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Wollen Vassailes Capell (vol. I, pt i, p. 92): What shall we say is the sense of the epithet ‘Woolen’? Clothed in wool does not satisfy; and the editor rather inclines to think it has some particular meaning which does not occur to him; or else, that the word is not right, and yet he does not think it is—wooden.—C. & M. Cowden Clarke (Shakespeare): The way in which ‘them’ is used here, alluding to the common people, affords a fine instance of Shakespeare's dramatic way of abruptly commencing a scene, as well as of using a pronoun in reference to an unnamed but thoroughly understood antecedent. The term ‘woolen vassals’ here shows Shakespeare's intention to convey the circumstance that the garment worn by the Plebeians was of wool; and this lends support to our interpretation of the word ‘woolvish’ as given in our note on II, iii, 115. At the same time the epithet ‘vassals’ affords confirmation to our surmise that slavish may have been the word for which the Folio printers mistakenly substituted ‘wooluish.’— Miss C. Porter (First Folio Sh.): So the ‘rude Mechanicals’ of Mid. N. Dream (III, i, 79) are called ‘hempen home-spuns.’ The ‘woolen statute cap,’ by English law worn by commoners whose income was under 20 marks, has perhaps influenced this reference to coarse clad vassals or dependents. [All sumptuary laws were repealed in the first year of King James I. (1603); six or seven years before the date of composition of this present play.—Ed.]
William Shakespeare. Horace Howard Furness, Jr., A. B.; Litt. D. The Tragedie of Coriolanus. Philadelphia and London. J. B. Lippincott Company.
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