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Result number
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Work
The work is either a play, poem, or sonnet. The sonnets
are treated as single work with 154 parts.
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Character
Indicates who said the line. If it's a play or sonnet,
the character name is "Poet."
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Line
Shows where the line falls within the work.
The numbering is not keyed to any copyrighted numbering system found in a volume of
collected works (Arden, Oxford, etc.) The numbering starts at the beginning of the work, and does not
restart for each scene.
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Text
The line's full text, with keywords highlighted
within it, unless highlighting has been disabled by the user.
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1 |
Coriolanus
[I, 1] |
First Citizen |
7 |
First, you know Caius CORIOLANUS is chief enemy to the people.
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2 |
Coriolanus
[I, 1] |
First Citizen |
13 |
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.
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3 |
Coriolanus
[I, 1] |
All |
24 |
Against him first: he's a very dog to the commonalty.
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4 |
Coriolanus
[I, 1] |
First Citizen |
29 |
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 till the altitude of his virtue.
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5 |
Coriolanus
[I, 1] |
First Citizen |
36 |
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!
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6 |
Coriolanus
[I, 1] |
Second Citizen |
44 |
Worthy Menenius Agrippa; one that hath always loved
the people.
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7 |
Coriolanus
[I, 1] |
First Citizen |
46 |
He's one honest enough: would all the rest were so!
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8 |
Coriolanus
[I, 1] |
Menenius Agrippa |
47 |
What work's, my countrymen, in hand? where go you
With bats and clubs? The matter? speak, I pray you.
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9 |
Coriolanus
[I, 1] |
First Citizen |
49 |
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.
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10 |
Coriolanus
[I, 1] |
Menenius Agrippa |
57 |
I tell you, friends, most charitable care
Have the patricians of you. For your wants,
Your suffering in this dearth, you may as well
Strike at the heaven with your staves as lift them
Against the Roman state, whose course will on
The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs
Of more strong link asunder than can ever
Appear in your impediment. For the dearth,
The gods, not the patricians, make it, and
Your knees to them, not arms, must help. Alack,
You are transported by calamity
Thither where more attends you, and you slander
The helms o' the state, who care for you like fathers,
When you curse them as enemies.
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11 |
Coriolanus
[I, 1] |
First Citizen |
71 |
Care for us! True, indeed! They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us.
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12 |
Coriolanus
[I, 1] |
Menenius Agrippa |
88 |
There was a time when all the body's members
Rebell'd against the belly, thus accused it:
That only like a gulf it did remain
I' the midst o' the body, idle and unactive,
Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing
Like labour with the rest, where the other instruments
Did see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel,
And, mutually participate, did minister
Unto the appetite and affection common
Of the whole body. The belly answer'd—
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13 |
Coriolanus
[I, 1] |
First Citizen |
98 |
Well, sir, what answer made the belly?
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14 |
Coriolanus
[I, 1] |
Menenius Agrippa |
99 |
Sir, I shall tell you. With a kind of smile,
Which ne'er came from the lungs, but even thus—
For, look you, I may make the belly smile
As well as speak—it tauntingly replied
To the discontented members, the mutinous parts
That envied his receipt; even so most fitly
As you malign our senators for that
They are not such as you.
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15 |
Coriolanus
[I, 1] |
First Citizen |
107 |
Your belly's answer? What!
The kingly-crowned head, the vigilant eye,
The counsellor heart, the arm our soldier,
Our steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter.
With other muniments and petty helps
In this our fabric, if that they—
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16 |
Coriolanus
[I, 1] |
First Citizen |
115 |
Should by the cormorant belly be restrain'd,
Who is the sink o' the body,—
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17 |
Coriolanus
[I, 1] |
First Citizen |
118 |
The former agents, if they did complain,
What could the belly answer?
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18 |
Coriolanus
[I, 1] |
Menenius Agrippa |
120 |
I will tell you
If you'll bestow a small—of what you have little—
Patience awhile, you'll hear the belly's answer.
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19 |
Coriolanus
[I, 1] |
Menenius Agrippa |
124 |
Note me this, good friend;
Your most grave belly was deliberate,
Not rash like his accusers, and thus answer'd:
'True is it, my incorporate friends,' quoth he,
'That I receive the general food at first,
Which you do live upon; and fit it is,
Because I am the store-house and the shop
Of the whole body: but, if you do remember,
I send it through the rivers of your blood,
Even to the court, the heart, to the seat o' the brain;
And, through the cranks and offices of man,
The strongest nerves and small inferior veins
From me receive that natural competency
Whereby they live: and though that all at once,
You, my good friends,'—this says the belly, mark me,—
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20 |
Coriolanus
[I, 1] |
Menenius Agrippa |
140 |
'Though all at once cannot
See what I do deliver out to each,
Yet I can make my audit up, that all
From me do back receive the flour of all,
And leave me but the bran.' What say you to't?
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