"When others would give life, and bring a tomb .."

  Whence com'st thou?

  What would'st thou?

  thy name?

  Why speak'st not?

  Speak, man: what's thy name?

                

                I never saw that you did painting need,

                And therefore to your fair no painting set;

                I found (or thought I found) you did exceed

                The barren tender of a poet's debt:

                And therefore have I slept in your report,

                That you yourself, being extant, well might show

                How far a modern quill doth come too short,

                Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.

If, Tullus,

Not yet though know'st me,

and seeing me, dost not

Think me for the man I am, necessity

Commands me name myself.

What is thy name?

A name unmusical to the Volscians' ears, And harsh in sound to thine.

Say, what's thy name?

Thou hast a grim appearance, and thy face

Bears a command in't. 

Though thy tackle's torn,

Thou show'st a noble vessel. What's thy name?

                This silence for my sin you did impute,

                Which be most my glory, being dumb;

                For I impair not beauty, being mute,

                When others would give life, and bring a tomb.

                   There lives more life in one of your fair eyes

                   Than both your poets can in praise devise.

Prepare thy brow to frown: know'st thou me yet?

I know thee not! Thy name?

My name is Caius Martius, who hath done

To thee particularly, and to all the Volsces,

Great hurt and mischief: thereto witness may

My surname, Coriolanus. 

.. 

O Martius, Martius!

Each word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heart

A root of ancient envy.

William Shakespeare

Coriolanus, IV, v 

  [in italic font]

op. cit.

Sonnet, 83

  [in plain font]

1593-1596

1609 publication

Helen Vendler

The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets

Harvard University Press, 1997©


René Girard
A Theatre of Envy:
  William Shakespeare
Oxford University Press, 1991©