William Shakespeare, Critical Commentary of The Tragedie of Coriolanus
Horace Howard Furness, Jr., A. B.; Litt. D., Ed.

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That like nor . . . you proud Warburton: That they did not like war is evident from the reason assigned, of its frighting them; but why they should not like peace (and the reason of that too is assigned) will be very hard to conceive. Peace, he says, made them proud by bringing with it an increase of wealth and power, for those are what make a people proud; but then those are what they like but too well, and so must needs like peace, the parent of them. This being contrary to what the text says, we may be assured it is corrupt, and that Shakespeare wrote: ‘That likes not peace, nor war?’—i. e., Whom neither peace nor war fits or agrees with, as making them either proud or cowardly. By this

reading ‘peace’ and ‘war,’ from being the accusatives to likes, become the nominatives. But the Editors, not understanding this construction, and seeing likes, a verb singular, to ‘Curs,’ a noun plural, which they supposed the nominative to it, would, in order to show their skill in grammar, alter it to ‘like’; but likes for pleases was common with the writers of this time.—Johnson: That to like is to please every one knows, but in that sense it is as hard to say why peace should not like the people as, in the other sense, why the people should not like peace. The truth is, that Coriolanus does not use the two sentences consequentially, but first reproaches them with unsteadiness, then with their other occasional vices. —Theobald, writing to Warburton, 12th February, 1729, says: ‘You would make nominatives of peace and war. I had always reconciled it to myself thus, that neither like war, nor can be content with peace. War frights you, and peace and plenty make you so insolent and exacting that you do not know what you would have yourselves, and thereby seem not to like tranquillity’ (Nichols: Illustrations, etc., ii, 479).—Mason (Comments, etc., p. 246): If it were not for the comments that have been made on this passage, I should have passed it over as one that required no manner of explanation. ‘That like nor peace nor war’ means, that are not contented with either peace or war; the one affrighted them, and they therefore disliked it; the other made them proud, and pride is the parent of discontent. I don't understand the force of Warburton's amendment, as I think the case is pretty much the same, whether we say ‘that they like not peace’ or ‘that peace does not please them.’—Heath (409): The excessive affectation of subtilty misled Mr Warburton into this violent construction [‘that likes not,’ etc.]. The common reading to a common understanding is plain enough and would meet with no difficulty. The meaning is: Neither peace nor war can satisfy you, or content you. In war you are always afraid of the consequences; and in peace your pride won't let you be quiet, or think any treatment of you, however kind and favourable, equal to your deservings. But Mr Warburton by a long train of profound reasonings, hath discovered that the mob must necessarily love peace because it brings with it an increase of wealth and power, whereas the very contrary of this was the constant experience of the Roman republic. In peace the Plebeians were always most oppressed because the Patricians had then most need of their assistance; whereas in time of war they were obliged to pay court to them for their own preservation. [It is, I think, quite beside the point here to enter into any discussion as to the relative value of the statements of either Warburton or Heath regarding the attitude of the Plebeians to the states of war and peace in the days of the Roman republic. Coriolanus says they are satisfied with neither state. That is all there is to it; we must, moreover, bear in mind that this is the petulant retort of a very testy and irritable man to a set of persons whom he despises. The Englishman's attitude of mind, in the time of Shakespeare at least, is, perhaps, reflected in the colloquy between the Servingmen in Act IV, sc. v, lines 217-230, and from that we learn that the preference was on the side of the stirring times of war, and not for the lethargic days of peace.—Ed.]