O, no more, no more! You have said you will not grant us anything; For we have nothing else to ask but that Which you deny already. Yet we will ask, That if you fail in our request, the blame May hang upon your hardness. Therefore hear us. (CORIOLANUS: Aufidius, and you Volsces, mark, for we’ll Hear naught from Rome in private. Your request?) Should we be silent and not speak, our raiment And state of bodies would bewray what life We have led since thy exile. Think with thyself How more unfortunate than all living women Are we come hither; since that thy sight, which should Make our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance with comforts, Constrains them weep and shake with fear and sorrow, Making the mother, wife, and child to see The son, the husband, and the father tearing His country’s bowels out. And to poor we Thine enmity’s most capital. Thou barr’st us Our prayers to the gods, which is a comfort That all but we enjoy. For how can we— Alas, how can we—for our country pray, Whereto we are bound, together with thy victory, Whereto we are bound? Alack, or we must lose The country, our dear nurse, or else thy person, Our comfort in the country. We must find An evident calamity, though we had Our wish, which side should win, for either thou Must as a foreign recreant be led With manacles through our streets, or else Triumphantly tread on thy country’s ruin And bear the palm for having bravely shed Thy wife and children’s blood. For myself, son, I purpose not to wait on fortune till These wars determine. If I cannot persuade thee Rather to show a noble grace to both parts Than seek the end of one, thou shalt no sooner March to assault thy country than to tread— Trust to’t, thou shalt not—on thy mother’s womb That brought thee to this world.

Volumnia Monologue from Coriolanus

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