Coriolanus by William Shakespeare (Illustrated)

By William Shakespeare

This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘Coriolanus’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Complete Works of William Shakespeare’.

Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Shakespeare includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

eBook features:
* The complete unabridged text of ‘Coriolanus’
* Beautifully illustrated with images related to Shakespeare’s works
* Individual contents table, allowing easy navigation around the eBook
* Excellent formatting of the textPlease visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Jul 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781786562999

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born in April 1564 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, on England’s Avon River. When he was eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway. The couple had three children—an older daughter Susanna and twins, Judith and Hamnet. Hamnet, Shakespeare’s only son, died in childhood. The bulk of Shakespeare’s working life was spent in the theater world of London, where he established himself professionally by the early 1590s. He enjoyed success not only as a playwright and poet, but also as an actor and shareholder in an acting company. Although some think that sometime between 1610 and 1613 Shakespeare retired from the theater and returned home to Stratford, where he died in 1616, others believe that he may have continued to work in London until close to his death.

Book preview

The Complete Works of

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

VOLUME 31 OF 74

Coriolanus

Parts Edition

By Delphi Classics, 2012

Version 6

COPYRIGHT

‘Coriolanus’

William Shakespeare: Parts Edition (in 74 parts)

First published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by Delphi Classics.

© Delphi Classics, 2017.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 978 1 78656 299 9

Delphi Classics

is an imprint of

Delphi Publishing Ltd

Hastings, East Sussex

United Kingdom

Contact: [e-mail]

www.delphiclassics.com

William Shakespeare: Parts Edition

This eBook is Part 31 of the Delphi Classics edition of William Shakespeare in 74 Parts. It features the unabridged text of Coriolanus from the bestselling edition of the author’s Complete Works. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. Our Parts Editions feature original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of William Shakespeare, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.

Visit here to buy the entire Parts Edition of William Shakespeare or the Complete Works of William Shakespeare in a single eBook.

Learn more about our Parts Edition, with free downloads, via this link or browse our most popular Parts here.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

IN 74 VOLUMES

Parts Edition Contents

The Plays

1, Henry  VI, Part 2

2, Henry  VI, Part 3

3, Henry  VI, Part 1

4, Richard  III

5, The Comedy of Errors

6, Titus Andronicus

7, Taming of the Shrew

8, The Two Gentlemen of Verona

9, Love’s Labour’s Lost

10, Romeo and Juliet

11, Richard II

12, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

13, King John

14, The Merchant of Venice

15, Henry IV, Part I

16, Henry IV, Part II

17, Much Ado About Nothing

18, Henry V

19, Julius Caesar

20, As You Like It

21, Twelfth Night

22, Hamlet

23, The Merry Wives of Windsor

24, Troilus and Cressida

25, All’s Well that Ends Well

26, Measure for Measure

27, Othello

28, King Lear

29, Macbeth

30, Antony and Cleopatra

31, Coriolanus

32, Timon of Athens

33, Pericles

34, Cymbeline

35, The Winter’s Tale

36, The Tempest

37, Henry  VIII

38, The Two Noble Kinsmen

The Lost Plays

39, The Lost Plays

The Sources

40, The Plays’ Sources

The Apocryphal Plays

41, Arden of Faversham

42, The Birth of Merlin

43, King Edward  III

44, Locrine

45, The London Prodigal

46, The Puritan

47, The Second Maiden’s Tragedy

48, Sir John Oldcastle

49, Thomas Lord Cromwell

50, A Yorkshire Tragedy

51, Sir Thomas More

52, Fair Em

53, Mucedorus

54, The Merry Devil of Edmonton

55, Edmund Ironside

56, Thomas of Woodstock

57, Vortigern and Rowena

The Adaptations

58, Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb

The Poetry

59, The Sonnets

60, Venus and Adonis

61, The Rape of Lucrece

62, The Passionate Pilgrim

63, The Phoenix and the Turtle

64, A Lover’s Complaint

The Apocryphal Poetry

65, To the Queen

66, A Funeral Elegy for Master William Peter

67, Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music

The Criticism

68, The Criticism

The Biographies

69, Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear by Nicholas Rowe

70, Shakespeare: His Life, Art, and Characters by Henry Norman Hudson

71, Life of William Shakespeare by Sir Sidney Lee

72, Shakespeare’s Lost Years in London by Arthur Acheson

73, The People for Whom Shakespeare Wrote by Charles Dudley Warner

Resources

74, Resources

www.delphiclassics.com

Coriolanus

This tragedy was written from 1605 to 1608 and is based on the life of the legendary Roman leader, Gaius Marcius Coriolanus. The play opens in Rome shortly after the expulsion of the Tarquin kings. There are riots in progress, after stores of grain were withheld from ordinary citizens. The rioters are particularly angry at Caius Martius, a brilliant Roman general whom they blame for the grains being taken away. The rioters encounter a patrician named Menenius Agrippa, as well as Caius Martius himself. Menenius tries to calm the rioters, while Martius is openly contemptuous, and says that the plebeians were not worthy of the grain because of their lack of military service. Two of the tribunes of Rome, Brutus and Sicinius, privately denounce Martius. He leaves Rome after news arrives that a Volscian army is in the field.

Coriolanus is mostly based on the Life of Coriolanus in Thomas North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives and is available via this link.

The first page of the First Folio, 1623

A Victorian depiction of Gaius Marcius Coriolanus, a Roman general that lived in the 5th century BC.

CONTENTS

Dramatis Personæ

Act I. Scene I.

Act I. Scene II.

Act I. Scene III.

Act I. Scene IV.

Act I. Scene V.

Act I. Scene VI.

Act I. Scene VII.

Act I. Scene VIII.

Act I. Scene IX.

Act I. Scene X.

Act II. Scene I.

Act II. Scene II.

Act II. Scene III.

Act III. Scene I.

Act III. Scene II.

Act III. Scene III.

Act IV. Scene I.

Act IV. Scene II.

Act IV. Scene III.

Act IV. Scene IV.

Act IV. Scene V.

Act IV. Scene VI.

Act IV. Scene VII.

Act V. Scene I.

Act V. Scene II.

Act V. Scene III.

Act V. Scene IV.

Act V. Scene V.

The 2011 film adaptation

Dramatis Personæ

CAIUS MARCIUS, afterwards Caius Marcius Coriolanus.

TITUS LARTIUS & COMINIUS, Generals against the Volscians.

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 Volscians.

Lieutenant to Aufidius.

Conspirators with Aufidius.

NICANOR, a Roman.

A Citizen of Antium.

ADRIAN, a Volsce.

Two Volscian Guards.

VOLUMNIA, Mother to Coriolanus.

VIRGILIA, Wife to Coriolanus.

VALERIA, Friend to Virgilia.

Gentlewoman, attending on Virgilia.

Roman and Volscian Senators, Patricians, Ædiles, Lictors, Soldiers, Citizens, Messengers, Servants to Aufidius, and other Attendants.

SCENE. — Rome and the Neighbourhood; Corioli and the Neighbourhood; Antium.

Act I. Scene I.

Rome.  A Street.

Enter a Company of mutinous Citizens, with staves, clubs, and other weapons.

First Cit.  Before we proceed any further, hear me speak.

All.  Speak, speak.

First Cit.  You are all resolved rather to die than to famish?   5

All.  Resolved, resolved.

First Cit.  First, you know Caius Marcius is chief enemy to the people.

All.  We know ‘t, we know ‘t.

First Cit.  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!   10

Sec. Cit.  One word, good citizens.

First 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 particularise 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.

Sec. Cit.  Would you proceed especially against Caius Marcius?

First Cit.  Against him first: he’s a very dog to the commonalty.

Sec. Cit.  Consider you what services he has done for his country?   15

First Cit.  Very well; and could be content to give him good report for ‘t, but that he pays himself with being proud.

Sec. Cit.  Nay, but speak not maliciously.

First Cit.  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.

Sec. Cit.  What he cannot help in his nature, you account a vice in him. You must in no way say he is covetous.

First Cit.  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!   20

All.  Come, come.

First Cit.  Soft! who comes here?

Enter MENENIUS AGRIPPA.

Sec. Cit.  Worthy Menenius Agrippa; one that hath always loved the people.

First Cit.  He’s one honest enough: would all the rest were so!   25

Men.  What work’s, my countrymen, in hand? Where go you

With bats and clubs? The matter? Speak, I pray you.

First Cit.  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.

Men.  Why, masters, my good friends, mine honest neighbours,

Will you undo yourselves?   30

First Cit.  We cannot, sir; we are undone already.

Men.  I tell you, friends, most charitable care