Monologue

Menenius Monologue from Coriolanus

From Coriolanus by William Shakespeare

male · sarcastic · 59 sec

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You know neither me, yourselves, nor anything. You are ambitious for poor knaves’ caps and legs. You wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orange-wife and a faucet-seller, and then rejourn the controversy of threepence to a second day of audience. When you are hearing a matter between party and party, if you chance to be pinched with the colic, you make faces like mummers, set up the bloody flag against all patience, and, in roaring for a chamber pot, dismiss the controversy bleeding, the more entangled by your hearing. All the peace you make in their cause is calling both the parties knaves. You are a pair of strange ones.

About this piece

Menenius expresses his frustration with the citizens' ignorance and their trivial pursuits, highlighting the absurdity of their legal disputes and the futility of their ambitions.

40s · anger · power · ambition · identity · conflict

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