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

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easie groanes Steevens: That is, slight, inconsiderable. So in 2 Henry VI: ‘—these faults are easy, quickly answer'd,’ [III, i, 133].—Schmidt (Lex., s. v. 3.): Requiring no great labour or exertion, soon done. ‘With very easy arguments of love,’ King John, I, i, 36.

the Virginall Palms Warburton: By ‘virginal palms’ may be indeed understood the holding up the hands in supplication. Therefore I have altered nothing. But as this sense is cold and gives us even a ridiculous idea; and as the passions of the several intercessors seem intended to be represented, I suspect Shakespeare might write pasmes or pames, that is, swooning fits, from the French pasmer or pâmer. I have frequently used the liberty to give sense to an unmeaning passage by the introduction of a French word of the same sound, which I suppose to be of Shakespeare's own coining. And I am certainly justified in so doing by the great number of such sort of words to be found in the common text.—Johnson: It is not denied that many French words were mingled in the time of Elizabeth with our language, which have since been ejected, and that many which are known then to have been in use may be properly recalled when they will help the sense. But when a word is to be admitted, the first question should be, by whom was it ever received? in what book can it be shewn? If it cannot be proved to have been in use, the reasons which can justify its reception must be stronger than any critic will have to bring.—Edwards (p. 99): Mr Warburton must sure have a very hard heart if the idea of virgins holding up their hands in supplication for their lives and honor can seem to him either cold or ridiculous, and nothing will satisfy him but

making them swoon that he may have an opportunity of bringing in a French word.—Heath (p. 429): The author of the Canons of Criticism hath very justly exposed Mr Warburton's most ridiculous emendation, . . . though the word [pasms or pâmes] as a noun is as unknown to the French as it is to the English language, and probably to every language that is human. I do indeed admit that ‘a great number of French words are incorporated in our language, and used by Shakespeare in common with other writers’; but that there are a great number of such words to be met with in his writings which are of his own coining, and peculiar to himself, is a circumstance which, I must confess, hath escaped my observation. But granting the fact to be true; is that a sufficient justification for over-loading him with such words by wholesale for mere fanciful conjecture only, in defiance of the authority of all his editions, and that too when their text expresses his meaning in English full as well, and frequently much better, and with more force and elegance? To detect the weakness and insufficiency of Mr Warburton's defence we need but apply the reasoning on which it is founded to a similar instance. Whoever hath but dipped into Shakespeare must have observed a certain obscurity, which may be considered as one of the characteristic peculiarities of his style, arising in great measure from the grandeur, the strength, and the exactness of his conceptions, which he could not equal by the force of his expression, though his powers even of this kind were never excelled by any other writer. It is the business of a critic to illustrate these obscurities, but he would be justly laughed at and exploded if he should set about multiplying their number under the pretext that he was strictly adhering to Shakespeare's manner.—Steevens: The adjective ‘virginal’ is used in Woman is a Weathercock, 1612, ‘Lav'd in a bath of contrite virginal tears,’ [III, ii, Hazlett-Dods., p. 53]. Again in Spenser, Faerie Queene, ‘She to them made with mildnesse virginall,’ Bk ii, cant. ix, [v. 20, l. 4].—Malone: So in 2 Henry VI: ‘—tears virginal Shalt be to me even as the dew to fire,’ [V, ii, 52].—Singer (Sh. Vindicated, p. 226): It is possible that for ‘virginal palms’ we should read ‘virginal qualms’; the words would be easily mistaken for each other in old manuscript. ‘Virginal palms’ may, however, mean the palms or hands of the maidens joined in supplication.—R. G. White (Sh's Scholar, p. 366): Indeed, Mr Singer! may it? Is it possible? Can such an obvious and simple construction of a plain but beautiful passage be dreamt of in your philosophy? I must ask pardon for noticing such attempts on Shakespeare's text, and for noticing them as I do; for, in truth, I should as soon expect an intelligent reader, not to say a competent editor of Shakespeare, ‘to expostulate . . . Why day is day, night, night, and time is time,’ as thus to raise a question on what it would seem impossible to misunderstand.