This text is part of:
fore my Warres Whitelaw: That is, many a one who before my wars was heir.—Schmidt (Coriolanus): Probably the expression is to be understood in a sense similar to ‘before’ in V, iv, 19, wherewith other Shakespearian references agree: ‘the king before the Douglas' rage
Stoop'd his anointed head,’ etc, 2 Henry IV: Ind. 31.—
W. A. Wright: ‘'Fore my wars’ is connected with ‘groan and drop.’ Compare Twelfth Night, III, i, 140, ‘how much the better to fall before the lion than the wolf!’ [This interpretation is generally accepted by modern editors.—Ed.] 18. Oh World, thy slippery turnes, etc.] Warburton: This fine picture of common friendship is an artful introduction to the sudden league which the poet made him enter into with Aufidius, and no less artful an apology for his commencing enemy to Rome.—Verity (Student's Sh.): Coriolanus's reflections on the mutability of friendship and enmity are designed to diminish the shock and unnaturalness of his own defection.—Beeching (Henry Irving Sh.): Notice in this speech how characteristically Coriolanus treats his alliance with Aufidius as nothing but a private concern. He has left old friends for new, that is all. The state is but his birth-place.
William Shakespeare. Horace Howard Furness, Jr., A. B.; Litt. D. The Tragedie of Coriolanus. Philadelphia and London. J. B. Lippincott Company.
NSF, NEH: Digital Libraries Initiative, Phase 2 provided support for entering this text.
