This text is part of:
breake . . . generosity Johnson: That is, to give the final blow to the nobles. ‘Generosity’ is high birth.—Steevens: So in Meas. for Meas., ‘The generous and gravest citizens.’—IV, vi, 13. [Wright also quotes in illustration: ‘The generous islanders, By you invited, do attend your presence.’—Othello, III, iii, 280.]—Miss C. Porter (First Folio Sh.) gives quite a different interpretation of this: ‘Make it useless for generosity to have any heart, or yield any favors, since by this measure feebleness was given strength enough to make bold power show alarm. Martius, distrusting the people thoroughly, regards concessions as extremely dangerous. These vigorous speeches, pelting with direct hard words those standing before him, are Shakespeare's freely dramatic creations. Yet he has infused the spirit of Martius's advice to the Senate about the people into this mould of his own. According to Plutarch, in the first disturbance, Martius held that “leuity . . . was a beginning of disobedience” that would “bring all to confusion”; also, in the second, that the people did not equal the nobles “in true nobility and valiantness.” When Plutarch's words directly fit his situation, the Poet finds them good enough to borrow with adaptations; when he needs something more direct and biting, as here, he himself fashions it, but not without foundation.’
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.
