[Scene I.]
Actus Secundus Beeching (Falcon Sh.): The first part of this scene is an amusing study in manners. Notice the superior tone Menenius adopts towards the Tribunes, soon passing into downright rudeness, which they hardly resent, while he loses his temper at once when they in turn only hint at a home-truth. The entry of the ladies makes us forget plebeian Rome, and leads up to the triumph. The last part of the scene is a reminder that to ridicule or ignore the Tribunes is not to draw their sting.—Verity (Student's Sh.): The purpose of this prelude is to show that Coriolanus's brilliant exploits and services to his country have not affected the causes of dissension between the patricians and the people (represented by the Tribunes) nor the popular feeling of grievance against Coriolanus himself.—E. K. Chambers (Warwick Sh.): The subject of the first act was the nobility of Coriolanus; for all his faults he is lifted before our eyes to an heroic level. The subject of the second act is his inherent weakness, leading up to and explaining the tragic crisis of his fate in the third act. The first need for a would-be leader of men is a certain sympathy with average every-day humanity. Of this Coriolanus has nothing; he is too completely self-centered and self-absorbed. It is the function of the second act to bring this out, and to show how irreconcilable is the hostility between him and the plebeians. The crucial test of this is the canvassing for the consulship in which Coriolanus's insolent demeanor gives occasion to his enemies the Tribunes to destroy the momentary popularity which he has won by his valour.—Miss C. Porter (First Folio Sh.): This scene passes on the fore-stage. At l. 98 the stage-direction of the Folio shows that Brutus and Sicinius go Aside, not off the stage. Since the rest, after Coriolanus enters in triumph, pass in procession following him across the stage, it may be that the Tribunes pass way out upon the projecting fore-stage, and, standing with their backs to the audience and at one side, at the back of the procession, come forward after it has passed out at the opposite side, presumably on its way to the Capitoll. After the Messenger comes to summon them they follow in the same direction.
Men. Delius (Die Prosa in Sh's Dramen, Jahrbuch, v, p. 269): Menenius confronting the two Tribunes lets his tongue go on without restraint in a humorous manner of speech—which beautifies neither himself nor them—with complete pleasure to himself. Also in his talk with the Roman matrons he gives expression to his joy over the return of Marcius in the fresh and hearty manner to which prose so aptly lends itself. [See also Notes by Delius, I, i, 5, 6; I, iii, 3.—Ed.]— E. K. Chambers (Warwick Sh.): Menenius, not a very serious politician, nor personally dignified, finds it exceedingly amusing to ‘roast’ the Tribunes. He does not, however, come off without some home-truths in return. Shakespeare is fairly impartial in his analysis of the weaknesses of both parties. To his cynical point of view there is not much to choose between them. And how vivid and characteristic his portraits are! Just so might a genial Pall Mall clubman and a couple of London county-councillors satirize each other today. Agurer W. A. Wright: Pope altered this to Augur, apparently regarding the speech as verse, but ‘augurer’ is the more common form in Shakespeare. See Jul. Cæs., II, i, 200: ‘The unaccustomed terror of this night, And the persuasion of his augurers.’
Nature . . . The Lambe Eaton (p. 125): The ideas here seem borrowed from Ecclesiasticus, chap. xiii, ‘Every beast loveth his like, and every man loveth his neighbor. All flesh consorteth according to kind, and a man will cleave to his like. What fellowship hath the wolf with the lamb?’ verses 15, 16, 17. [Wordsworth (Sh's Knowledge & Use of Bible, p. 220) compares l. 9 with Isaiah, i, 3: ‘The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib.’—Carter (p. 457) also quotes this last in illustration of l. 9.—Ed.]
Pray you . . . loue Johnson: When the Tribune, in reply to Menenius's remark on the people's hate of Coriolanus, had observed ‘even beasts know their friends,’ Menenius asks ‘whom does the wolf love?’ implying that there are beasts which love nobody, and that among those beasts are the people.—B. Cornwall: Menenius probably means to infer that the tribune's rule is not without an exception; and that the people are not, in the particular referred to, more discriminating than the wolf. who For other examples of a like neglect of inflection in relative pronouns see Abbott, § 274.
The Lambe Beeching (Falcon Sh.): Sicinius answers in haste, meaning that the friends of the people are those that do them no harm. Perhaps in Menenius's question stress should be laid on ‘does.’ ‘Whom does your Roman wolf love?’
In what . . . poore in Malone: Here we have another of our author's peculiar modes of phraseology, which, however, the modern editors have not suffered him to retain; having dismissed the redundant ‘in’ at the end of this part of the sentence.—Steevens: I shall continue to dismiss it till such peculiarities can, by authority, be discriminated from the corruptions of the stage, the transcriber, or the printer. It is scarcely credible that in the expression of a common idea, in prose, our modest Shakespeare should have advanced a phraseology of his own in equal defiance of customary language and established grammar. As, on the present occasion, the word ‘in’ might have stood with propriety at either end of the question, it has been casually, or ignorantly, inserted at both. [By way of reply to the foregoing remarks by Steevens, Malone merely refers to a note on a line from the Chorus preceding Act II. of Rom. & Jul., ‘for which love groan'd for,’ in vol. vi. of Variorum 1821, wherein Malone justifies the redundant preposition as a grammatical peculiarity of the time, instancing the present line in Coriolanus, and also, ‘The scene wherein we play in,’ As You Like It, II, vii, 139. Steevens refuses to accept these as valid examples, since both are taken from the Folio text and therefore ‘stand on no surer ground than that of copies published by ignorant players and printed by careless compositors.’ He adds: ‘I utterly refuse to admit their accumulated jargon as the grammar of Shakespeare or of the age he lived in.’ Malone in support of his statement and in answer to Steevens's challenge quotes in answer the following examples of this redundancy in contemporary writers: Lyly's Prologue at Court, to Campaspe: ‘So are we enforced upon a rough discourse to drawe on a smooth excuse.’ Job, ch. xli, vers. ii, Barker's Bible, 1599: ‘Out of his nostrils cometh out smoke.’ Letter from Lord Burghley to the Earl of Shrewsbury, Jan. 23, 1587-8, Weymouth MSS: ‘I did earnestly enqre of hym, in what estate he stood in for discharge of his former debts.’ In another letter from the same to the same, October 26, 1586: ‘To the which it is ment that we all should put to our names.’—For other examples from Shakespeare see, if needful, Abbott, § 407.—Ed.]
censured W. A. Wright: That is, what opinion is formed of you, how you are estimated. See I, i, 294, and compare Much Ado, II, iii, 233, ‘I hear how I am censured.’ And Jul. Cæs., III, ii, 16, ‘Censure me in your wisdom.’ right hand File Schmidt (Coriolanus): That is, men of rank who are the right hand of the state. The parliamentary sense of right and left is here quite untenable.—Gordon: That is, by us of the conservative ranks. The ‘lefthand file,’ by the same token, would be radical opposition represented by the Tribunes. [On this point Schmidt is undoubtedly correct; the use of Right and Left in the parliamentary sense is too modern for application here.—Fortescue (Shakespeare's England, vol. i, ch. iv, The Army, p. 114) says: ‘A file in these days consists of two men. In the sixteenth century it numbered at least ten. . . . Again, the place of honour to military men has always been the right of the line, and accordingly a captain always drew up his best and choicest men in the right-hand files of his company.’ Fortescue quotes this present line in illustration.—Ed.]
theefe of Occasion W. A. Wright: ‘Of’ is used frequently to connect two nouns in apposition, as ‘city of London.’ Compare Richard II: I, iii, 196, ‘Banish'd this fair sepulchre of our flesh.’—Gordon: You are a mighty impatient pair, Menenius means to say; a very little occasion will put you out. To convey this meaning it would have been enough to say ‘a very little occasion will rob you,’ &c. But if ‘occasion’ can be said to ‘rob,’ why not complete the metaphor and call it a ‘thief’? There is nothing active or possessive about the ‘of’ [in the phrase ‘city of London’], it merely connects in apposition. The meaning is that London is a city. The meaning of ‘thief of occasion’ is that occasion is a thief.
single That is, trivial, insignificant. Compare 2 Henry IV: I, ii, 207, ‘Is not your chin double, your wit single.’
eyes toward . . . your neckes Johnson: With allusion to the fable which says that every man has a bag hanging before him, in which he puts his neighbor's faults, and another behind him, in which he stows his own.—Delius: This elucidation by Johnson does not accord with what follows; the Tribunes are to look not behind, but within, themselves—‘toward the napes’ must, moreover, be only in the direction of your necks.—Case (Arden Sh.) quotes Johnson's elucidation and adds, ‘Dr Tyrrell kindly provides the following note: “The original fable of Æsop, reproduced by Phædrus, IV, 10, [Bk IV, Fable ix, ed. Dyche, 1713.—Ed.] was that Jupiter has furnished every man with two wallets, one hanging down on his breast and containing his neighbor's faults, which are always before his eyes, and the other hanging down his back out of sight, and filled with his own faults. This is referred to by Horace (Sat. II, iii, 299) and by Catullus (xxii, 21), who seems to speak of one wallet with two parts. Persius (iv, 24) slightly varies the image by giving every one a single wallet to hang behind him, and making each neglect his own, and look exclusively on his neighbor's wallet (variously called pera and mantica).”’—[All of which is excellent as a note on Johnson's note, but has little if anything to do with the present line in Coriolanus. In spite of the fact that Johnson's note has been accepted by many commentators, I am quite in accord with Delius that the context will not admit of any reference to this fable here. The very next words should have shown Johnson that as Menenius asks them ‘to make but an interior survey’ of themselves there could be no thought of an exterior wallet either front or back. Tucker Brooke (Yale Sh.) says: ‘A variation of the fable is found in Tro. & Cress., III, iii, 145, where Ulysses says, “Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, wherein he puts alms for oblivion.”’ But this is again a note on Johnson and not on this passage in Coriolanus.—Ed.]
not a drop of alaying Tiber in't Steevens: Lovelace, in his Verses to Althea from Prison, has borrowed this expression: ‘When flowing cups run swiftly round, With no allaying Thames,’ &c. See Percy, Reliques, &c. (3d ed.), ii, p. 324.—Halliwell: Mr Fairholt sends me this note: ‘A remarkable illustration of the allusion here made to the use of warm drinks by the Romans is furnished from the discoveries made at Pompeii. Under the staircase of a shop in that city where warm decoctions were sold a bronze urn of beautiful workmanship was discovered which is now deposited in the Museo Borbonico at Naples. [Fairholt gives a sectional drawing of this urn, which shows a spherical receptacle for the wine, surrounding an inner chamber for hot coals. The wine was poured in at one side and drawn off by a cock at the lower opposite side. I give this note for what it may be worth. Shakespeare's antiquarian knowledge as regards warm drinks among the Romans could hardly have been obtained through the discovery made at Pompeii, as Fairholt insinuates, since such had not been made until at least one hundred and fifty years after Shakespeare's death. The allusion here is, of course, to the popular mulled wine of Shakespeare's day.—Ed.]—W. A. Wright: Compare V, iii, 94, and Mer. of Ven., II, ii, 195, ‘—allay with some cold drops of modesty Thy skipping spirit.’ Baret (Alvearie, s. v.) has, ‘Alaied: tempered with water. Dilutus. . . . He alaieth wine with water. Lympha temperat merum.’ See also Huloet's Abcedarium (1552): ‘Alaye wyne. Diluo. . . . Alayd wyne. Aquaticum Vinum.’—Beeching (Henry Irving Sh.): There were originally two verbs of this form, one being purely English and meaning to put down, reduce; the other through French, from Latin alligare, now written alloy, after the modern French form, and meaning to mix. The senses very much ran into each other, and were in time referred to a single verb. The metaphor here might be either that of reducing (as in Paradise Lost, x, 566, ‘Fondly thinking to allay their appetite’) or that of mixing with alloy.
the first complaint Collier (Notes and Emendations, etc., p. 351): Few scenes are worse printed in the early copies than this between Menenius and the two Tribunes: it is full of literal errors, and of some which are important to the author's sense, and are set right in manuscript in the Second Folio. What is ‘the first complaint’ in connexion with Menenius's love for ‘a cup of hot wine’? It is merely an error from mishearing on the part of the copyist; for, undoubtedly, we ought to alter ‘first’ to thirst—‘the thirst complaint.’ The humour is entirely lost in the old misprinted text; and although no objection need be raised to with not instead of ‘without,’ nothing could be easier than the misprint of one word for the other; seeing that thirst complaint must be right, we can readily believe in the less important change.—Singer (Text of Sh. Vindicated, p. 213): The alteration of ‘first’ to thirst is not necessary, for it seems that ‘thirst’ was sometimes provincially pronounced and spelt first and furst. Thus, in Piers Ploughman, passus vii: ‘For whetshod thei gaugen A furst and a fingered,’ i. e., thirsty and hungered. Menenius uses it jocularly.—Anon. (Blackwood's Maga., Sep., 1853, p. 321): No sense can be extracted from ‘first complaint’ by any process of distillation. The old corrector, brightening up for an instant, writes ‘thirst complaint,’ on which Mr Singer remarks [as in the foregoing note]. Come, come, Mr Singer, that is hardly fair. Let us give the devil his due. What one reader out of every million was to know that ‘first’ was a provincialism for thirst? We ourselves, at least, had not a suspicion of it till the old corrector opened our eyes to the right reading—the meaning of which is, ‘I am said to have a failing in yielding rather too readily to the thirst complaint.’ This emendation covers a multitude of sins, and ought, beyond a doubt, to be promoted into the text.—Delius: ‘It is said of me, I am somewhat weak therein, that I favour the first complaint or charge, that I give judgment to the first plaintiff, without a further examination of the case.’— This mode of procedure of Menenius with a client stands in direct opposition to the utterly tedious procedure in like cases with which he later reproaches the Tribunes.—Dyce: Mr Collier asks: ‘What is “the first complaint” in connexion with Menenius's love for a cup of hot wine?’ But is it quite certain that any ‘connexion’ was intended between ‘the first complaint’ and ‘a cup of hot wine’? At least if the Folio faithfully represents the author's punctuation, none was intended; for in the Folio we find a colon after ‘Tiber in't,’ while ‘the first complaint’ is disjoined only by a comma—‘hasty and tinder-like upon too trivial motion’—words which assuredly do not in any way allude to Menenius's love for drinking. Again, is ‘the thirst complaint’ a probable expression? In short, I consider the MS. Corrector's alteration a very doubtful one; and I have the satisfaction of knowing that Mr John Forster concurs with me in that opinion. I must add that Mr Singer's explanation of ‘first’ appears to me even more unlikely than the MS. Corrector's new reading, by which indeed it was evidently suggested.— Staunton: What is ‘the first complaint’? At one time we conceived the sprightly, warm-hearted old senator, among his other failings, ‘cried out of women,’ and referred to what Ben Jonson as obscurely terms ‘the primitive work of darkness’ (Devil is an Ass, II, ii.); but what militates against this supposition, and the wonderfully acute emendation of Collier's MS. Corrector also, is the doubt whether ‘complaint’ obtained the sense malady or ailment until many years after these plays were written. If it did not bear this meaning in Shakespeare's day, the only explanation of ‘something imperfect in favouring the first complaint’ appears to be that he was too apt to be led away by first impressions; to act rather from impulse than from reflection.—Ingleby (Sh. Controversy, p. 144), in his chapter on Philological Tests as to the genuineness of the corrections in Collier's Folio, instances the foregoing objection by Staunton in regard to the modernity of ‘complaint’ in a medical sense, remarking that the ‘whole phrase would be nonsense’ unless ‘complaint’ were there employed with that meaning. ‘Now I think,’ adds Ingleby, ‘the latter position indisputable; but I have not examined a sufficiently large number of instances to arrive at any decided opinion on the former point. However, it is not improbable that this test-word may ultimately be found to be of great value in the determination of the question of the genuineness of the manuscript notes of the disputed folio.’—Leo (Coriolanus, p. 121): If ‘first complaint’ does not stand in connexion with the mysterious charms of the worship of Venus, I would suggest the following explanation: Menenius gives his own portrait as that of an Epicurean. He confesses to liking drinking and revelling, so that I wonder he does not say anything about eating. But perhaps he does; he does not at all favour ‘the first complaint,’ for else he would favour the complaint of the Plebeians, and since he already in the first words has confessed to like drinking, the ‘thirst’ has no reason to complain. That Menenius is known to be a gourmand appears from the remark of Brutus, ‘you are well understood to be a perfecter giber for the table—,’ and if we therefore take the f in ‘favouring’ as a misprint for long ſ, and remember that Menenius says, ‘but when we have stuff'd
These pipes and these conveyances of our blood
With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls
Than in our priest-like fasts. . . .’ (V, i, 63-66),
we are induced to search in ‘the first complaint’ for a misprint for something belonging to the culinary art; and the words ‘priest-like fasts’ remind us of the time when fasting was ordered—the lenten time. Is it not possible that ‘first complaint’ is a misprint for feast of lent, and that instead of ‘in favouring the first complaint’ we ought to read ‘in favouring the feast of lent.’ (I will not too strongly advocate a change in the word feast, and reading fish for it. See Pericles, II, ii, ‘we'll have flesh for holidays, fish for fasting days.’) At all events the sense given by the emendation is quite in keeping with the whole portrait: Menenius likes neither wine allayed with Tyber, nor lenten food, nor retiring to bed early— in short, he confesses to being a jolly fellow. [Leo prefaces his note with the modest disclaimer that he himself does not ‘pretend to attach much importance to it’; again some fifteen years later (Jahrbuch, xv, p. 55), in reference to his proposed emendation, he says: ‘I gladly surrender it to the laughing critics of the editors, since I myself regarded it only as an attempt, a makeshift, but I really believe it was beneficial, either to specify formerly proposed emendations or to refer to them as needless and incorrect.’ Si sic omnes, etc.—Ed.]—R. G. White (Sh. Scholar, p. 359): Collier's Folio suggests, with reason, that we should read, ‘without a drop’ and ‘the thirst complaint.’ Common sense will not set the latter word aside because Mr Singer has discovered that ‘thirst was sometimes provincially pronounced first and furst.’ Shakespeare does not make Menenius talk like a West of England ploughboy.—Ibid. (ed. i.): How lamentably from the purpose have the commentators been in their exegesis and correction of this passage! I myself in my youth and haste (see Shakespeare's Scholar) having followed the multitude to do evil. All readers, too, according to my observation, refer ‘said to be’ to ‘allaying Tyber’; but it is Menenius who, being ‘hasty and tinderlike upon too trivial motion,’ is said to be ‘something imperfect in favouring the first complaint’ brought to him. All the clauses of this sentence are but specifications of his traits of character.—A. A. (Notes & Queries, 19 March, 1864, p. 231): It has been proposed to read the ‘thirst complaint’; but is not the passage better as it stands? Menenius says he has two faults, or complaints. The first that he is ‘humorous’; the second that he is too fond of a cup of hot wine, and that this second complaint has rather a tendency to aggravate the first. I do not remember such a phrase as ‘the thirst complaint’ in any author. [Staunton's objection that ‘complaint’ here in the sense of malady, disorder is too modern renders the foregoing interpretation untenable.—Ed.]—Hudson declares that the Folio reading has ‘neither sense nor humour’ and therefore there can be little hesitation in accepting that of Collier's MS. Corrector ‘as it makes both the sense and the humour perfect.’ This note Hudson repeats unchanged in his ed. ii.—Ed.—C. & M. Cowden Clarke (Shakespeare): ‘The first complaint’ appears to us clearly to refer to the first clause of Menenius's speech, his being ‘a humourous patrician,’ which is the first complaint made against him, while his being ‘one that loves a cup of hot wine,’ &c., is the second complaint made against him. He goes on to explain what is ‘the first complaint’ by adding ‘hasty and too tinder-like upon too trivial motion,’ which exactly interprets the word ‘humourous’ as used by Shakespeare in one of the senses it bore in his time.—Rev. John Hunter: That is, somewhat weak in at once showing by my looks when I am displeased.—Schmidt (Coriolanus, p. 86) quotes at some length two interpretations of this passage: the first, that which is commonly accepted, viz., Menenius is too apt to give judgment in the case of an appeal without due deliberation; second, that some commentators have understood by ‘the first complaint’ the sin of Adam and Eve, symbolised by the eating of the apple; Georg Herwegh, who edited this play for Ulrici's ed., is responsible for this; he has had no followers, but, as Schmidt objects, Menenius is represented as an old man, and besides he is not given to speaking so euphemistically. Schmidt is quite in agreement with those editors who hold that the text is here corrupt, but maintains that no emendation thus far proposed is acceptable (Leo's ‘feast of lent’ he only refers to as ‘a curiosity’). In conclusion he offers his own solution of the difficulty, which as an original emendation is even more of ‘a curiosity’ than Leo's; it is that we here read thirst-complaint. No reference is made to the fact that this is the reading of Collier's MS. Corrector or that any other editor so reads following that correction. Schmidt naïvely explains that f and th are near allied in sound and that as the Tribunes speak of hunger Menenius confesses to a sympathy with the thirsty ones. This is, however, but one of many indications in Schmidt's notes to this play that he had not consulted—perhaps even did not know of—the MS. corrections in Collier's Folio.—Ed.—W. A. Wright: That is, in hastily judging a case without waiting to hear the other side; not wasting time upon trifles like the Tribunes. It has been objected to this reading that Menenius would not speak of himself in such depreciatory terms, and justify the Tribunes’ attack. But it is his humour to say of himself the worst that popular opinion says of him, and so to disarm his opponents; that he is quick of temper and hasty of tongue, that his bark is worse than his bite, that he never stops to think whether his outspokenness will give offense. There appears to be no necessity for change, and certainly none for reading with Collier ‘the thirst complaint’ or with Leo ‘savouring the feast (or fish) of Lent.’—Rolfe: That is, somewhat faulty as a magistrate in forming an opinion of a case before hearing the other side.—Gordon: Somewhat imperfect because of a way I have of favouring the first complainant. I suppose this means that he gave the impression, when he was on the bench, of being keener to get through and away than to hear both sides and give deliberate judgment. [The majority of modern editors is in favour of the view that Menenius admits that he is a little too prone to give judgment without considering the case sufficiently. Staunton's objection to ‘complaint’ used in a medical sense here is to the point and is quite enough to cause rejection of this MS. correction, if for other reasons it were not quite unnecessary, as Wright sagely remarks. According to Murray (N. E. D., s. v. complaint, 6.) the earliest use of this word in the sense of malady occurs in 1705.—Ed.]
One, that . . . of the morning Lettsom (ap. Dyce ii.): These words should come before ‘said to be something imperfect,’ &c. [l. 51]; and ‘complaint’ should perhaps be complainer. conuerses more W. A. Wright: That is, associates more, is more conversant with. Compare As You Like It, V, ii, 66: ‘I have, since I was three years old, conversed with a magician.’ The word is less frequently used by Shakespeare in its more restricted modern sense. Buttocke of the night Johnson: That is, rather a late lier down than an early riser.—Malone: So, in Love's Labour's Lost: ‘It is the king's most sweet pleasure and affection, to congratulate the princess at her pavilion, in the posteriors of this day; which the rude multitude call the afternoon,’ [V, i, 94.—Malone quotes another somewhat similar expression from 2 Henry IV.; but is not the above ‘exquisite phrase,’ as W. A. Wright terms it, sufficient to show that such was not intended as the coinage of the brain of Menenius on this occasion?—Ed.]
I cannot call you Licurgusses C. & M. Cowden Clarke (Shakespeare): This fleer of the old patrician has doubly humorous force of allusion; since it not only refers to the renowned Spartan lawgiver, Lycurgus, who was a man that banished luxury and possessed large wisdom with utmost severity of morals, but it also includes reference to a King of Thrace, named Lycurgus, who abolished the worship of Bacchus from his dominions, and ordered all the vines therein to be cut down, in order to preserve himself and subjects from the temptations and consequences of a too free use of wine.—Orger (p. 61): This passage has been left without alteration by the editors, when the suppression of the parenthesis is, I think, evidently demanded by the sense. Menenius is piquing himself on his frankness, and declares that he cannot call such politicians as these Lycurgusses on any occasion when he falls in with them. I think it clear we should read, ‘Meeting two such wealsmen as you are I cannot call you Lycurgusses. If the drink,’ etc.
I can say Schmidt (Coriolanus）: This is needlessly altered by modern editors to I cannot say. ‘I can say’ is here used as the ancient and modern phrase I dare say. Menenius means, ‘You have delivered the matter very well, if I do not find in your talk the ass as an ingredient (in compound),’ i. e., if it is not all pure asininity. That the alteration cannot renders the phrase more easily intelligible may not be gainsaid.
the Asse in compound W. A. Wright: Shakespeare was thinking of the Latin he learnt at school, and the ‘As in præsenti,’ etc.—Rolfe: That is, when I find your talk so asinine.—Gordon: That is, most of your words with a large mixture of the ass in them, most of what you say very foolish. The phrase sounds like a punning version of a grammer rule: ‘as in compound with major part of syllables’; but I have failed like others to find such a rule in the most likely place, Lilly's Latin Grammar.—Beeching (Henry Irving Sh.): That Menenius means to call the Tribunes asses is clear, but what is his joke? Shakespeare, of course, knew that -as was a common termination of Latin words, but Menenius talked Latin no less than the Tribunes. Probably Shakespeare had in mind some Latin Grammar rule in which were the words ‘as in compound with the major part of the syllable.’—Verity (Student's Sh.): Possibly Menenius means that the Tribunes belong to the class of argumentative opinionated people who are always ready to give their reasons (as=‘since, because’) and justify themselves and their actions. [Verity agrees with Wright that there is here possibly the same quibble as in Hamlet, V, ii, 43; and also cites Twelfth Night, II, iii, 184, 185.—Ed.]—Sherman (Tudor Sh.): A pun on the last syllables of Sicinius and Brutus. [In this connection compare Hamlet's reply to Polonius, ‘It was a brute part of him [Brutus] to kill so capital a calf there,’ III, ii, 110.—Ed.]
they lye deadly Compare: ‘The villaine lieth deadly, he reviles me bicause I bid him make hast,’ Gascoigne, Supposes (1566), III, i, p. 211, ed. Cunliffe.—Ed.
tell you Case (Arden Sh.): Though Pope reads tell you, you, and others tell you you, the text may be correct. Menenius says in substance: I must bear to hear you called reverend grave men; and he may also say: It is a big lie to report you have good faces. you haue good faces Gordon: This jest has not been understood. To understand it we must go back to ‘ass.’ We are in the region of desperate puns. After ‘ass’ and as in l. 60 it was easy to think of ace. Ass and ace were pronounced alike, and Shakespeare had been very guilty of the pun about twelve years before in Mid. N. Dream, V, i, 315-317 (‘Less than an ace, man, for he is dead; he is nothing.’ ‘With the help of a surgeon, he might yet recover, and prove an ass’). It was this ace that suggested ‘faces.’ ‘Faces’ was a regular word for ‘face-cards’ (i. e., king, queen, knave), and ‘face’ and ace ran naturally together. Compare Cotton's Complete Gamester (1674): ‘If you have neither ace nor face you may throw up your game’ (N. E. D.). On this and the ordinary meaning of ‘faces’ Menenius puns. You are worthy ‘asses,’ he says, and speaking of ‘aces,’ they are deadly liars that report you have good ‘faces.’ This is not easy punning, but ‘faces’ is pointless without it.—Case (Arden Sh.): There are probably two senses here: (1) good faces, honest faces, the indices of good hearts, the denial of which destroys any credit not already ironically subtracted from ‘reverend, grave’; (2) handsome faces. This closes Menenius's speech so far as it relates to his own faults as they may appear to the two Tribunes: he loves strong wine; he is hasty; he revels late; he speaks his mind; he shows it too (here the list leaves what is generally known and becomes an attack on the Tribunes); he does not applaud their words, for he finds them foolish; if he must not contradict the titles that belong to age when others bestow them on them, he thinks their looks ugly in both senses. This they may see in him, as he goes on to tell them. ‘I cannot grant the finality of Gordon's ingenious view that ass suggested ace, and that ace suggested “faces.” It entirely ignores the intervening clause, “and though . . . reverend, grave men,” which sufficiently accounts for what follows, not to say that it is almost inevitable for Menenius to proceed from attack on character to attack on looks. It cannot be said, as Gordon does, that “‘faces’ is pointless without” the pun he suggests.’ [With this I quite agree; I may even go further and say that for philological reasons Gordon's deduced pun is inadmissible, since it depends entirely upon the sense in which ‘faces’ is to be taken. His quotation from Cotton is too late (1674) to be acceptable as an example of Shakespearian usage. The name applied to ‘face cards,’ according to Murray (N. E. D.), was ‘coat, or cote cards’ (from the brightly coloured costumes of the king, queen, and knave) down to the end of the seventeenth century, for example, 1563. Foxe, Actes & Monuments, etc., p. 1282, ‘The best cote carde in the bunche, yea thoughe it were the Kyng of Clubbes.’ Again, 1591. Florio, Second Fruites, 69, ‘I have none but coate cardes.’ In the same edition of Cotton's Gamester, and on the same page from which Gordon quotes, we find: ‘The value of your coat-cards and trumps.’ By an easy transition the term was changed to our modern one, court-cards.—Ed.] Map of my Microcosme Verity (Student's Sh.): That is, his face. Shakespeare uses ‘map’=image or picture of, and here the face is regarded as a picture of a man's whole character and constitution (a favourite thought with Spenser). For the figurative use of ‘map’ cf. Sonnet lxviii: ‘Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn.’ [Verity interprets ‘If you see this’ as referring to ‘this character,’ l. 66, i. e., all that he has been saying of himself. ‘The line of thought,’ adds Verity, ‘is not very clear (to me), but obviously Menenius is nettled at Sicinius's words in l. 45, and shows his annoyance by reiterating them with ironical emphasis.’]—Case (Arden Sh.): This map or chart may be Menenius's face, as Verity interprets, or, more probably, merely the collective impression of Menenius possessed by the Tribunes and delivered from various sources—repute, personal observation of his habits, etc., perception of his opinion of themselves.
Microcosme W. A. Wright: That is, my little world, man being regarded as the universe in little. Menenius still remembers the apologue which he addressed to the citizens in the first scene of the play. The same idea of man being a microcosm occurs several times in Shakespeare. In his discourse on the virtues of sherris-sack (2 Henry IV: IV, iii, 116-122) Falstaff says: ‘It illumineth the face, which as a beacon gives warning to all the rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the vital commoners and inland petty spirits muster me all to their captain, the heart, who, great and puffed up with this retinue, doth any deed of courage.’ [References or allusions to the body of man as a microcosm or world in little are found in many of the writers contemporary with Shakespeare and those before him. The idea is very ancient. For other examples and illustrations see a note on the lines ‘the state of man Like to a little kingdom,’ Jul. Cæs., II, i, 75, 76, this edition.—Ed.]
beesome Conspectuities Theobald: If the editors have formed any construction to themselves of this epithet ‘besom,’ that can be à propos to the sense of the context—Davis sum non Oedipus: it is too hard a riddle for me to expound. Menenius, 'tis plain, is abusing the Tribunes, and bantering them ironically. By ‘Conspectuities’ he must mean their sagacity, clearsightedness; and that they may not think he is complimenting them he tacks an epithet to it, which quite undoes that character, i. e., bisson, blind, bleer-eyed. Skinner, in his Etymologicon, explains this word, Caecus: vox agro Lincoln usitatissima. Ray concurs, in his North and South Country Words. And our author gives us this term again in his Hamlet, where the sense exactly corresponds with this interpretation: ‘Run barefoot up and down, threatning the flames With bisson rheum,’ [II, ii, 528], i. e., blinding. It is spoken of Hecuba, whose eyes o'erflow and are blinded both with tears and the rheums of age. [Malone, in elucidation of the word bisson, quotes the above passage from Hamlet without any notice that both explanation and quotation are Theobald's.—Ed.]—Halliwell (Folio Edition) quotes from Boucher's Glossary of Archaic & Provincial Words, s. v. Bisson, as follows: ‘That is, blind. Skinner's explanation and etymology of this word are almost beneath notice, owing, I imagine, to his having too hastily taken it for granted that bisson, in Shakespeare's time, did really signify positive blindness. It has long appeared to me that bisson is fairly deducible from the Saxon verb, of which the literal import is respicere; and respicere, exactly translated, means to look back upon. Shakespeare may be thought to have this idea in his mind when in a speech by the same personage, just before that in which bisson occurs, he says: “You talk of pride; oh, that you could turn your eyes towards the napes of your necks, and make but an interior survey of your good selves.” And it is still more probable that this idea, having taken possession of his mind, led him immediately after to use the word bisson, which, I conceive, is its true sense, notwithstanding its having acquired, in process of time, a somewhat different one in provincial speech. Bisson rheum it would be harsh, and forced beyond all precedent, to interpret into blindness occasioned by rheum or a defluxion; nor would it add much, if anything, to the sense and meaning of the passage, even if the context would admit of such an interpretation. The whole speech has, and was intended to have, an air of obscurity and mysteriousness, that it might with the more effect, as well as with greater safety, convey more than met the ear. The passage in Coriolanus, in which we have the odd phrase of “bisson conspectuities,” is also, with the same view, dark and ambiguous, that its ironical severity might be the more poignant. “Bisson conspectuities,” as I would interpret it, means, and is equivalent to, indirect or distorted view, &c. It is easy, if not natural, to regard distorted vision as imperfect; and an imperfect sight as blindness.’—The unfortunate derivation by Skinner to which Boucher alludes is quoted in Nares, s. v. Bisson as ‘from by, for besides or without, and sin, a Dutch word signifying sight: the sight being the most excellent sense.’—[For the various forms in which this word appears and earlier examples of its use, see N. E. D., s. v. Bisson.—Ed.]— W. A. Wright: That is, your purblind powers of vision. In ‘conspectuities’ Menenius is playing upon the ignorance of the Tribunes with a word of his own invention. The word is from the A.-S. bisen, blind, which is found in the Lindisfarne MS. of the Gospels printed for the Surtees Society. In Matt., ix, 27, ‘duo caeci’ is rendered ‘tuoege bisene,’ and as an alternative to the latter word ‘blinde’ is added. Again in Matt., xi, 5, ‘caeci vident’ is rendered ‘biseno gesea.’ In the Old English poem, The Owl and the Nightingale 243, ‘bisne’ and ‘blind’ are distinguished: ‘A dai thu art blind other bisne,’ by day thou art blind or dimsighted. ‘Beesen’ is still familiar in Lincolnshire (see Brogden's Provincial Words, &c., used in Lincolnshire), and ‘Bizzen blind,’ purblind, is in Miss Baker's Northamptonshire Glossary. The form ‘Beesome,’ ‘beesom,’ or ‘Besom,’ which is found in the folios, is perhaps only a dialectic variety or corruption of ‘bisson.’ Among the words in the late Sir Frederic Madden's Collection, which is now in my possession, I find under the head ‘Bysom’ a quotation from a poem with the proverbial title ‘The bysom ledys the blynde’ (MS. Harl. 5396, fol. 295; printed in Wright and Halliwell's Reliquiæ Antiquæ, ii, 283), and another from MS. Add. 11,307, fol. 115 b: ‘Ther stod Longius a bisom knyght,
Thei maden hym vnder the rode go.’
In the latter example the ‘bisom knyght’ is the same as ‘Longeus the blind’ or ‘blynde Longeus’ of the Cursor Mundi, 16,385. Richardson quotes from Udal's translation of Erasmus's Paraphrase on Mark, viii. (fol. 52 b): ‘This man was not poreblynd, or a litell appayred, and decayed in sight, but as bysome as was possyble to be’; where the Latin is ‘sed profundissima caecitate obrutus.’ See also Huloet's Abcedarium, ‘Blynde or besom borne. Cæcigenus.’ The analogy of the Dutch bijziend, near-sighted, is apparently accidental, although it is referred to by Ettmüller (Lexicon Anglo-Saxonicum, p. 294), who regards ‘bisen’ as equivalent to ‘bíseónde.’
cappes and legges Malone: That is, for their obeisance shown by bowing to you. To make a leg was the phrase of our author's time for a bow, and is still used in ludicrous language.
you weare out . . . Forenoone Warburton: It appears from this whole speech that Shakespeare mistook the office of praefectus urbis for the Tribune's office. [‘But,’ comments W. A. Wright, ‘he merely followed North's Plutarch in regarding the Tribunes as magistrates.’—Ed.]—Campbell (p. 119): In this drama, in which we should not expect to find any allusion to English juridical proceedings, Shakespeare shows that he must have been present before some tiresome, testy, choleric judges at Stratford, Warwick, or Westminster. [The present passage quoted. Campbell also remarks, without reference to Warburton, on the mistake as regards the office of the Tribunes.—Ed.], ‘but in truth,’ he adds, ‘Shakespeare was recollecting with disgust what he had witnessed in his own country.’— ‘And if so, what then?’ asks J. M. Robertson (Baconian Heresy, p. 85). ‘Is this any proof of profound legal knowledge? Where the claim is so feeble, it is hardly worth while to offer parallel instances; but, as usual, they are easily found. The testy and choleric judge, a lamentably common figure in Tudor England, appears in Webster's White Devil; in Chapman's Admiral of France; in Massinger's The Fatal Dowry, and in Lodge and Greene's Looking Glass For London. In The Duchess of Malfy (I, i.) Webster makes Antonio say of the Duke that he “will seem to sleep o' the bench Only to trap offenders.” Is this such a reminiscence as proves legal training?’—Beeching (Falcon Sh.): The description would no doubt apply to Robert Shallow, Esquire. We may add that IV, vi. shows that this character of the Tribunes is overdrawn.
Forset-seller W. A. Wright: That is, a seller of faucets or taps. Palsgrave (Lesclarcissement de la langue Francoyse) gives: ‘Faucet to drawe wyne— faucet z, m.; broche a estouper le uin.’ And Cotgrave, ‘Guille: f. The quill, or faucet of a wine vessell.’ The French forms of the word given in Cotgrave are Faulset and Fausset. See Massinger, New Way to Pay Old Debts, IV, ii, ‘They are good souls As ever drew faucet.’—Case (Arden Sh.): Originally faucet had the meaning of the peg or screw, as opposed to spigot, the tube with which it makes up the tap, and it has still this meaning in the Sheffield dialect. Compare Lyly, Mother Bombie, II, v. (ed. Fairholt, ii, 101): ‘Memp. I'll teach my waghalter to know grapes from barley. Pris. And I mine to discerne a spigot from a faucet.’ But fauset, rarely fosset, was early used for the whole tap. See instances in N. E. D., which include the spelling in the text. Mr A. P. Paton has shown that forseta = little chest or coffer (cistella, arcella) in Gouldman's Latin Dict., and forset (and also forser) occurs much earlier; see Furnivall's Earliest English Wills, E. E. T. S., p. 70, l. 31, and p. 91, l. 20, and note ‘Ital. forziere, a chest, a forcet, . . . Florio, 1598.’ But a seller of taps is more likely to be coupled with an orange-seller than a seller of caskets.
reiourne Craigie (N. E. D., s. v. 1.): To adjourn, postpone, defer, put off. 1556. Chron. Gr. Friars (Camden), 66: ‘Item the terme rejurnyd from the Assencion unto Myhylmas.’
Mummers W. A. Wright: That is, maskers or masqueraders. See Cotgrave (Fr. Dict.): ‘Mommeur: m. A Mummer; one that goes a mumming. Mommon, as Mommeur; Also, a troupe, or companie of mummers; also, a visard, or maske.’ Brand (Popular Antiquities, i. 461, Bohn's ed.) says, speaking of Christmas, ‘Mumming is a sport of this festive season which consists in changing clothes between men and women, who, when dressed in each other's habits, go from one neighbour's house to another, partaking of Christmas cheer, and making merry with them in disguise.’ The etymology of the word is uncertain. The Germans have mumme, mummen, mummer, and mummerei; the Dutch, mommen, &c.; and in consequence a Teutonic origin has been assigned to the word. But, on the other hand, the French mommeur, mommerie, the Italian mommeo, mommea, mommeare, and the Spanish momeria, seem all to point to the Latin momus as the origin of the word. In Minsheu's Spanish Dictionary an explanation occurs which illustrates the present passage: ‘hazer Mómios, to make mops and mowes with the mouth, to make visages and foolish faces.’
set vp the bloodie Flagge Johnson: That is, declare war against patience. There is not wit enough in this satire to recompense its grossness.— W. A. Wright: The red flag was the signal of battle. See Henry V: I, ii, 101: ‘Stand for your own, unwind your bloody flag.’ And Jul Cæs., V, i, 14: ‘Their bloody sign of battle is hung out.’ The famous Dr Sacheverall, in his sermon at Oxford in 1702, on Proverbs, viii, 15, denounced as apostates and traitors to the Church of England those of her members who were favourable to the dissenters: ‘Against Whom every Man, that Wishes Its Welfare, ought to hang out the Bloody Flag, and Banner of Defiance.’
bleeding Singer (Text of Sh. Vindicated, p. 213): The substitution [by Collier's MS. Corrector] of pleading for ‘bleeding’ is very plausible as a probable misprint.—Hudson (ed. i.): Here again we derive a judicious and valuable correction from Collier's second Folio. It is not easy to discover why ‘bleeding’ should be used in such a connection. [Hudson in his ed. ii. returns, however, to the Folio text without comment.—Ed.]—Leo (Coriolanus): I have no doubt that Collier's Correction is right in emending this word to pleading; the pleading controversy is entangled.—Gordon: Instead of healing the dispute, they only wound it further and send it away raw and bleeding. It was proverbial to say of a raw or unfinished affair that it still ‘bled.’ Compare The Buggbears (1564), IV, iii: ‘Thou hast sene nothinge yet, to that thou shalt see. For yet it lies and bledes.’
perfecter gyber . . . then . . . Modern grammatical construction would here require rather than. See Abbott (§ 390, end), who compares this passage with Tempest, V, i, 28: ‘The rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance.’—Ed.
Our very Priests . . . Mockers Steevens: So, in Much Ado, ‘Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come in her presence,’ [I, i, 123].—E. K. Chambers (Warwick Sh.): Menenius has become more abusive than witty. The shaft of the Tribunes, who hinted that even by the Patricians he is not taken very seriously, has gone home.
to stuffe a Botchers Cushion W. A. Wright: Compare Lily's Mydas, v. 2 (Works, ii, 63, ed. Fairholt): ‘A dozen of beards, to stuffe two dozen of cushions.’ A botcher was a patcher of old clothes. See Twelfth Night, I, v, 51: ‘If he mend, he is no longer dishonest; if he cannot, let the botcher mend him. Anything that's mended is but patched.’ Huloet, Abcedarium, gives, ‘Bodger, botcher, mender, or patcher of olde garmentes. Rudiarius.’
Deucalion W. A. Wright: Deucalion was the Greek Noah. Compare Winter's Tale, ‘Far than Deucalion off,’ IV, iv, 442; that is, more remote in relationship than Deucalion.
Godden Singer (ed. ii.): ‘Good den,’ I think, meant good day, and not good e'en or evening. See Rom. & Jul., II, iv, 116. [This reference, cited by Singer, shows very clearly that in the time of Shakespeare the hours after noon were indiscriminately termed either afternoon or evening, as is the custom in the southern states of America. It is not by any means a proof that ‘God den’ meant good day.—Ed.] your conuersation . . . being For other examples of a participle with pronoun implied in a pronominal adjective see Abbott, § 379.
Bru. and Scic. Aside Miss C. H. Hayhurst (p. 8): Rowe's change here [see Text. Notes], it would seem, is a poor one, because dramatically it is much more effective to have the Tribunes present to view the great ado made by the people at the triumphal entry of Coriolanus to which they refer a little farther on in the scene.
(my as faire as Noble) Ladyes P. Simpson (Sh. Punctuation, p. 94): [In the Folio] compound nouns or adjectives are enclosed within brackets, where we should employ the hyphen if we used any punctuation at all. Compare I, i, 132 ante; and ‘In ranke, and (not to be endur'd) riots Sir.’—King Lear, I, i, 226.
whither . . . so fast Case (Arden Sh.): Shakespeare here beautifully refers to the eager glances of the expectant ladies, which were, as one might say, darted out before them towards the place where their warrior was about to appear. We might compare Montano's expression in Othello, II, i, 35-37: ‘Let's to the seaside, ho! As well to see the vessel that's come in, As to throw out our eyes for brave Othello.’ In Miss Jackson's Shropshire Word Book, 1867, we find: ‘Follow your looks boys and come to the fire,’ quoted from the Shropshire News, Nov. 20th, 1897.
Take my Cappe Warburton: Tho' Menenius is made a prater and a boon-compainon, yet it was not the design of the poet to have him prophane, and bid Jupiter take his cap. Shakespeare's thought is very different from what his editors dreamed of. He wrote, Take my cup, Jupiter, i. e., I will go offer a libation to thee for this good news, which was the custom of that time. There is a pleasantry, indeed, in his way of expressing it, very agreeable to his convivial character. But the editors, not knowing the use of this cup, alter'd it to ‘cap.’— Heath (p. 414): Mr Warburton's religious zeal is alarmed at the common reading, ‘my cap,’ which he therefore alters to my cup, but it unfortunately happens that, being in the street, he hath no cup at hand to make the libation out of; and though Mr Warburton understands this to be an engagement, that he will go home and offer the libation aforesaid, yet he seems in no great haste to acquit himself, but tarries on the stage until the procession is ended. In truth this gentleman's religion needed not have been so immoderately scrupulous. Here was no prophaneness intended. Menenius, on hearing the good news of Marcius, his return with victory, throws up his cap into the air as a token of his exultation; and at the same time that he thanks Jupiter offers him his cap, being the first thing that came to hand, as an acknowledgement of his protection of the republic. This is followed by a huzza in the usual form: ‘Hoo, Marcius coming home!’ Now what reason can be given why our poet might not have imagined a cap thrown up into the air with thanks as acceptable an offering to Jupiter as a libation, at least till an opportunity of offering the latter should present itself? But be this as it will, the libation is certainly out of the case for the reasons already given.—Johnson: Shakespeare so often mentions throwing up caps in this play that Menenius may be well enough supposed to throw up his cap in thanks to Jupiter.—Malone remarks that Warburton's proposed change is an indication of how little Warburton knew of Shakespeare.—W. A. Wright: He throws his cap into the air, Jupiter being especially the god of the sky.
Galen Grey: An anachronism of near 650 years. Menenius flourished Anno U. C. 260, about 492 before the birth of our Saviour. Galen was born in the year of our Lord 130, flourished about the year 155 or 160, and lived to the year 200.
Emperickqutique Ritson (Remarks, p. 141): ‘The most sovereign prescription in Galen (says Menenius) is to this news but empiricutick,’ an adjective evidently formed by the author from empirick (empirique), a quack.—Coleridge (Notes on Coriol.): Was it without, or in contempt of, historical information that Shakespeare made the contemporaries of Coriolanus quote Cato and Galen? I cannot decide to my own satisfaction.—Collier (Notes & Emend., etc., p. 351): Emperickqutique was not, if we are to believe the old Corrector, formed from ‘emperick,’ [as Ritson suggests], but was a blunder of the printer for two words which he absurdly combined in one, namely, ‘empirick’ and ‘physique,’ as physic was then often spelt: we ought, therefore, to read, ‘the most sovereign prescription in Galen is but empiric physic,’ etc. ‘Empiric physic’ is, of course, only quack medicine.—Singer (Sh. Vindicated, p. 213): The proposed reading, empirick physique, is plausible. The Corrector of my second Folio has effaced six letters in the middle of the word, leaving it empirique, which answers every purpose. The third Folio made a step toward it by printing empiricktique.—Hudson (ed. i.): There can be little doubt that ‘empirickqutique’ is a misprint for empirick physique, the correction in Collier's Folio.
brings a Victorie Capell (vol. I, pt i, p. 85): Here's another of Menenius' speeches, damag'd of the moderns by length'ning it—‘Brings he a victory, etc?’ The excess of Volumnia's joy breaks out, as nature wills that it should do, in indirect answers and broken expressions: ‘On's brows, Menenius,’ speaking exultingly, and instead of—he has it on his brows, Menenius; meaning the oaken garland that follows. And Menenius is not much behind her in extasy; showing it in short questions and quick passings from person to person; his sudden turn to the Tribunes (who are retir'd, and not gone as some editors make them), and then again to Volumnia, is of this nature; and so his abruption in his tale of the wounds.
On's Browes: Menenius, Mason (Comments on Johnson & Steevens, 1778, p. 249): This speech is wrong pointed; there should be a comma after Menenius, for it was the oaken garland, not the wounds, that Volumnia says he had on his brows. It appears afterwards that his wounds were in the shoulder and left arm. [As will be seen from the Text. Notes the pointing to which Mason takes exception is due to Theobald. The colon and comma of the Folio give actually the sense Mason requires.—Ed.]—Malone, in answer to Mason, says: ‘In Jul. Cæs. we find a dialogue exactly similar, “Cas. No, it is Casca; one incorporate
To our attempts.—Am I not stayed for Cinna?
Cin. I am glad on't,” [I, iii, 136],
i. e., I am glad that Casca is incorporate. But Mason appears to me to have misapprehended the passage. Volumnia answers Menenius, without taking notice of his last words, “The wounds become him.” Menenius had asked, “Brings he victory in his pocket?” “He brings it,” says Volumnia, “on his brows, for he comes the third time home brow-bound with the oaken garland, the emblem of victory.” If these words did not admit of so clear an explanation, in which the conceit is truly Shaksperian, the arrangement proposed by Mason might perhaps be admitted, though it is extremely harsh, and the inversion of the natural order of the words not much in our author's manner in his prose writings.’—Pye (p. 246): Mr Malone appears to me to have mis-apprehended the note of Mr Mason, who seems to give precisely the same meaning with Mr Malone. Indeed, I read both the notes several times over with very great attention before I could find what other meaning could be adduced from Mr Mason's note, but at last I found that he must suppose Mr Mason explains the passage thus, ‘He comes the third time home, with the oaken garland on's brows,’ a construction, as express'd, very uncongenial with Shakespeare's prose style. By comma I conceive Mason meant generally a stop; there is a colon in this edition. I prefer a period. This direction should have convinced Mr Malone that there was no idea of connecting so closely ‘his brows’ with what follows; if he had said only a comma, there might have been some ground for the supposition. But the illustration from Jul. Cæs. exactly corresponds with the idea of Mr Malone.
fiddious'd Wordsworth (Historical Plays, i, 120): This is explained to mean treated as Coriolanus treated Aufidius. And if this be correct the word may be compared with, ‘Master Fer. I'll fer him,’ &c., Henry V: IV, iv, 27; with the use of the participle ‘mousing’ in King John, II, i, 371; and with the verb ‘to badger’=to annoy, as dogs do a badger. . . . It occurs to me that the word here may possibly be formed from ‘Fidius,’ the Volscian and Sabine name of the god Hercules—‘trounced by him as by another Hercules!’ (there is a reference to Hercules below, IV, i, 22, and again IV, vi, 126); not, however, without allusion to Aufidius's name, which may have been derived from Fidius. Respecting this Volscian Hercules see Ovid, Fasti vi, 213.
the whole Name of the Warre W. A. Wright: That is, the whole credit or glory of the war. Compare 1 Henry VI: IV, iv, 9: ‘York set him on to fight and die in shame, That, Talbot dead, great York might bear the name.’ [It is, I must admit, with hesitation that I question any interpretation by Dr Wright, but may not this phrase refer to the fact that Cominius bestowed upon Marcius the title Coriolanus from the siege of Corioles? In I, ix, 71-73 Cominius says: ‘Therefore be it known . . . That Caius Martius wears this war's garland . . . and from this time For what he did before Corioles, call him . . . Marcus Caius Coriolanus.’ It is the account of this incident that Cominius includes in his report to the Senate.—Ed.]
wounded, God saue your good Worships Theobald (Letter to Warburton, February 12, 1729; Nichols, Illustrations, etc., ii, 481): You, dear Sir, alter the pointing of this passage, and imagine the people are to be apostrophised. It is true, the pointing is to be corrected, but Mr Pope's inaccuracy has given rise to your latter suspicion, for where he marks, l. 98, Exeunt Brutus et Sicinius, the old books only say Brutus and Sicinius aside, so that they do not go out, but only retire a little back to overhear what the ladies and Menenius talk of. Now when Menenius hears Marcius is returning from his conquest, he insultingly turns upon the Tribunes and cries: ‘God save your good worships! Marcius is coming; he has more cause to be proud.’ [See Text. Notes, l. 148.—Ed.]
there's nine that I know Warburton: Seven,—one,—and two, and these make but nine? Surely we may assist Menenius in his arithmetic. This is a stupid blunder, but wherever we can account by a probable reason for the cause of it, that directs the emendation. Here it was easy for a negligent transcriber to omit the second one as a needless repetition of the first, and to make a numeral word of too.—Malone, after quoting the substance of Warburton's explanation and proposed changes, adds this comment: ‘It is not without reluctance that I encumber my page by even mentioning such capricious innovations, but I am sometimes obliged to do so to introduce the true explanation of passages.’ —This note Boswell did not include in the Variorum of 1821. Malone does not provide any explanation, evidently preferring that that task be undertaken by Upton; see next note.—Ed.—Upton: The old man, agreeable to his character, is minutely particular: ‘Seven wounds? let me see; one in the neck, two in the thigh—Nay, I am sure there are more, there are nine that I know of.’—Schmidt (Coriolanus): Menenius concludes aloud an enumeration he has made to himself, and according to which Coriolanus has nine wounds, following the incidents just related by Volumnia.—Hudson (ed. ii.): Menenius probably has no reference to the wounds Volumnia was speaking of, but is probably trying to reckon up and locate those already known to himself; he therefore specifies three, and then, in his haste, merely states the gross number.—E. K. Chambers (Warwick Sh.): Menenius is not adding three to Volumnia's seven and making nine of them. He corrects her number by adding up all the Tarquin wounds, first aloud, then to himself, and finds there were nine.—Case (Arden Sh.): The usual explanation is that Menenius silently completes a reckoning of the wounds and arrives at a total of nine. I believe he supplements by opposing neck and thigh to body, and then he, or the poet, hastily claims nine instead of ten.
These are . . . Teares Walker (Crit., i, 20) remarks that these lines are, in the Folio, wrongly printed as verse, whereas they should be prose. See Text. Notes also.—Ed.
Death, that darke Spirit . . . men dye R. G. White: For reasons that will be apparent to the critical reader, when his attention is directed to the subject, I cannot accept this couplet as Shakespeare's. The second line might be even poorer in thought, and yet have the external semblance to Shakespeare's work, in which it is now utterly deficient. I believe the lines to have been added to the prompter's book to please the actor of Volumnia with a round, mouth-filling speech.—Herwegh (Erläuterungen und Bemerkungen, ed. Ulrici, p. 163): My poetic sense cannot recognise these verses, especially the utterly flat second one, as Shakespearian. They are not worth the time spent upon a painful translation of them. I quite agree with Grant White. [Herwegh is, I think, to be commended for his excellent paraphrase of this couplet: ‘Der finst're Tod den Nerv'gen Arm ihm lenkt,
Das Leben flieht, wo er ihn hebt und senkt.’
—Hudson (ed. ii.) and Rolfe likewise agree with White that these lines are unShakespearian.—Ed.]—Verity (Student's Sh.): What rhyme there is in Shakespeare's later plays is seldom if ever accidental. Here it lends a rhetorical emphasis to Volumnia's great pride in her son. It is a supreme moment, that demands an extra something for its full expression, and the rhyme gives the something.—Bayfield (p. 193): Surely the author of this wretched bombast was not Shakespeare? It reads like actor's ‘gag,’ and ‘in's’ is for once probably genuine.
Trumpets sound . . . a Herauld J. C. Young (p. 40): In the second scene of the second Act of Coriolanus, after the victory of the battle of Corioli, an ovation in honour of the victor was introduced with great and imposing effect by John Kemble. On reference to the stage directions of my father's interleaved copy I find that no fewer than 240 persons marched, in stately procession, across the stage. In addition to the recognised dramatis personæ, thirty-five in number, there were vestals, and lictors with their fasces, and soldiers with the spolia opima, and sword-bearers, and standard bearers, and cup-bearers, and senators, and silver eagle-bearers, with the S. P. Q. R. upon them, and trumpeters, and drummers, and priests, and dancing girls, &c., &c. Now, in this procession, and as one of the central figures in it, Mrs Siddons had to walk. Had she been content to follow in the beaten track of those who had gone before her she would have marched across the stage, from right to left, with the solemn, stately, almost funereal, conventional step. But at the time, as she often did, she forgot her own identity. She was no longer Sarah Siddons tied down by the conventions of the prompter's book; she broke through old traditions—she recollected that, for the nonce, she was Volumnia, the proud mother of a proud son and conquering hero. So that, when it was time for her to come on, instead of dropping each foot at equi-distance in its place, with mechanical exactitude and in cadence subservient to the orchestra; deaf to the guidance of her woman's ear, but sensitive to the throbbings of her haughty mother's-heart, with flashing eye and proudest smile, and head erect, and hands pressed firmly on her bosom, as if to repress by manual force its triumphant swellings, she towered above all around, and rolled, and almost reeled across the stage; her very soul, as it were, dilating and rioting in its exultation; until her action lost all grace, and yet became so true to nature, so picturesque, and so descriptive that pit and gallery sprang to their feet, electrified by the transcendent execution of the conception.
Titus Latius P. A. Daniel (Time Analysis, etc., New Sh. Soc. Trans., 1877-79, p. 185, foot-note): The introduction of Titus Lartius in this scene is an oversight which has hitherto been unnoticed, but which modern editors might take on themselves to correct. Lartius does not speak, nor is he mentioned in the dialogue as being present. In I, ix. Cominius places him in charge of Corioli. In II, ii. he is supposed to be still there, for Menenius says, ‘Having determined of the Volsces and To send for Titus Lartius,’ etc. He does not make his appearance in Rome till III, i, and there we should understand that he has returned from Corioli without waiting to be recalled. In answer to Coriolanus, who says, ‘Tullus Aufidius then had made new head?’ he replies: ‘He had, my lord; and that it was which caused Our swifter composition.’—Beeching (Henry Irving Sh.), in answer to the foregoing objection by Daniel, says: ‘Possibly Lartius was allowed to join the triumph upon the stage without the question being raised whether he had come to Rome on purpose.’—This Beeching repeats in his notes in the later Falcon Sh., adding thereto the significant remark that the words ‘between them,’ in the stage-direction, and later ‘You are three,’ l. 202, show that the slip was probably Shakespeare's.—Ed.
Corioles Gates For other examples of like noun-compounds see Abbott, § 430.
Martius Caius Schmidt (Coriolanus): The transposition of the name Martius Caius of the Folio to Caius Martius is, of course, the correction of an error, but an error for which undoubtedly Shakespeare, and not the compositor, is to blame, and it is not the office of the critic to correct the poet. That ‘Martius Caius’ has erroneously been repeated in the next line can hardly be doubted; even so little as it belongs in l. 174, since it rested with the Herald whether at the close he should announce the complete name without the addition of ‘renowned’ of this line. [Schmidt reads ll. 173, 174 as follows: ‘In honour follows Coriolanus. Welcome
To Rome, renowned Martius Caius Coriolanus.’—Ed.]
in honor followes Chambers, noting Steevens's regulation of the metre of this and the preceding line, says: ‘The third foot [after “follows”] is completed by a pause, to give due emphasis to the resounding name which follows.’ Martius Caius Coriolanus Malone: The Compositor, it is highly probable, caught the words ‘Martius Caius’ from the preceding line, where also in the old copy the original names of Coriolanus are accidentally transposed.
No more of this Mrs Griffith (p. 438): In the first scene of the first Act one of the discontented citizens charges Marcius with paying himself for his services, ‘with being proud’; and his reproach was just. But yet here he seems to appear in a light the very reverse of such a character; for when the herald, in the voice of Rome, is proclaiming his merits, he stops him short by crying out, ‘No more of this; it does offend my heart.’ He manifests the same modesty also in the scene following this. Again, when he is pressed to harangue the people in order to get himself elected Consul, he answers in the same style and spirit of character. But these seeming contradictions form in effect but one character still. The overvaluing his merits, and the undervaluing the applause of them, are both equally founded in pride, fierceness, and impatience. Plutarch draws a comparison of Coriolanus with Alcibiades; but I think he more resembles Achilles, as described by Horace: ‘Vigilant, irascible, inflexible, harsh, and above all laws; acknowledging no rights, but those of conquest.’
Kneeles Wordsworth (Sh's Knowledge and Use of Bible, p. 201): Nicholas Ferrar was born when Shakespeare began to write, viz., in 1592; and we are told of him, when he was twenty-seven years old, and his mother came to visit him at Little Gidding, that ‘though he was of that age, and had been engaged in many public concerns of great importance, had been a distinguished member of parliament, and had conducted with effect the prosecution of the Prime Minister of the day, at first approaching his mother, he knelt upon the ground to ask and receive her blessing’; and he kept up the same practice in his family; as did also, we read, Mr Philip Henry, who died in 1696; so that we have evidence of the existence of the custom during two centuries. Bishop Sanderson in 1657 mentions it as one of the observances which, in that disordered and distempered time, were cried down as ‘rags of popery.’ And there can be no doubt that during the Cromwellian usurpation our old English manners suffered not a little, and ‘many practices, which were themselves part and instruments of piety, were exploded and lost by being branded under that odious name’ (Eccles. Biog., iv, 180). There could not be a more striking illustration of the custom of which I have been speaking, than that Caius Marcius, on his return from the capture of Corioli and victory over the Volscians, should be made, as he is, to kneel and beg his mother's blessing.
deed-atchieuing Honor Whitelaw: Honour that, by inciting men to, may be said itself to achieve great deeds. [To this interpretation Schmidt (Coriolanus) rightly, I think, dissents; he says; ‘“Achieving” is here to be understood as the gerund, thus the phrase means honour which is achieved by deeds; according to the usual Shakespearian construction as in several other passages, for example, “an unrecalling crime,” Lucrece, 993, i. e., a crime that cannot be recalled; “his all-obeying breath,” Ant. & Cleo., III, xiii, 77, his breath which all obey, etc.’ Wright also thus interprets the present phrase.—Ed.]
My gracious silence, hayle Warburton: The epithet to silence shows it not to proceed from reserve or sullenness, but to be the effect of a virtuous mind possessing itself in peace. The expression is extremely sublime; and the sense of it conveys the finest praise that can be given to a good woman.—Steevens: By ‘gracious silence’ I believe the poet meant, ‘thou whose silent tears are more eloquent and grateful to me than the clamorous applause of the rest.’ So Crashaw: ‘Sententious show'rs! O! let them fall!
Their cadence is rhetorical.’
[Upon the Death of a Gentleman, ll. 33, 34, ed. Grosart, ii, 219. For the locating of this passage I gladly acknowledge my indebtedness to Dr Louis F. Benson.—Ed.] Again, in Love's Cure, or The Martial Maid, Beaumont and Fletcher: ‘A lady's tears are silent orators,
Or should be so at least, to move beyond
The honey-tongued rhetorician.’
[V, iii; ed. Dyce, p. 188. The Ed. notes that both Folios read ‘honest-tongu'd.’— Ed.] Again, in Daniel's Complaint of Rosamund, 1599: ‘Ah beauty, syren, fair enchanting good!
Sweet silent rhetoric of persuading eyes!
Dumb eloquence, whose power doth move the blood,
More than the words or wisdom of the wise!’
Again, in Every Man out of his Humour, ‘You shall see sweet silent rhetoric, and dumb eloquence speaking in her eye,’ [Act III, sc. i, p. 95, ed. Gifford. In a note on this passage the editor says: ‘I know not what Jonson found so ridiculous in the following extract, but this is not the only place in which he laughs at it.’ He then quotes the four lines from Daniel's Complaint of Rosamund given by Steevens. Gifford compares: ‘I will call you mine,
And trouble this good shame [Fulvia] no farther.’
—Catiline, III, ii, p. 263, and thus notes: ‘Cicero is complimentary and poetical at once—this modest and virtuous lady. Examples of a similar kind are to be found in Shakespeare and others, where the predominant quality of the moment is turned into an appellative. Thus Coriolanus terms Volumnia [sic.] his “gracious silence.”’—Ed.].—Malone: I believe ‘My gracious silence’ only means My beauteous silence or my silent Grace. ‘Gracious’ seems to have had the same meaning formerly that graceful has at this day. So, in the Mer. of Ven., ‘But being season'd with a gracious voice,’ [III, ii, 76]. Again, in King John, ‘There was not such a gracious creature born,’ [III, iv, 81]. Again, in Marston's Malcontant, 1604, ‘he is the most exquisite in forging of veines, spright'ning of eyes . . . that ever made an old lady gracious by torch-light,’ [II, iv; ed. Hal., p. 233. Murray (N. E. D.) corroborates Malone's belief as to the former signification of ‘gracious,’ quoting likewise the foregoing passage from Marston in illustration.— Ed.].—Ruskin (Academy Notes, 855; ed. Cook & Wedderburn, xiv, p. 16): In the whole compass of Shakespeare's conceptions the two women whom he has gifted with the deepest souls are Cordelia and Virgilia. All his other women can speak what is in them. These two cannot. The ‘Nothing, my lord,’ of Cordelia, and the ‘gracious silence’ of Virgilia are the everlasting seals set by the Master of the human heart upon the most sacred writing of its folded and golden leaves. Shakespeare himself could not find words to tell what was in these women. [Few, I think, realize how profound was the influence of Shakespeare upon the poetic soul of John Ruskin. In Cook & Wedderburn's definitive edition of his writings the Shakespearian references occupy ten columns of the Index; that is, five large 8vo pages.—Ed.]—C. & M. Cowden Clarke (Shakespeare): This name for his wife, who, while the others are receiving him with loud rejoicings, meets and welcomes him with speechless silence looking out from her swimming eyes, is conceived in the very fulness of poetical and Shakespearian perfection. It comprises the gracefulness of beauty which distinguishes her, and the gracious effect which the love-joy has upon him who shrinks from noisy applause and even from merely expressed approbation; and it wonderfully concentrates into one felicitous word the silent softness that characterizes Virgilia throughout. She is precisely the woman—formed by nature gentle in manner, and rendered by circumstances sparing in speech—to inspire the fondest affection in such a man as Coriolanus; and we accordingly find him a passionately attached husband. The few words he addresses to her in the course of the play are among the most intense utterances of spousal enamouredness that even Shakespeare has written. The dramatic portrait of Virgilia we have always considered to be one of the very finest of the poet's sketch-productions. It is put in with the most masterly touches; it paints her by very few strokes, very few colours; but they are so true, so exquisitely artistic that they present her to the life. She is supremely gentle, and, like most women whose gentleness is their chief characteristic, singularly immoveable, not to say obstinate, when once resolved; she is habitually silent, as the wife of such a man as Coriolanus and the daughter-in-law of such a woman as Volumnia would undoubtedly become, being naturally of a gentle disposition; and this combination of gentleness and silence is wonderfully drawn by Shakespeare throughout the character-portrait, and as wonderfully condensed here into one expressive name.— Case (Arden Sh.): Abstract for concrete is common, though, as given to the mute Virgilia, the title may have been suggested by the following passage in North's Plutarch, Life of Numa, ed. 1595, p. 72: ‘He, Numa, much frequented the Muses in the woddes. For he would say he had the most part of his revelations of the Muses and he taught the Romans to reverence one of them above all the rest, who was called Tacita, as ye would say Lady Silence.’
Com. And liue you yet Schmidt (Coriolanus): Compare Much Ado, ‘are you yet living,’ I, i, 119. The modern editors have needlessly assigned this speech to Coriolanus. While Coriolanus speaks with Virgilia Cominius turns to Volumnia, from whom he once more returns to Menenius. Thus his deprecating ‘O my sweet lady, pardon’ is most easily interpreted, otherwise we should not know wherewith to connect it. [Schmidt's interpretation strikes me as both awkward and undramatic. The speech palpably belongs to Coriolanus; the words ‘And live you yet’ are addressed jocularly to the older man, Menenius, who has just addressed Coriolanus for the first time since his entrance. He then catches sight of Valeria, and turns to her, asking her pardon for neglecting her unwittingly. Theobald had evidently a sense of the theatre keener than that of Schmidt.— Gordon suggests that the words of pardon are addressed to Virgilia, whereby Coriolanus ‘asks his wife to forgive him for jesting at her tears.’—Ed.].—Tucker Brooke (Yale Sh.): If l. 193 really belongs to Coriolanus, it is possible that ‘I know not where to turn’ should also be assigned to him, and Volumnia's speech begin ‘O! welcome home,’ which commences a new line in the Folio.
I could weepe, and . . . laugh Mrs Griffith (p. 438): [This and the speech wherein Menenius expresses his joy at receiving the letter] have a double beauty in them if 'tis considered by whom they are delivered. It would not have near the effect upon the Reader if spoken by a more stayed and sober person; for virtues are apt to strike us more forcibly in slight characters than in sober ones; and Menenius has already given us a description of himself, in the preceding scene, which sufficiently justifies me in this distinction.
Euer right . . . euer Tyrwhitt: Cominius means to say that ‘Menenius is always the same—retains his old humour,’ [see Text. Notes]. So in Jul. Cæs., V, i, upon a speech from Cassius, Antony only says, ‘Old Cassius still.’—Malone: By these words, as they stand in the Folio, I believe Coriolanus means to say, ‘Menenius is still the same affectionate friend as formerly.’ So, in Jul. Cæs., ‘for always I am Cæsar,’ [I, ii, 212].—C. & M. Cowden Clarke (Shakespeare): Cominius, assenting to their old friend's cheerfully philosophic way of taking the old ‘crab-trees'’ sourness, exclaims ‘Ever right’; and Coriolanus seconds his general's assent by adding, ‘Menenius, ever, ever’; meaning ‘our old friend always takes the right view of these fellows' crabbedness.’ We explain this because the passage has been altered as if it were incorrect.
change of Honors Theobald: ‘Change of honours’ is a very poor expression, and communicates but a very poor idea. I have ventur'd to substitute charge, i. e., a fresh charge or commission. These words are frequently mistaken for each other. So, afterwards, in this play: ‘And yet to change the sulphur with a bolt,’ [V, iii, 164]. For here we must likewise read charge; and so in Ant. & Cleo., ‘Oh that I knew this husband, which, you say, must change his horns with garlands!’ [I, ii, 5]. In the Maid's Tragedy (Beaumont & Fletcher) Charge is vice versâ printed instead of change, ‘For we were wont to charge our souls in talk,’ [III, ii, p. 373, ed. Dyce]. This, 'tis evident, is nonsense; but friends, by the communication of their thoughts to each other, are finely said to exchange souls in talk.—Warburton: Mr Theobald had better have told the plain truth, and confessed that ‘change of honours’ communicated no idea at all to him. However, it has a very good one in itself, and signifies variety of honours; as change of raiment, amongst the writers of that time, signified variety of raiment.—Capell, I, pt i, p. 86): Meaning new honours and various; the expression is copied from a very frequent one in the Old Testament—changes of garments, which we understand in a sense something similar.—C. & M. Cowden Clarke (Shakespeare): ‘Change of honours,’ we think, here means exchange of titles, in reference to his new surname of Coriolanus, by which he is to be henceforth known and addressed, in lieu of the former one, Caius Marcius. ‘The good Patricians’ have confirmed the title which Cominius bestowed upon him on the battle-field, and he must now ‘visit them’ to acknowledge their favour. His mother has just said by ‘deedachieving honour newly-named,—What is it? Coriolanus must I call thee?’ Shakespeare occasionally uses ‘change’ for exchange; While Coriolanus—esteeming his own family name an honourable title, one of honourable distinction— might very naturally and characteristically speak of adopting this new surname as a ‘change of honours.’—Schmidt (Coriolanus): The elucidators apparently find no difficulty in this phrase since they explain it as variety of honours, new honours, which is nevertheless somewhat unusual, especially as it is not plain just what honour is meant. Perhaps Shakespeare wrote ‘chance of honours.’ That is, the possibility, the outlook of honour, as in Macbeth, ‘chance of goodness,’ the outlook or hope of a fortunate issue. If ‘change’ is correct it must be somewhat like in Tam. of Shrew, ‘a double change of bravery,’ and thus mean a new decoration of honour.
inherited W. A. Wright: That is, literally, possessed; and hence realised, enjoyed. Compare Rom. & Jul., I, ii, 30: ‘Even such delight Among fresh female buds shall you this night Inherit at my house.’ And Tit. Andron., II, iii, 3: ‘To bury so much gold under a tree And never after to inherit it.’ [For ‘the Buildings of my Fancie’ in next line Wright compares ‘All the building in my fancy,’ Lear, IV, ii, 85.]
And the . . . vpon thee Abbott (§ 499), under the heading Apparent Alexandrines, rearranges these lines thus: ‘And the buildings of my fancy
Only—
There's one thing wanting which, I doubt not, but
Our Rome will cast upon thee.’ [See Text. Notes.]
I had rather . . . in theirs Verity (Student's Sh.): A significant foreshadowing. Coriolanus is, to a singular degree, a tragedy of premonitory hints and casual utterances which the after-course of events makes terribly momentous.
sway with them Beeching (Falcon Sh.): That is, ‘Be king amongst them.’ This is a note of character. Coriolanus did not aim at tyranny as the Tribunes thought; he preferred helping the state to hurting it; but, above all, he preferred his own will.
Exeunt, etc. Beeching (Henry Irving Sh.): Mr Daniel [Time Analysis] would mark a new scene here and a new day, thinking it improbable that Coriolanus should be made to arrive in Rome, stand for the Consulship, and be banished in one day. But such a criticism shows a misconception of the nature of time in tragedy, which is ideal, concerning itself only with the stages of an action.
Bru. E. K. Chambers (Warwick Sh.): The discourse of the Tribunes shows that, at the very moment of Coriolanus's triumph, he is near an unsuspected downfall. This elaborate description would be out of place in a modern play, because the increased capabilities of stage-effect would allow the scene to be represented more effectually to the eye. But for the rudimentary condition of the Elizabethan theatre we should have lost some of Shakespeare's finest descriptive passages.—S. Brooke (p. 230): The Tribunes are not carried away by the triumph of Coriolanus. They see in it a fresh danger to the liberty of the People for which they are contending; they lay a plot for his destruction as the enemy of the People, and it is just that they should do it. Coriolanus deserved death. The talk of Sicinius and Brutus, admirably conceived by Shakespeare, proves them masters of the situation. It is marked by that pitilessness towards the oppressing class which has characterised, in all revolutions of the people, the leaders of the people; and at the back of which is the long hatred of years, sometimes of centuries, as it was in the French Revolution. The enemy must be annihilated. And the way to destroy Coriolanus is clear—to work on his choleric pride till he insults the people. All tongues speake of him, etc. Koch (Einleitung, p. 13, foot-note): The influence of Shakespeare's Coriolanus upon Goethe is noteworthy. George Lewes in his novel-like biography of Goethe refers to the parallelism between Egmont, V, i, and Coriolanus, II, i, 221-237, [the present passage. This is not strictly true. Lewes quotes a passage from Egmont, V, i, which he translates as follows: ‘Stay! Stay! Shrink not away at the sound of his name, to meet whom ye were wont to press forward so joyously! When rumour announced his approach, when the cry arose, “Egmont comes! he comes from Ghent!” then happy were they who dwelt in the streets through which he was to pass. And when the neighing of his steed was heard, did not every one throw aside his work, while a ray of hope and joy like a sunbeam from his countenance, stole over the toil-worn faces which peered from every window. Then as ye stood in doorways ye would lift up your children and, pointing to him, exclaim, “See! that is Egmont! he who towers above the rest! 'Tis from him ye must look for better times than those your poor fathers have known!”’ Lewes says in his general criticism of Egmont that it ‘was conceived in the period when Goethe was under the influence of Shakespeare; it was mainly executed in the period when he had taken a classical direction. It wants the stormy life of Götz and the calm beauty of Iphigenia.’ Lewes does not, however, compare this with the present lines in Coriolanus. The parallelisms between the passage in Egmont and Jul. Cæs., I, i, 42-52 is, to me, much more striking. Marullus there berates the Citizens for their forgetfulness of Pompey in a strain similar to that in Egmont, and in a like situation.—Ed.]—Verity (Student's Sh.) compares this present passage with the above lines in Jul. Cæs., adding: ‘In either case the street-architecture seems that of Elizabethan London. Another example of Shakespeare's power of suggesting to the mind's eye some crowded, moving pageant is that wonderful picture (praised so by Dryden) of Bolingbroke's stateentry into London with King Richard in his train, Richard II: V, ii, 1-40. No doubt the use of these long passages of description was due to the lack of scenery on the Elizabethan stage, i. e., of means to appeal to the physical eye. The classical example is the scene in King Lear (IV, vi, 11-22), where the blind Gloucester wishes to throw himself from what he supposes to be Dover Cliff. Compare also the description of the cliff at Elsinore, Hamlet, I, iv, 70-78. The same thing is felt in the prologues of Henry V, especially Prol. iv. (describing the camp-scenes on the eve of Agincourt).’
spectacled Halliwell gravely tells us that Mr Fairholt has communicated to him that spectacles were not in use in the time of Coriolanus and the mention of these aids to vision is, therefore, an anachronism.
Into a rapture . . . crie Theobald, in a letter to Warburton dated Feb. 12, 1729-30, says: ‘This passage, I remember, stuck with us when I read this Play in company. What means a baby crying into a rapture? That, I suppose, can never signify crying itself into fits. We struck out this conjecture, which I beg leave to submit to you, ‘E'en to a rupture lets her baby cry,’ i. e., lets it cry till its navel starts; till it is ready to burst with the agony’ (Nichols, Illust. of Lit., vol. ii, p. 483). Warburton either forgot this or was unimpressed by its merit; in his edition his only note on this line is as follows: ‘“Rapture,” a common term at that time used for a fit, simply. So, to be rap'd, signified to be in a fit.’—S. W.: If the explanation of Bishop Warburton be allowed, a ‘rapture’ means a fit; but it does not appear from the note where the word is used in that sense. The right word is, in all probability, rupture, to which children are liable from excessive fits of crying. The emendation was the property of a very ingenious scholar long before I had any claim to it. [These initials, S. W., stand for Stephen Weston, the erudite and versatile antiquary who contributed a number of notes to Johnson and Steevens edition, 1785; later these were privately printed and issued in 1808 under the title: Short Notes on Shakespeare by way of Supplement to Johnson, Steevens, Malone, and Douce. This small volume is now a very rare Shakespearian item, but the notes, as may be seen by the foregoing, are not of any very great value as Shakespearian commentary. The ‘ingenious scholar’ to whom Weston refers is undoubtedly Theobald, possibly he was informed of this emendation by one of those present ‘in company’ when Theobald read the play and ‘stuck’ at this line.—Ed.]—Steevens: That a child will ‘cry itself into fits’ is still a common phrase among nurses. That the words fit and rapture were once synonymous may be inferred from the following in The Hospital for London's Follies, 1602, where Gossip Luce says, ‘Your darling will weep itself into a rapture, if you take not good heed.’ [This very apposite illustration has been frequently repeated by later commentators, but thus far no one has verified it by reference to the work itself. This has doubtless caused the plainly voiced suspicion of E. K. Chambers that The Hospital for London's Follies existed in the fertile imagination of Steevens. That the Puck of Commentators was not above such a prank is not to be gainsaid; examples of such are unfortunately quite frequent, but in no case with such circumstance of detail as here. That is, with full title, date, and name of interlocutor. The form Steevens chose was generally a vague title, without date or any means of identification. Thus: Old black-letter ballad of sixteenth century, the exact title of which he conveniently had forgotten. In the present case the work to which he refers is evidently a composition in prose, anonymous, and is now lost. A careful search through the voluminous catalogue of the library of Isaac Reed, which required thirty-eight days for the complete sale, and one also through the list of works comprising Steevens's own library, has been barren of certain results in placing this work to which Steevens refers. In the Reed Catalogue, No. 8349, among a mixed lot of plays there is one entitled Hospital for Fools, which is given in Baker's Biographia Dramatica, with the date of production at Drury Lane Theatre, 1739; this is, of course, so late as to throw it out of court. In the Steevens list item No. 914 is The Hospital of Incurable Fools, 1600. These are the nearest approaches to the title given by Steevens that I have been able to discover. A careful search of Arber's Transcript of the Stationer's Registers from 1599 to 1604 has failed to bring to light this very rare composition. It is not included in Halliwell's Dictionary of Old English Plays; in Hazlitt's Manual; in W. W. Greg's Lists of Plays and Masques, or in Chambers's exhaustive list. It is thus evidently one of those prose tracts in dialogue form which were so common at that period.—Ed.]—Blackstone (Shakespeare Society Papers, i, 99): A rapture is an odd effect of crying in babies. Dr * * * * would read it rupture. Only Qu. If crying ever produces this Effect? I have since enquired, and am told it is usual.—[‘Probably most fathers and mothers know that such is the fact,’ remarks Ingleby (Sh. Hermeneutics, p. 149), ‘but Blackstone might have learned it from a sixteenth century work, viz., Phioravante's Secrets, 1582, p. 5, where we read: “To helpe yong Children of the Rupture. The Rupture is caused two waies, the one through weakness of the place, and the other through much crying.” This emendation was independently proposed by two other critics; and it seems as good as an emendation can be; yet it has never been adopted, because it was conceived that the word in the text admitted of explanation and defense. Certainly “rapture” is just seizure; cf. Chapman's Iliad, xxii. (Taylor's ed., ii, 192); and Pericles, II, i, where “rupture” is, as was pointed out by Dr Sewell, an error of the press for rapture: “And spite of all the rupture of the sea, This jewel holds his biding on my arm.” Mr J. P. Collier (Farther Particulars, p. 41) quotes the parallel passage from the novel on which Shakespeare's play was founded: the hero says he got to land “with a jewell whom all the raptures of the sea could not bereave from his arme.” But there seems no sufficient authority for the employment of “rapture” in the sense of fit or convulsion; and that being so, we adhere to Blackstone's emendation, and believe that just as rapture in Pericles was misprinted rupture, so rupture in Coriolanus was misprinted rapture. At the same time we must bear in mind that Steevens adduced, in support of the old text a quotation which at least must give us pause.’ The passage from Hospital for London's Follies, given, see ante.]—R. G. White: The reading ‘Into a rupture,’ &c., has been proposed by some one, I quite forget whom—probably Sairey Gamp, or some other good woman who ‘monthlies.’—W. A. Wright: If ‘rapture’ be the right reading, it must be used in the sense of a fit. It has been, however, suggested that ‘rapture’ is a misprint for rupture to which children are subject from excessive fits of crying. That this is a medical fact there can be no doubt. [Wright here gives Ingleby's quotation from Phioravante and adds in conclusion: ‘Nevertheless I sincerely hope that Shakespeare did not write “Into a rupture lets her baby cry.”’—Deighton, likewise, in reference to the reading rupture says: ‘It is difficult to believe that Shakespeare would employ such coarse realism.’—I am quite in accord with the sincere hope expressed by Wright.—Ed.]
While she chats him Collier (Notes & Emendations, etc., p. 353): ‘Chats him’ is certainly intelligible in the sense of talks about him, though ‘chats of him’ would be more proper, but a note in the Folio, 1632, induces us to believe that Shakespeare did not use the term ‘chats’ at all, and that the word has been misprinted, the compositor taking double ee for a, and t (the commonest blunder) for r, ‘While she cheers him.’ This change is quite consistent with the context. [It would, I think, have been better had Collier been content with giving the MS. emendation without any attempt at explaining how it came about. The word cheers is perhaps consistent with the context, but his explanation is very far from consistent with the handwriting of the time. By no possibility could double ee be mistaken for a; the written e was then the reverse of our present form of the letter (more nearly resembling our written o); a was an open letter like u with the first minim above the line; the written r was a double letter much like the modern German script r, and t was a single stroke with the cross mark projecting towards the right.—Ed.]—Singer (Sh. Vindicated, etc., p. 214): That ‘chats him’ is a misprint there can be no doubt, but much doubt whether ‘cheers him’ is the word wanted. It savours too much of recent times. I have no doubt we should read, ‘While she claps him.’ For in Jul. Cæs. the rabblement ‘clap their chapped hands’ in approbation of Cæsar. Cheers is never used by Shakespeare in the sense of applauding.—Anon. (Blackwood's Maga., Sep., 1853, p. 321): Mr Singer suggests claps; but a woman with an infant in her arms would find some difficulty, we fancy, in clapping her hands; though, perhaps, this very difficulty and her attempt to overcome it may have been the cause of her baby crying himself ‘into a rapture.’ We are disposed, however, to adhere to the old lection, ‘while she chats him,’ that is, while she makes Coriolanus the subject of her gabble. For it ought to be borne in mind that Coriolanus has not as yet made his appearance, and, therefore, both cheering and clapping would be premature. We observe that instead of ‘a rapture’—i. e., a fit—one of the wiseacres of the Variorum proposes to read a rupture! She lets the baby cry himself into a rupturel! This outflanks even the margins. The annotator subscribes himself ‘S. W.’—which means, we presume, Something Wanting in the upper story.—Staunton: If any alteration [of the word ‘chats’] is desirable, shouts would perhaps be more suitable than either cheers or claps. Thus in I, ix, 63, Coriolanus remonstrates, ‘You shout me forth,’ etc.—Dyce (ed. ii.): These alterations, [cheers, claps, shouts] (none of them happy), still leave the metre imperfect, unless, indeed, we suppose it can be propped by laying a strong emphasis on ‘him.’—Hudson (ed. i.): It seems to us that ‘chats’ is just the right word, as it agrees precisely with ‘prattling.’ Of course ‘she chats him’ means ‘she makes him the theme of chat.’—Ingleby (Sh. Controversy, p. 161): A weekly paper called The Bulletin came out in 1859. It did not attain an extensive circulation, nor, judging from the few numbers which I have seen, did it deserve one. The number for June 11th of that year contained an article on the Perkins Folio [Collier's annotated Folio of 1632.—Ed.]. The writer pretended to prove that the manuscript notes were a modern fabrication, on the single ground that, in Coriolanus, II, i, in the passage ‘While she chats him’ the Corrector had superseded ‘chats’ by cheers. The writer in The Bulletin argued thus: ‘The verb “to cheer,” in the amended passage, is used in its modern sense of hurrahing, or shouting approvingly. Now in Shakespeare's time, and for 150 years afterwards—we believe we might state a longer period—the word had no such signification, and therefore it is evident that the “old corrector's” alteration is a modern deception.’ . . . The first statement is ‘begged.’ If ‘to cheer’ in the passage ‘While she cheers him,’ be taken in the sense of to enliven, the sense is perfect, and to cheer is used in an Archaic sense. The second statement is utterly untrue. To cheer in Shakespeare's day was used in the ‘sense of hurrahing or shouting approvingly.’ Thus, in Phaer's translation of the Æneid, the words ‘Excipiunt plausa pavidos’ (v, 575) is rendered, ‘The Trojans them did chere’; and this book was first published in 1558. [Fifteen years later Ingleby, in Sh. Hermeneutics (p. 148), dismisses this same passage with this brief remark: ‘Let us premise that “him” here means Marcius, not the baby. “Chats him” is, we think, corrupt; and many conjectures have been made, all alike inadmissible. Perhaps “claps him” is the best, but the metre halts for it.’—Ed.]—C. & M. Cowden Clarke (Shakespeare): The word ‘chats’ seems to us thoroughly characteristic in expressing gossips of, talks about; and of or about being elliptically understood after ‘chats’ gives a touch of familiar flippancy and slip-shod effect to the sentence which we think appropriate. The phrase almost anticipates the more modern commonism, or nursemaid idiom, ‘while she chats him over.’— W. A. Wright: That is, while she gossips about him. ‘Chats’ is looked upon as a suspicious word, and ‘chats to’ or ‘chats of’ have been proposed. The former is ob viously impossible. [Not surprising; it is Seymour's proposal.—Ed.] But, after all, there is no absolute reason for change. Although we have no other instance of ‘chat’ being use transitively, there is the analogous use of ‘speak,’ to which Schmidt (Lex.) refers. See II, ii, iii, and Cymbeline, I, i, 24, ‘You speak him far.’ Again in Henry VIII: IV, ii, 32, ‘Yet thus far, Griffith, gives me leave to speak him. [In reference to Singer's ‘claps him’ Wright urges the same objection as that by the anonymous writer in Blackwood's Maga., viz., that it is not explained how the nurse could hold the baby and clap her hands at the same time. I am loath to add another to the several conjectural changes in the word ‘chats’; but with great diffidence suggest that, as it is evident that the populace is supposed to be in expectation of the appearance of Coriolanus, the word here may be waits; the close proximity of the two words, almost synonymous, ‘prattling’ and ‘chats,’ seems hardly in Shakespeare's manner. Thus the prattling nurse while waiting for Coriolanus lets her baby weep itself into a fit. In the handwriting of the time waits and ‘chats’ are not very dissimilar.—Ed.] Malkin Bradley (N. E. D.): A familiar diminutive of Matilda, Maud (2). An untidy female, especially a servant or country wench; a slut, slattern, drab; occasionally a lewd woman. [The present line quoted. In the Variorum, 1821, there is almost an entire page devoted to the different meanings of this word with accompanying illustrative extracts, but, as Dyce says (Remarks, etc., p. 161), whether it mean mop, cat, scare-crow, or vulgar wench is beside the point, since ‘kitchen malkin’ here means only kitchen-maid.—Ed.]
Lockram Bradley (N. E. D., s. v. 1.): A linen fabric of various qualities for wearing apparel and household use. Also an article made of lockram. (From Locronan, literally ‘cell of St Ronan,’ the name of a village in Brittany, where the fabric was formerly made.) [The present line, among other examples, quoted.] reechie W. A. Wright: Literally, smoky, reeky; hence, begrimed with dirt, filthy. In Much Ado, III, iii, 143, the proper reading is, ‘Like Pharaoh's soldiers in the reechy painting,’ where reeky has been substituted. See also Hamlet, ‘A pair of reechy kisses,’ III, iv, 184.
Bulkes Murray (N. E. D., s. v. sb2.): A framework projecting from the front of a shop; a stall. [The present line quoted. For the origin of this word, see Skeat (Dict., s. v. 3.) or Ibid. (Notes on English Etymology, s. v.).—Ed.]
Complexions W. A. Wright: ‘Complexions’ is here used for dispositions, temperaments, and not in its usual sense of colour or aspect. This is evident from what follows. People of the most various dispositions, having nothing else in common, all agreed in their curiosity to see Coriolanus. Compare Hamlet, I, iv, 27, ‘By the o'ergrowth of some complexion Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason.’ There were four complexions, or temperaments, in the language of old medical writers—the sanguine, melancholy, choleric, and phlegmatic. [Com pare also, ‘Shylock, for his own part, knew the bird was fledged; and then it is the complexion of them all to leave the dam.’—Mer. of Ven., III, i, 31.—Ed.]
seld-showne Flamins Steevens: That is, priests who seldom exhibit themselves to public view. The word is used in Humour out of Breath, John Day, 1608, ‘O seld-seen metamorphosis,’ [V, ii; p. 74, ed. Bullen]. The same adverb likewise occurs in the old play of Hieronimo, ‘Why is not this a strange and seldseen thing.’ [This line is from The Spanish Tragedy (not Hieronimo), Act IV; p. 107, ed. Dodsley. Compare also, ‘The seld-seene Phenix ever sits alone,’ Humour out of Breath, I, i; p. 9, ed. Bullen. That this form of the adverb should be thus frequently connected with ‘seen’ is, perhaps, significant. Wright enters upon a detailed discussion of the connection between ‘seld’ and seldom, with an etymology of the two forms; showing that these both are found in the Anglo-Saxon as well as the Icelandic.—Ed.]—Grey (ii, 164): Might not Shakespeare have wrote Fell-shown from their caps, which were sometimes made of sheeps wool? Or might not Pile-shown be as proper? as Plutarch observes: ‘That some of these Priests were called Pileamines, from the Greek word pilos, or the Latin one pileus, which signifies a sort of hat, which was peculiar to them. Varro derives the word Flamen, a Filo, quo caput cinctum erat, from a bonnet made of wool, or flax, which the Flamines wore in hot weather; but, according to others, the word came from a linen fillet they used to bind round their heads. Hence, say they, came the word Filamen, and by contraction Flamen.’ Flamins Case (Arden Sh.): Flamens were priests devoted to the service of a particular deity. See North's Plutarch, 1579, Life of Numa, ed. 1595, p. 71: ‘His second act was that he did adde to the two priests of Iupiter and Mars a third, in the honour of Romulus, who was called Flamen Quirmalis.’ The word was sometimes applied more generally by English writers, as perhaps by Shakespeare himself in Timon, IV, iii, 155, ‘hoar (i. e., make white with disease) the flamen.’ The N. E. D. gives only one example earlier than that in the text, from Bellenden's Livy, 1553, ed. 1822, p. 34: ‘Yit we institute the sacrifice that pertenit to the flamin diall.’ The form flamin, reflecting the i of the oblique cases and nominative plural of the Latin word, is also Shakespeare's, and common.
a vulgar station Malone: That is, a station among the rabble. So, in Comedy of Errors, ‘A vulgar comment will be made of it,’ [III, i, 100].—Steevens: ‘A vulgar station,’ I believe, signifies only a common standing place, such as is distinguished by no particular convenience.
Warre of White and Damaske Warburton: This commixture of white and red could not, by any figure of speech, be called a war, because it is the agreement and union of the colours that make the beauty. We should read, ‘the ware of white and damask,’ i. e., the commodity, the merchandise.—Edwards (p. 164): Perhaps some other profess'd critic, disliking Mr Warburton's commodity, and being offended with the idea of veniality, which the word merchandise gives in this place, may tell us we should read, Commit the Wear, i. e., haazrd the wearing out—commit from commetre, an old French word, which is no small recommendation to it. But a poor poetical reader would let this figure pass, and not be alarm'd (except for his own heart) on account of this innocent war between the roses and lilies in a lady's cheek; remembering that beautiful, though simple, description of it in the old Ballad of Fair Rosamund: ‘The blood within her crystal cheeks
Did such a colour drive
As though the lily and the rose
For mastership did strive.’
If Mr Warburton should object to the authority of this unknown poet, I hope he will allow that of Shakespeare himself, who in his Lucrece has these lines: ‘Their silent war of lilies and of roses
Which Tarquin view'd in her fair face's field,’ [l. 71].
So also in Taming of Shrew, ‘Such war of white and red within her cheeks,’ [IV, v, 30]. There is also a like passage in Venus & Adonis: ‘To note the fighting conflict of her hue
How white and red each other did destroy,’ [l. 346].—
Heath (p. 415): The author of the Canons of Criticism hath very justly and with great pleasantry exploded this most homely conjecture of Mr Warburton's, and at the same time fully vindicated the ancient reading.—Johnson: Has the commentator (i. e., Warburton) never heard of roses contending with lilies for the empire of a lady's cheek? The opposition of colours, though not the commixture, may be called a war. [Malone, justly, terms Warburton's emendation ‘absurd,’ and quotes in support of the text the lines from Venus & Adonis already given by Edwards, without acknowledgment however; and Steevens, in answer apparently to Johnson's query, gives, besides those passages from Lucrece and Taming of Shrew already quoted by Edwards, one from Chaucer, The Knight's Tale, ll. 1038-1040; one from a madrigal by Wootton in England's Helicon; one from Massinger's Great Duke of Florence. I have not quoted these at length, as it is evident from those already given that this idea of a conflict between the white and red was a favorite one not only with Shakespeare, but with other writers also. See, if needful, for several other quotations in somewhat the same vein, King John, III, i, 55, 56 (p. 166), this edition.—Ed.]
nicely gawded Schmidt (Coriolanus): This is commonly interpreted as adorned so daintily, but ‘gawd’ (from Latin gaudium) evidently does not mean ornament, but rather something wherein one takes pleasure, even though it be not very valuable, and what one regards and protects as an ornament. Thus the only admissible meaning of ‘nicely-gawded’ here is protects with pains and with care, or, by means of a veil, carefully escapes the stroke of the sun. [In his Lexicon, a few years later, Schmidt places these words, nicely-gauded, under a separate caption with the definition, ‘scrupulously treated as a precious thing, carefully guarded and preserved,’ with the present passage as the only example of this usage.— Kinnear (p. 310) refers the words ‘nicely-gauded’ to the scarfs or veils with which the ladies covered their faces, on the strength of ll. 299-301: ‘Matrons flong gloves, Ladies and Maids their scarfs and handkerchers Vpon him as he pass'd.’—W. A. Wright interprets this compound adjective as daintily adorned, referring it to the cheeks.—Miss C. Porter (Folio Sh.) is in favor of Schmidt's interpretation as given in his Lexicon, since it suits the context, and ‘seems preferable to any allusion to painted cheeks.’—Both Schmidt's and Kinnear's interpretation seem to me equally far-fetched and needless, when so simple a meaning can be given as that of Wright. It is to be borne in mind that Brutus is here speaking quite as contemptuously of the Ladies as of the Kitchen Malkin. The one he considers beneath him, the others he despises simply because they are aristocrats, he a representative of the common people. The words ‘nicely gauded’ are used as a covert sneer.—Ed.]
As if that whatsoeuer God Johnson: That is, ‘as if that god who leads him, whatsoever god he be.’—Malone: So, in our author's Sonnet xxvi, ‘Till whatsoever star that guides my moving, Points on me graciously with fair aspect.’ Again, in Ant. & Cleo., ‘he hath fought today, As if a god in hate of mankind had Destroy'd in such a shape,’ [IV, viii, 25].—Abbott (§ 286): Here ‘that’ is probably the demonstrative. It might, however, be the conjunctional that, [as in] ‘If that the youth of my new interest here Have power to bid you welcome,’ Mer. of Ven., III, ii, 224.
On the suddaine . . . sleepe Verity (Student's Sh.): A significant indication of the motives of the Tribunes in regard to Coriolanus. From this point of view the remainder of the scene is very important.—Beeching (Falcon Sh.): It must be remembered in extenuation of the Tribunes' subsequent action that Brutus here says no more than the truth.
He cannot . . . and end Capell (vol. I, pt i, p. 86): The author's intended sense in these lines can be no other than that Marcius could not carry his honours temperately from beginning to end, but it will be hard to find from beginning to end of his works one that is worse express'd.—Malone: Our author means, though he has expressed himself most licentiously, he cannot carry his honours temperately from where he should begin to where he should end. The word ‘transport’ includes the ending as well as the beginning. He cannot begin to carry his honors, and conclude his journey, from the spot where he should begin, and to the spot where he should end. I have no doubt that the text is right. The reading of the old copy is supported by a passage in Cymbeline, where we find exactly the same phraseology: ‘—the gap That we shall make in time, from our hence going And our return, to excuse,’ [III, ii, 64]. Where the modern editors read ‘Till our return,’ etc.—Whitelaw: That is, He will make shipwreck by the way, for he will begin by claiming too much, and he will not know where to stop. ‘From where he should begin and end’ is usually explained as, from where he should begin, to where he should end; and a similar expression is quoted from Cymbeline. The passage in Cymbeline admits of no other explanation, but here it seems better to connect ‘transport . . . and end’—He will not know how to advance temperately, step by step of honour, from a modest and wise beginning—and so temperately end.—Hudson in his ed. i. accepts without question Malone's interpretation; in his ed. ii. he adopts, however, a conjectural reading by Seymour, ‘to th' end,’ acknowledging that at the time of receiving this into the text he was not aware that he had thus been anticipated; as his reason for making this change he says: ‘I have tried in vain to make any sense out of the Folio reading; and the strained yet futile attempts which have been made at explaining it are, to me, strong argument of its being wrong; for by the same methods almost any words may be made to yield almost any sense. Another reading has occurred to me, “'Tween where he should begin and end.” This would give the same sense, or nearly the same, as the reading in my text. And as the capitals F and T are commonly written, either might easily be mistaken for the other; under which mistake the rest of the word would naturally be assimilated accordingly.’—[That the capitals F and T are somewhat alike in modern script is quite true, but they did not resemble one another in the handwriting of Shakespeare's time. Capital F was represented by simply doubling the minuscule f, while T was a crescent-shaped curve opening to the right with a cross mark and dot on the upper part.—Ed.]—Tucker Brooke (Yale Sh.): That is, He cannot, as a self-restrained man could, derive honor from both the beginning and the completion of his performances. He cannot go an equable pace and conclude with the same honors with which he begins.
Doubt not . . . prowd to doo't Page (Moffat's Sh.): The construction is rather involved: Doubt not (i. e., be sure) that the commoners, whom we represent, will, by reason of their ancient ill-will to him, forget these new honors of his, if they have the least cause, which I am as sure he will give them as (I am sure that) he is proud of doing so.
they Vpon their . . . mallice For other examples of this redundant object see, if needful, Abbott, § 414.
As he is prowd to doo't Warburton: I should rather think the author wrote prone, because the common reading is scarce sense, or English.—Heath (p. 415): I own the contruction is a little embarrassed, which is occasioned by the omission of the particle, that, in the last line, whereas in compleat construction the text should have been, ‘As that he is proud to do't.’ But this is a peculiarity not uncommon in Shakespeare's phraseology. This irregularity, however, is not in the least helped by Mr Warburton's alteration, which, besides, teaches the reader nothing, whereas the common reading informs him of the ground of the speaker's assurance, to wit, the known pride of Coriolanus. For the sense is, Which cause I make as little question that he will give, as I do, that he hath pride enough to do so.—Capell (vol. I, pt i, p. 86): ‘As that he is proud to do't’ or has pride enough to do't; and, indeed, 'twere advisable, and no breach of the rules of severest criticism, to suppose a printer's omission, and let the particle stand where it does, [i. e., in Capell's own text.—The Cowden Clarkes accept Warburton's interpretation, adding as comment on this and the preceding line: ‘This sentence affords an instance of Shakespeare's using a pronoun in reference to a not lastnamed antecedent, and of his elliptical mode of making a comparison.’—Ed.]
The Naples Vesture J. M. Robertson (Baconian Heresy, p. 191): It is now perfectly established that Shakespeare drew for his Roman plays mainly on North's translation of Amyot's Plutarch; that where North errs, following Amyot, Shakespeare errs, following North; that at no point does he supplement him; and that, in his ignorance or disregard of chronology, he makes additional mistakes of his own. The blunder of making Lartius speak of Cato as a contemporary or predecessor is one of these. The blunder about ‘the napless vesture of humility’ is another, made through following North, who took Amyot's ‘robbe simple’ to mean ‘a poor gown.’ The Baconians and the critics who persist in assigning Titus Andronicus to Shakespeare have alike failed to realize that the writer of the ‘Candidatus’ passage in that play knew the fact that public men seeking office in Rome wore a white toga, whereas the writer of Coriolanus knew of no such usage. To ascribe to him profound and exact knowledge of Roman history in the face of such facts as these is but to exhibit superficiality and inaccuracy.
then haue . . . to put Abbott (§ 350): With the infinitive the to is often omitted in the former of two clauses and inserted in the latter, particularly when the finite principal verb is an auxiliary or like an auxiliary. [In corroboration Abbott furnishes many examples.—Ed.]
as our good wills Theobald, in a letter to Warburton, dated Feb. 12, 1729, says: ‘I read, “As our good will is,”’ but does not so read either in his first or second editions.—Johnson has ‘will's,’ which is also the reading of the Variorum of '78, and '85; and Tyrwhitt in a note in the former edition says ‘this should be written will's for will is.’—Malone explains the passage thus, ‘It should be to him of the same nature as our dispositions towards him: deadly.’—Mason: Neither Malone nor Tyrwhitt have justly explained this passage. The word ‘wills’ is here a verb, and ‘as our good wills’ means ‘as our advantage’ requires. [It is somewhat unusual to find three commentators apparently independently proposing the same emendation. The Cambridge Edd. assign the reading will's to Johnson, but Theobald is entitled to priority, while Tyrwhitt seemingly was unaware that he had been ancitipated.—Ed.]
for an end Heath (p. 416): The sense seems to require that we should read, ‘For that end,’ that is, for the end which had been just mentioned by Sicinius.—Schmidt: All the modern editors here, departing from the Folio, place a period after ‘authorities,’ and connect ‘for an end’ with what follows. But in order that such an alteration be permissible it must be remembered that ‘for an end’ has here the meaning which they attribute to the phrase in short or lastly. It is not found elsewhere and is only thus explained in this passage, where it is most naturally to be understood as finally, in the end. [Wright cites in substance the foregoing, adding that Schmidt ‘in his Lexicon took a different view, and there renders it “to cut the matter short.”’—This is a slight inadvertance on the part of Wright; Schmidt quotes the present passage as his last example under (2) preceding it by the words, ‘In the same sense,’ which refer to the heading ‘finally’ a few lines above; but Wright has evidently taken the words as referring to a preceding heading ‘there is no more to say about it’ near the middle of the paragraph. Schmidt is at least consistent in his interpretation.—Ed.]
suggest C. T. Onions (N. E. D., s. v. 2.): To prompt (a person) to evil; to tempt to or to do something; to seduce or tempt away. Two Gentlemen: ‘Knowing that tender youth is soon suggested, I nightly lodge her in an upper tower,’ III, i, 34. [Under b ‘To insinuate into (a person's mind) the (false) idea that, etc.’ Onions quotes the present line; and also, ‘Some persons have endeavored to suggest and insence ye minds of the good people, That the Governor had a designe.’ 1689, Coll. Rec. Pennsylvania, I, 297.—Ed.]
to's power Steevens explains this, ‘as far as his power goes, to the utmost of it’; but it is, I think, rather as Abbott (§ 186) takes it ‘in proportion to, according to’; he compares ‘The Greeks are strong and skilful to their strength,’ Tro. & Cress., I, i, 7, and ‘That which we have we prize not to the worth,’ Much Ado, IV, i, 220. Abbott does not give any examples of to used in the sense to the utmost.—Ed.
dispropertied their Freedomes Whitelaw (Rugby Ed.): That is, Made their freedom no freedom; taken from it all properties of freedom. [Murray (N. E. D., s. v. disproperty vb.) quotes the present line as the only example of the verb in the sense ‘to deprive of property; to dispossess.’—Case (Arden Sh.) arrives at the same conclusion as Whitelaw, arguing that since Shakespeare uses ‘propertied’ in the sense of possessed of a quality the present phrase should mean, literally, dispossessed of the qualities of freedom and freely interpreted ‘dispossessed them of their liberties.’—Ed.]
in their Warre M. Mason (Comments, etc., p. 249): In what war? Camels are mere beasts of burden, and are never used in war.—We should certainly read, ‘As camels in their way.’—Steevens: I am far from certain that this amend ment is necessary. Brutus means to say that Coriolanus thought the people as useless expletives in the world, as camels would be in the war. I would read the instead of ‘their,’ ‘Their,’ however, may stand, and signify the war undertaken for the sake of the people. Mr Mason is, however, not correct in the assertion with which his note begins; for we are told by Aristotle that shoes were put upon camels in the time of war. See Hist. Anim., ii, 6, p. 165, ed. Scaligeri.—Malone: ‘Their war’ may certainly mean, the wars in which the Roman people engaged with various people, but I suspect Shakespeare wrote ‘in the war.’ [W. S. Walker (Crit., i, 299) also proposes this change. That all three commentators were apparently unaware that in this they had been long since anticipated a reference to the Text. Notes will show.—Ed.]—Mitford (Gentleman's Maga., Nov., 1844) likewise objects to Mason's assertion, remarking that ‘Alexander used camels with his armies in the east’; and cites the foregoing note by Steevens.—E. K. Chambers (Warwick Sh.): I think the pronoun ‘their’ has its point. Coriolanus and the patricians think that the wars concern them alone; they, not the plebeians, are the city. Prouand Murray (N. E. D., s. v.): Food, provisions, provender; especially the food provided for an army. 1590. Sir J. Smyth: Disc. Weapons, Ded. iij b. That their Souldiers instead of pay with money, should be payed in Prouand, which was bread and cheese. [The present line also quoted. The forms provant, provend, provender are all variants of the same word, provend being the earliest form. Murray connects the earlier forms with the French; the later with the Flemish.—Ed.]
teach the People Theobald: Why should it be imputed as a crime to Coriolanus that he was prompt to teach the people? Or how was it any soaring ambition in a Patrician to attempt this? The Poet must certainly have wrote ‘Shall reach the people,’ i. e., When it shall extend to impeach the conduct or touch the character of the people. A like mistake upon this word has pass'd the Maid's Tragedy in all the copies: ‘If thy hot soul had substance with thy blood,
I would kill that too; which being past my steel,
My tongue shall teach.’
For here, too, we must correct reach.—Malone: This may mean ‘When he, with the insolence of a proud patrician, shall instruct the people in their duty to their rulers.’ Mr Theobald reads, I think, without necessity, ‘shall reach the people.’— Steevens: The word ‘teach,’ though left in the text, is hardly sense, unless it means ‘instruct the people in favour of our purposes.’ I strongly incline to the emendation of Mr Theobald.—Knight: We do not alter the text, but we incline to think that touch is the word, as in Othello, ‘Touch me not so near,’ [II, iii, 220.—Hanmer has, however, anticipated Knight in this; it is also the reading of Collier's MS. Corrector. Of Knight's proposed change Collier was as unaware, as Knight was unaware, of Hanmer's reading.—Ed.]—Delius: No alteration is necessary if ‘teach’ be taken in the sense of instruct, and if we understand that the inserted parenthesis has, as so frequently with Shakespeare, confused the construction: If we, at some time, suggest to the people wherein Coriolanus's insolence shall teach them—what is to be done, should follow—instead of which the inserted clause follows: which time shall not lack, if one incites him to it, that is, to such insolence, and that is as easy as to set dogs on sheep—then, without concluding the sentence, ‘teach the people,’ the first clause is resumed; this suggestion will be as a fire to Coriolanus to set the stubble of the people in a blaze.— W. S. Walker (Crit., iii, 210): What can ‘teach’ mean? Possibly touch, i. e., annoy, provoke. Reach (which was suggested to me by soaring) seems still less unlikely. [Lettsom, Walker's editor, remarks in a foot-note that neither of these conjectural readings is original. It is, however, well to remember that Walker's facilities for consulting the work of his predecessors were of the meagrest.—Ed.]— Leo (Coriolanus): If the Tribunes must ‘suggest to the people’ they cannot hope that ‘teaching’ would do for the purpose; only touching will teach the people, whose mental power is not very great.—Keightley (Expositor, p. 362): There is, perhaps, an aposiopesis here; otherwise I should incline to read touch, as Knight and Collier's Folio also read.—Whitelaw: ‘Teach’; that is, what manner of man he is; open their eyes. Or, perhaps, as Gideon ‘taught’ the men of Succoth, [Judges, viii, 16].—Schmidt (Coriolanus): ‘Teach’ may be explained through a logical anacoluthon, which is caused by the following parenthesis. The infinitive which should follow is thereby forgotten by the speaker. At the same time it is to be remembered that ‘to teach’ is used by Shakespeare at times in wider sense for, incite, prevail upon, as in ‘If thou teach thy spleen to do me shame,’ King John, IV, iii, 97; ‘His false cunning taught him to face me out of his acquaintance,’ Twelfth Night, V, i, 91.—W. A. Wright: If ‘teach’ be the true reading, the sentence is perhaps abruptly broken off. Sicinius was perhaps an early believer in the mob, and regarded it as an act of insolence to presume to teach them.—Case (Arden Sh.): Mr Craig left in the text the emendation reach, which he had recently adopted in The Little Quarto Sh., but his collections for a note show that he had come to prefer touch, as do many editors. He cites for its meaning (sting, hurt), Cymbeline, IV, iii, 4: ‘Heavens, how deeply you at once do touch me!’ and concludes, ‘The reading of Folio is “teach,” which can hardly be right.’ For this reason I place touch in the text, but record my own opinion strongly against any alteration. I take the intended meaning to be: ‘When his insolence shall teach the people their mistake, and the danger of putting this present hero in authority.’ His insolence is to begin their enlightenment, and the Tribunes will continue the instruction and better it by their insinuations.—Beeching (Falcon Sh.): Hanmer's reading, touch, gives the right sense. Cf. Bacon's Essay 32, ‘Speech of touch towards others.’ If ‘teach’ be read, the sentence may be regarded as unfinished; supply ‘his true disposition,’ ‘what to expect from him.’ [In his previous text prepared for the Henry Irving Sh. Beeching adopted Hanmer's reading; but in the later text he retains the Folio reading.—Ed.]—Tucker Brooke (Yale Sh.): If we time our incitement to some occasion when his insolence shall confirm it in the people's mind. Hanmer's reading is a very plausible correction, but not inevitable.
his fire . . . for euer Eaton (p. 126): A passage very similar in metaphor to this is to be found in the 18th verse of the book of the prophet Obadiah: ‘The house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble, and they shall kindle in them, and devour them.’ his fire Malone: Will be a fire lighted by himself. Perhaps the author wrote—as fire. There is, however, no need of change. [One instance, among several others, of the fact that Malone did not examine the texts of his predecessors, and particularly Capell's, with the care demanded by ‘the dull duty of an editor.’ See Text. Notes.—Ed.]
Matrons flong Gloues, Ladies . . . Scarffes Malone: Here our author has attributed some of the customs of his own age to a people who were wholly unacquainted with them. Few men of fashion in his time appeared at a tournament without a lady's favour upon his arm; and sometimes when a nobleman had tilted with uncommon grace and agility, some of the fair spectators used to fling a scarf or glove ‘upon him as he pass'd.’ 303. A Shower, and Thunder, etc.] W. A. Wright: For a similar distribution compare V, iii, 110, and Macbeth, I, iii, 60: ‘Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear your favours nor your hate’; that is, neither beg your favours nor fear your hate. And Winter's Tale, III, ii, 164: ‘Though I with death and with Reward did threaten and encourage him.’
carry with vs Eares and Eyes Johnson: That is, let us observe what passes, but keep our hearts fixed on our design of crushing Coriolanus.