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

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'Twas from the Cannon Johnson: Was contrary to the established rule; it was a form of speech to which he has no right.—M. Mason (Comments, etc., p. 252): These words appear to me to imply the very reverse. Cominius means to say ‘that what Sicinius had said was according to the rule,’ alluding to the absolute veto of the Tribunes, the power of putting a stop to every proceeding; and, accordingly, Coriolanus, instead of disputing this power of the Tribunes, proceeds to argue against the power itself and to inveigh against the Patrician for having granted it.—Pye (p. 249): I am rather inclined to the last opinion if ‘canon’ is meant for rule; but it is very probable that Shakespeare (considering his little attention to this sort of propriety) might mean that the absolute shall of the Tribune came as loudly as if from the mouth of a cannon.—[Miss C. Porter (First Folio Sh.), without reference to the foregoing remark, characterises ‘Cannon’ here as ‘an anachronism which has lacked notice because commonly explained in the sense of canon as rule or law.’ An interpretation which, to me at least, is inconsistent with the dignified language of this scene.—Ed.]—C. &. M. Cowden Clarke (Shakespeare): We hold with Mason's explanation, because it consists with Sicinius's speech at the commencement of the last scene of this Act, ‘When they hear me say, “It shall be so, i'the right and strength o'the Commons,” . . . insisting on the old prerogative and power,’ &c.; but the present passage affords a remarkable instance of the directly opposite sense which the word ‘from’ may give to a sentence, according to the sense in which the word is used and taken.— Rev. John Hunter: Imitated from the decalogue, in which the word ‘shall’ occurs so frequently, ‘Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon 'gainst self-slaughter,’ Hamlet, I, ii, 131.—Schmidt (Coriolanus), in support of the interpretation given by Johnson that ‘from the canon’ here means contrary to law, quotes Hamlet, III, iii, 22, ‘For anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing’; and Twelfth Night, I, v, 201, ‘But this is from my commission.’—Wright likewise follows Johnson, and to the two examples given by Schmidt adds: ‘Why birds and beasts from quality and kind,’ Jul. Cæs., I, iii, 65.—Orger (p. 62): If Cominius interrupts the speech with the words ‘'Twas from the Canon,’ they can only mean, as Mason paraphrases, ‘it was according to law.’ But such a declaration is little calculated to assuage Coriolanus's violence, and the meaning of ‘canon’ in all other places is ‘Divine Law,’ the language of the Ten Commandments. The imperious ‘shall’ Coriolanus might naturally declare belonged to a law with heavenly sanction, not to mortal voice; and the force of the term will be preserved if we continue the speech to him without interruption, ‘His absolute “shall,”—'Twas from the canon, “Shall”!’—[Johnson's, rather than Mason's, interpretation is adopted by the majority of modern editors.—Ed.]

115. O God! but most, etc.] Theobald (Sh. Restored, p. 180): After this ex

clamation, methinks, 'tis very odd to continue the sentence with such a disjunctive ‘But.’ Besides, as the text now stands, there seems that contrast of terms wanting, and broken off, which appears intended in this passage by the next immediate line. As the addition of a single letter restores us this beauty, I make no doubt but the passage ought to be restor'd, ‘O good, but most unwise,’ etc.—Heath (p. 418): I am inclined to believe the ancient reading, ‘O God! but most unwise Patricians,’ etc., is genuine; only I would rather read O Gods! The particle ‘but’ is not employed here merely as a disjunctive, but as introductive of the objection or reproof which was to follow; and that double antithesis in this and the next line, which Mr Theobald thinks was intended, and admires as a beauty, appears, on the contrary, to me to be too studied to be the language of passion, which is expressed with much greater spirit by the exclamation and break in the ancient reading. That of Mr Theobald is tame and flat in comparison of it, like the formal exordium of an oration.—Steevens (Variorum, 1773): ‘O Gods!’ Thus the old copy. Succeeding editors had altered it, ‘O good.’ When the only authentic copy affords sense, why should we depart from it?—Malone, in answer to the foregoing question by Steevens anent the Folio reading, says: ‘No one can be more thoroughly convinced of the general propriety of adhering to the old copy than I am; and I trust I have given abundant proofs of my attention to it by restoring and establishing many ancient readings in every one of these plays, which had been displaced for modern innovations; and if in the passage before us the ancient copy had afforded sense I should have been very unwilling to disturb it. But it does not; for it reads, not “O Gods!” as Mr Steevens supposed, but “O God!” an adjuration surely not proper in the mouth of a heathen. Add to this that the word “but” is printed with a small initial letter in the only authentic copy; and the words “good but unwise” here appear to be the counterpart of “grave and reckless” in the subsequent line. On a reconsideration of this passage, therefore, I am confident that even my learned predecessor will approve of the emendation now adopted.’—Steevens: I have not displaced Mr Malone's reading, though it may be observed that an improper mention of the Supreme Being of the Christians will not appear decisive on this occasion to the reader who recollects that in Troilus & Cressida the Trojan Pandarus swears ‘by God's lid,’ the Greek Thersites exclaims ‘God-a-mercy’; and that in Mid. N. Dream our author has put ‘God shield us!’ into the mouth of Bottom an Athenian weaver. I lately met with a still more glaring instance of the same impropriety in another play of Shakespeare, but cannot, at this moment, ascertain it.