities glean out of this character, if I be known well enough too?

Modern: What froth can your dim-sighted eyes gather from reading my character, if I’m already so well known?

Original: You know neither me, yourselves nor any thing.

Modern: You don’t know me, you don’t know yourselves, you don’t know anything.

Original: You are ambitious for poor knaves’ caps and legs:

Modern: You’re eager for the bowing and scraping of poor servants.

Original: you wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orange wife and a fosset-seller;

Modern: You waste an entire morning listening to a case between a woman selling oranges and someone selling faucets.

Original: and then rejourn the controversy of three pence to a second day of audience.

Modern: And then you postpone a dispute over three pennies to another day of hearings.

Original: When you are hearing a matter between party and party, if you chance to be pinched with the colic, you make faces like mummers;

Modern: When you’re listening to arguments between two parties, if you happen to get stomach cramps, you make faces like actors in a pantomime.

Original: set up the bloody flag against all patience;

Modern: You declare war on all patience and self-control.

Original: and, in roaring for a chamber-pot, dismiss the controversy bleeding the more entangled by your hearing:

Modern: And while yelling for a chamber pot, you dismiss the case, leaving it more confused and messy than before you heard it.

Original: all the peace you make in their cause is, calling both the parties knaves.

Modern: The only peace you create is by calling both sides scoundrels.

Original: You are a pair of strange ones.

Modern: You two are a weird pair.

Original: Our very priests must become mockers, if they shall encounter such ridiculous subjects as you are.

Modern: Even our priests would have to become comedians if they had to deal with absurd people like you.

Original: When you speak best unto the purpose, it is not worth the wagging of your beards;

Modern: Even when you speak most intelligently, it’s not worth the effort it takes to move your beards.

Original: and your beards deserve not so honourable a grave as to stuff a botcher’s cushion, or to be entombed in an ass’s pack-saddle.

Modern: And your beards don’t even deserve the honor of being used to stuff a tailor’s cushion or packed into a donkey’s saddle.

Original: Yet you must be saying, CORIOLANUS is proud;

Modern: Yet you keep insisting that Coriolanus is arrogant.

Original: who in a cheap estimation, is worth predecessors since Deucalion,

Modern: Even by a low estimate, he’s worth all his ancestors going back to the beginning of time.

Original: though peradventure some of the best of ‘em were hereditary hangmen.

Modern: Though perhaps some of the best of your ancestors were executioners by family tradition.

Original: God-den to your worships:

Modern: Good day to your honors.

Original: more of your conversation would infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly plebeians:

Modern: Any more conversation with you would rot my brain, since you’re nothing but shepherds of the brutish common people.

Original: I will be bold to take my leave of you.

Modern: I’m going to go ahead and leave now.

In Act II, scene i of Coriolanus, Menenius encounters the tribunes Sicinius and Brutus in a Roman street, engaging them in witty banter and political discussion. The conversation reveals the ongoing tension between the patricians and plebeians, with Menenius defending Coriolanus’s character while the tribunes express their concerns about his pride and disdain for the common people. Menenius attempts to persuade the tribunes that Coriolanus, despite his harsh exterior, serves Rome faithfully and effectively as a warrior.

The scene shifts when Volumnia, Virgilia, and Valeria enter, followed by Coriolanus himself returning from his military victory against the Volscians. The women discuss Coriolanus’s wounds and his reluctance to display them publicly, as will be required during the traditional ceremony where he must seek the people’s voices for the consulship. Coriolanus appears uncomfortable with the political ritual of showing his battle scars to gain popular approval, preferring his military achievements to speak for themselves rather than engaging in what he sees as demeaning political theater before the plebeian citizens.

Coriolanus tells the tragic story of a Roman military hero whose pride and contempt for the common people ultimately leads to his downfall. The play opens with Roman citizens rioting over grain shortages, angry at the patrician class’s indifference to their suffering. Caius Marcius, a fierce Roman general, successfully leads the siege against the Volscian city of Corioles, earning the honorary name “Coriolanus.” Despite his military prowess, he openly despises the plebeians (common citizens) and reluctantly agrees to seek the consulship only at his mother Volumnia’s urging.

When Coriolanus runs for consul, he must follow tradition by displaying his war wounds to the citizens and asking for their votes. Though initially successful, the tribunes Brutus and Sicinius manipulate the fickle crowd against him, exploiting his arrogant nature and aristocratic disdain. When Coriolanus explodes in rage against the people’s ingratitude and the democratic process itself, he is banished from Rome. His famous response - “I banish you!” - reveals his wounded pride and inability to bend to political necessity.

In exile, Coriolanus seeks out his former enemy Aufidius, leader of the Volscians, and offers to help destroy Rome in revenge. Together they march on the city with devastating success. As Rome faces imminent destruction, various delegations plead with Coriolanus to spare the city, but he remains unmoved until his mother Volumnia, wife Virgilia, and young son appear before him. In the play’s climactic scene, Volumnia’s emotional appeal finally breaks through his resolve, and he agrees to make peace - knowing this decision will likely cost him his life. True to expectation, Aufidius and his conspirators kill Coriolanus for his “betrayal,” viewing his mercy toward Rome as weakness and treachery to their cause.