[Scene VI.]
Scene VI. Singer (ed. ii.): The place of this scene has been hitherto marked at Antium, but from what Aufidius says at l. 110 it must have been at Corioli.—Leo (Coriolanus): Aufidius' words, ‘thy stolne name Coriolanus in Corioles,’ may be read in two different ways: ‘thy in Corioli stol'n name,’ and then Antium may be right [as the locale of this scene]; but if we read, ‘Dost thou think I'll grace thee in Corioli,’ then Antium must give way for Corioli, though Plutarch calls Antium the native town of Aufidius, and the Conspirator says, ‘your native town,’ l. 59.— C. &. M. Cowden Clarke (Shakespeare): We believe—judging from other points in the scene—that ll. 109, 110 do not mean, ‘Dost thou think I'll grace thee in Corioli with that robbery, thy stolen name of Coriolanus?’—we believe that they mean, ‘Dost thou think that I'll grace thee with that robbery, thy name of Coriolanus stolen in Corioli?’ If the emphasis be thrown on ‘I,’ we think the author's intention in the sentence will be clear. The points in the scene which make us believe that Shakespeare intended it to be laid in Antium are these: In the first place Antium was the capital of the Volscian territory, Corioli only one of the towns on its borders; therefore it was likely that the capital was the place to which Coriolanus and Aufidius would return to render an account of their expedition to Rome; and, accordingly, the latter begins by sending to ‘tell the lords of the city,’ &c. When they enter they bid him ‘welcome home’; and we know that Aufidius' residence was at Antium. The First Conspirator says, ‘Your native town you enter'd like a post, and had no welcome home.’ Coriolanus tells the lords of the city, ‘We have made peace, with no less honour to the Antiates than shame to the Romans’; and these very lords of the city are also here styled ‘heads of the state,’ which shows that they were chief rulers, rulers of the Volsces generally, and not merely city authorities belonging to any one of the Volscian towns. Finally—and which we think conclusive, because North's Plutarch was evidently the authority that Shakespeare followed throughout most closely—Plutarch distinctly states that Marcius and Aufidius returned to Antium when they came back from Rome.—Herwegh (ap. Ulrici: Coriolan.) brings forward substantially the same reasons for accepting Antium as the locale of this scene, but says, ‘At the same time we do not wish to lay any special stress on the remark of the Conspirator to Aufidius in regard to his entrance into his native town, since possibly may be urged against this the remark of Volumnia, “His wife is in Corioli.”’— Rolfe: We should infer from l. 138 that this scene is not in Corioli. Surely Coriolanus would not have said this, but rather ‘in this city here,’ or to that effect; but we believe that none of the commentators have referred to this as a reason for not following Singer in placing this scene in Corioli. According to Plutarch Antium should be the place.—Beeching (Falcon Sh.): There can be no doubt that the scene is laid in Antium. For (1) it was from Antium that Coriolanus received his commission, and he returns to report upon it; and (2) in l. 97 he speaks as though the Antiates alone were involved in the war. Further, in l. 59, the scene is called Aufidius's native town, and this was Antium. It is an additional argument that Plutarch makes him perish at Antium.—Gordon: Editors are divided whether to place this scene in Antium or Corioli. The solution seems to me to be this: Shakespeare meant the scene to be Antium, and wrote with Antium in his mind until he came to Aufidius's speech, ll. 109, 110. There he was carried away by the magnificent opportunity of placing ‘Coriolanus in Corioli,’ and for the rest of the scene thought rather of Corioli than of Antium.—Case (Arden Sh.): That the army should come back to a small town like Corioli seems most improbable, and ll. 96-98 must have been spoken in Antium, not in Corioli. There, not the Antiates but the Volscians would have been named. Mr Gordon's solution seems very reasonable.—Tucker Brooke (Yale Sh.: The text of this scene is inconsistent in locating it first at Antium, the Volscian capital, and later at Corioli. Professor Gordon's explanation is highly satisfactory.
theirs For other examples wherein mine, hers, theirs are used as pronominal adjectives before their nouns see Abbott, § 238.
Him I accuse Abbott (§ 208): Him is often put for he by attraction to ‘whom’ understood. ‘Him (he whom) I accuse,’ etc. [Other examples of this construction follow.]
deliuer you Of . . . danger For other examples wherein ‘of’ is used in the sense out of, or from, with verbs that signify depriving, delivering, see Abbott, § 166.
He watered . . . so my Friends Case (Arden Sh.): Here we are told figuratively that Coriolanus fostered with refreshing flattery the new growths of intimacy and ascendency arising in his favor from union with the Volscians in a common cause. The use of ‘watered’ is illustrated by a passage supplied by Mr Charles Crawford from a letter from Sir Francis Bacon to Sir George Villiers, August 12, 1616: ‘After that the King shall have watered your new dignities, with the bounty of the lands which he intends you,’ etc. Some, including Craig, are confident that Aufidius wilfully misrepresents Coriolanus here, knowing well that ‘He would not flatter Neptune for his trident, Or Jove for's power to thunder.’ At any rate even courtesy would seem flattery in the jealous eyes of Aufidius.
and free W. S. Walker (Crit., i, 76): My ear tells me that Shakespeare never could have so concluded a period; neither could he have used ‘bow'd’ so absolutely. Part of a line has dropped out, somewhat to the following effect: ‘But to be rough, unswayable and free,
[To an enforc'd observance.]’
holpe to reape Theobald (Sh. Restored, p. 182), evidently misled by the fact that the Second, Third, and Fourth Folios here read ‘hope’ or ‘hop'd,’ and unfortunately not consulting the First Folio, offers as an original emendation the present reading, ‘holpe.’ His note on this is to the effect, that hop'd could not be the reading intended by Shakespeare, which is undoubtedly true. Theobald in his edition adopts the Folio reading without comment, doubtless having discovered his error on collating the Folios. Heath (Revisal, p. 433) is even more astray than was Theobald; he goes out of his way to find fault with Warburton for his failure to credit the reading ‘holpe’ to Theobald, and enters upon a defense of the reading hop'd, ‘being persuaded that it is right and genuine.’ As his note is, however, merely an interpretation of a reading which has not been accepted by any editors other than Rowe, and Pope in his ed. i, it is needless to repeat it here.—Ed.
Which he did end all his Collier (Notes & Emendations, p. 364): Shakespeare is here only using a metaphor which he has often employed before, and it is obvious from the context that for ‘end’ we ought to read ear [the MS. correction], which means in its derivation, as well as in its use, to plough; therefore when Aufidius says that he had ‘Holp to reap the fame Which he did ear all his,’ he means that Coriolanus had ploughed the ground, intending to reap a crop of fame, which Aufidius had assisted him to harvest. The use of the word ‘reap’ proves what was in the mind of the poet. It is needless to enumerate the places where Shakespeare employs the verb, to ear, in the sense of to plough.—Collier (ed. ii.), after quoting with approbation the foregoing MS. correction, adds: ‘We are not satisfied that Shakespeare's word was not in instead of ‘end’; to in a harvest is to get it in; and in All's Well, I, iii, 47, our poet uses both ‘ear’ and in technically, “He that ears my land, spares my team, and gives me leave to in the crop.” So we might amend the passage before us thus, “—holp to reap the fame Which he did in all his”; that is to say, “I helped to reap the crop, which he harvested as entirely his own.”’—W. N. L. (Notes & Queries, April 16, 1853): To ear is to plough. Aufidius complains that he had a share in the harvest, while coriolanus took all the ploughing to himself. We have only, however, to transpose reap and ear, and this nonsense is at once converted into excellent sense. The old corrector blindly copied the blunder of a corrupt but not sophisticated manuscript. This has occurred elsewhere in this collection. [The initials W. N. L. are but a transparent disguise through which we may detect Collier's redoubtable opponent, W. N. Lettsom. Singer (Sh. Vindicated, p. 227) repeats substantially the foregoing communication, duly crediting it to ‘a correspondent in N. & Q.,’ and in his ed. ii. remarks that the reversal is also to be found on the margin of his annotated 2nd Folio.—Ed.]—Tycho Mommsen (Der Perkins Folio, p. 181): Although the common reading, ‘end,’ gives an intelligible meaning, yet it would have been much finer to have had here some word which continued the metaphor. Certainly ear does this, but on further examination the doubt arises whether ear and reap, the former in the sense to plough, should not be reversed, that thus in the original manuscript there may have been an interlineation and an erasure. In his ed. ii. of Notes & Emend. Collier proposes inne. This emendation of the MS. corrector would then be one of the most dubious. Could to ear be made to signify, as does the German ärndten, the gathering in of the grain, then the emendation would be excellent; the reading of gleaning can hardly be accepted, but that of ploughing is impossible. It may be urged against this meaning and reversal (which I notice Singer also proposes) that to ear has for its object the ground, and not the corn, as has reap.—Staunton: Is not ‘end’ an erratum for bind? So in As You Like It, III, ii, 113, ‘They that reap must sheaf and bind.’ Again, in Beaumont & Fletcher's Bonduca, IV, iii, ‘—when Rome like reapers, Sweat blood and spirit for a glorious harvest, And bound it up, and brought it off,’ [ed. Dyce, p. 71]. And in the ancient Harvest Song, ‘Hooky, hooky, we have shorn And bound what we did reap.’—W. W. [Williams] (Parthenon, August 16, 1862): When, in the Literary Gazette of March 15, I submitted what I thought to be a new reading of a passage in Coriolanus, Act V, scene vi, I was not aware that Mr Staunton had proposed the same alteration in a note in his edition, and had confirmed it by passages from other writers. The correction occurred to me long prior to the publication of Mr Staunton's Shakespeare; but any credit that may attach to it is fairly due to Mr Staunton as having been the first to print it. I am but too happy to find my conjecture so satisfactorily confirmed. [It is gratifying to record such generosity as this in those past days characterized by bitter controversy and jealousy as to priority among emendators, and we can but sigh, Utinam sic omnes, etc.—Ed.]—Arrowsmith (Editor of Notes & queries, and Mr Singer, p. 8): Since when has this word [‘end’] been a stumbling-block to the commentators? The answer to the inquiry would supply a shrewd conjecturer with the means of fixing the date of the old commentator's era. If Mr Singer's interpretation of the old commentator's ear be true, if by ear is here meant plough, then is his corruption of the text . . . open to an objection which ousts it from its usurped place in the text altogether, either as a substitute for reap or for end, and remands it to the shop from whence it issued. Fame in the passage represents the crop, and whatever be the custom in Cockneydom, we country folk do not plough the crop, but the land for the crop. If this, then, be a sample of the old or any other commentator's critical acumen—if this be the process by which Shakespeare's nonsense is to be distorted into ‘resplendent sense’—it is a quality and an art that workingday men would hardly covet. Should, however, the old commentator's ear signify something else than plough, then all that is got through his corruption of the text is ignotum per ignotius, and the sense, if sense there be, is very obscurely resplendent; nor would it prove a Herculean labour to match him at his own game. Thus, ‘holp to reap the fame which he did inn all his.’ The metaphor is preserved, the term pertinent and familiar, and the resemblance in the letters of inn and end as close as in those of end and ear. [Arrowsmith was quite unaware that he had been forestalled in this emendation.—Ed.] To them, on the other hand, that regard the old commentator as an authority, that imagine his readings are derived from more authentic sources than those of the received text, how humiliating it must be to learn that the shallowest Gloucestershire or Herefordshire auctioneer is competent to verify the reading which this ridiculous impostor has not merely failed to understand, but on that account has impudently corrupted. [Arrowsmith here quotes from two announcements by auctioneers of the above localities wherein occur the phrases ‘well-ended hay ricks,’ ‘well-ended wheat ricks,’ adding in a foot-note that he encloses with his communication these two advertisements in order ‘to preclude all suspicion of dishonesty.’—Ed.] But supposing no proof could be adduced that end is a technical phrase in harvest work, yet the ordinary signification of the word would fully justify its use by Shakespeare here.— R. G. White: The reading of Collier's folio has been received with favor, though it is admitted that it makes a transposition necessary. But there is not the least necessity for this violence to the original text. Aufidius helped to reap the fame which Coriolanus made, in the end, all his.—C. & M. Cowden Clarke (Shakespeare): The word ‘end’ has been variously altered, but we take the sentence to be the elliptical form of a usual idiom, ‘which he did end by making all his,’ signifying, ‘which he, in the end, made all his.’—Wellesley: ‘Which he did end all his’ is not satisfactory. The conjecture ear for ‘end’ is ingenious and tempting as preserving the metaphor, but it would be necessary in order to apply it to the case that we should not read ‘he,’ but we—‘Which we did ear, all his.’ If the earing had been by Coriolanus, he might claim the reaping. As a simpler form of expressing the complaint of Aufidius I would propose, ‘Which he declar'd all his.’ In the old handwriting cl might be mistaken for d and r for n; so that declar'd might have been read did end by the compositor. [An unfortunate attempt at justification, since it but serves to show how superficial is Wellesley's acquaintance with ‘old handwriting’; by no possibility could the two letters c and l in the current handwriting of Shakespeare's time be mistaken for the single letter d; the same applies equally to the letters r and n.—Ed.]—Ingleby (Sh. Hermeneutics, p. 61): There is not the faintest obscurity about this metaphor; and nothing in this passage but the inflection ‘holpe’ is entirely obsolete, and that, of course, never stuck with anybody. The whole force of suspicion has fallen upon the unoffending verb, end! Why, in the name of common sense? Aufidius says that he helped Coriolanus to reap the crop, that he endured with him ‘the burden and heat of the day,’ but that Coriolanus ended it, and made it all his own. Certainly no difficulty in this phraseology would be presented to the mind of the rudest midland farm-labourer. We may still hear the farmers of Worcestershire and Herefordshire employ that verb in a technical sense in speaking of their crops. Ending a crop is gathering it. A well-ended crop is one that is secured in good condition, or has made a good end.—Whitelaw: That is, contrived finally to appropriate.—W. A. Wright: To ‘end’ a crop was the technical term for getting it in and housing it, and in all probability is a corruption of ‘in,’ which is so used in Tusser's Five Hundred Points of Husbandry, p. 64 (English Dialect Society's edition): ‘Some countries are pinched of medow for hay,
Yet ease it with fitchis as well as they may.
Which inned and threshed and husbandlie dight,
Keepes labouring cattle in verie good plight.’
And in Bacon's History of Henry VII., ‘All was inned at last into the Kings Barne; but it was after a Storme.’ Cotgrave has ‘Engranger, To inne corne, &c.; to put, or shut, vp in a barne.’ And Palsgrave, Lesclarcissement de la Langue Francoyse, ‘I inne, I put in to the berne. Je mets en granche.’ Compare also All's Well, I, iii, 48, ‘He that ears my land spares my team and gives me leave to in the crop.’ When the true word is once corrupted to ‘end,’ of course a meaning is fitted to it, and it is interpreted of ending or finishing the harvest. In this sense it is still in use in Surrey, Sussex, Hallamshire, and probably elsewhere. The insertion of ‘d’ after a liquid is frequent in common pronunciation. Hence ‘vile’ becomes ‘vild,’ and we know that Johnson gave as a proof of Mrs Pritchard's vulgarity that she called a gown ‘a gownd.’—Rolfe: That is, made all his own at last. The use of ‘end’ would not be singular, even if it had not been shown that it is a provincial term for getting in a harvest, still used in Surrey, Sussex, and elsewhere.— Deighton: That is, which he garnered up for himself.—Case (Arden Sh.): The metaphor in reap is believed to be carried on in end, taken as a dialectal term for getting in or stacking a crop. The Eng. Dial. Dict. cites Milton, L'Allegro, 109, ‘His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn That ten day-labourers could not end.’ —Verity (Student's Sh.): In its ordinary signification end gives good sense— Aufidius helped to reap the crop, but in the end Coriolanus made it all his own. The Glossary of the Globe Ed. says that end is ‘a corruption of in’ (quite a common verb = ‘to get in the harvest’); I do not know what evidence there is to support this view.
He wadg'd me with his Countenance Johnson: This is obscure. The meaning I think is, he ‘prescribed to me with an air of authority, and gave me his countenance for my wages; thought me sufficiently rewarded with good looks.’— Bradley (N. E. D., Wage, vb. II, 7): To engage or employ for wages; to hire: (a) for military service. Obs. [The present line quoted; also], 1599 Hayward 1st Pt, Life Henry IV., 68, ‘Assone as the Duke was come into Brittaine he waged certaine souldiours, and presently departed to Calice.’ [Under 9. To pay wages to. Bradley gives many more examples; in some of the earlier quotations the word is spelt as here, wadge. The use of the word ‘Mercenary’ here in connection with ‘wadg'd’ is evidently Bradley's justification for giving it this special, almost technical, meaning.—Ed.]—Staunton quotes Johnson's interpretation, and remarks, ‘But “countenance,” or we mistake, means here not looks, but entertainment’; in support of this Staunton quotes ‘you must meet my master to countenance my mistress,’ Tam. of Shr., IV, i, 101. [This is not, however, to the purpose; ‘countenance’ in this last quotation does not mean, as Staunton asserts, entertain, but to grace, to honour. Neither Schmidt, in his Lexicon, nor the N. E. D. give any example wherein ‘countenance,’ as a verb, means to entertain, or as a noun means entertainment.—Ed.]—Rev. John Hunter: That is, he specified or limited my worth or estimation with his patronage. This passage would have seemed less obscure to the commentators if they had compared it with the following in North's Plutarch, ‘—all other governors and captains must be content with such credit and authority as he would please to countenance them with.’—W. A. Wright: That is, rewarded me with his favour or patronage, patronized me. For this sense of ‘countenance’ compare 1 Henry IV: I, ii, 33, ‘Being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.’ And Hamlet, IV, ii, 16: ‘Ros. Take you me for a sponge, my lord?
Ham. Ay, sir, that soaks up the king's countenance, his rewards,
his authorities.’—
Miss C. Porter (First Folio Sh.): An obscure word still more obscured by the change of Rowe to ‘waged’ [see Text. Notes], but which seems from the context to mean something more pictorial in shake and thrust out of the face during vehement and authoritative speech than the unsatisfactory waged of the modernising editors. Their only explanation is ‘patronized,’ of which they give no example. It clearly is not the case that it here means, hire or pay wages to. [I regret that I must here take exception to Miss Porter. In the first place, if the Folio reading is more obscured by the modern spelling the editor of the Third Folio, not Rowe, is responsible. Secondly, no modern editor, as far as I know, has interpreted ‘wadg'd’ or wag'd as patronized. Wright explains the whole line, ‘rewarded me with his patronage,’ but this last word refers to ‘countenance,’ for which use he gives two good examples. Thus also Hunter. Thirdly, why, from the context, does the word here clearly mean other than hire, or pay wages? At the time of Miss Porter's writing the N. E. D. had not extended as far as this word, but the Century Dictionary records it (s.v.†6); in fact, under its definition ‘to hire for wages’ this very passage is quoted in illustration.—Ed.]—Case (Arden Sh.): He gave me his patronage as wages, as if I had been on hire. The idea that is added by Johnson in ‘thought me sufficiently rewarded with good looks,’ and adopted by others, has no justification in the text. The sting is not that Coriolanus thought his favour a fair reward, but that he should have assumed the right of patronage at all. [Case quotes the same passage from North's Plutarch as that in Hunter's note ante.—Ed.]
in the last A. W. Wright: That is, at the last. So ‘in the pest’ = at best, Hamlet, I, v, 27; ‘in the least’ = at least, Lear, I, i, 194.—Case (Arden Sh.): An example of this expression is still wanting. [Wright's parallel examples are sufficient to supply the lack.—Ed.]
had carried W. A. Wright: That is, might have carried (see Abbott, § 361); or it may mean, had in effect carried or conquered Rome.—Case (Arden Sh.): When he had virtually won Rome, when Rome lay at his feet. There is no diffi<*>ulty in the natural anticipation here, but a huge one in Dr Wright's supposition. and that we look'd For other examples of this construction see Abbott, § 285.
There was it Abbott (§ 227): ‘It’ is sometimes more emphatically used than with us. We have come to use ‘it’ so often superfluously before verbs that the emphatic use of ‘it’ for ‘that’ before which is lost. [Abbott, besides the present line, gives several other examples of this construction.]
For which my sinewes shall be stretcht Johnson: This is the point on which I will attack him with my utmost abilities.
a Poste Beeching (Falcon Sh.): That is, a forerunner to announce Coriolanus.—Case (Arden Sh.): That is, a messenger. See 1 Henry IV: I, i, 37, ‘there came A post from Wales loaden with heavy news.’ [This last is, I think, the better definition. A forerunner would more likely be spoken of as the vauntcourier.—Ed.]
With . . . Sword This line at first reading may seem irregular; if, however, as Walker (Vers., p. 1) suggests, the word ‘would’ be strongly emphasized the line becomes quite rhythmic.—Ed.
second, . . . way. It is well, I think, to call attention here to the judicious changes in the punctuation made by Hanmer and Theobald, whereby what, in the Folio text, was unintelligible is rendered plain.—Ed. when he lies along That is, at full length; compare Jul. Cæs., III, i, 115, ‘That now on Pompey's basis lies along No worthier than the dust.’—Ed.
your way . . . Body W. A. Wright: When you have told his story in your own way, instead of allowing him to speak for himself, the reasons he might have urged for his conduct will be buried with his body.
What faults he made W. A. Wright: That is, committed. Compare Lucrece, 804, ‘That all the faults that in thy reign are made May likewise be sepulchred in thy shade.’
answering vs With our owne charge Johnson: That is, rewarding us with our own expences; making the cost of war its recompence.—Beeching (Falcon Sh.): Does this mean bringing us back enough to cover expences, or the bill to pay? Probably the latter. Either way it was calumny. See ll. 91-94.— Tucker Brooke (Yale Sh.): Paying us back only the amount of our expenditure, bringing in no profit. Compare ll. 94-96, where Coriolanus estimates that the gains from the expedition amount to one-third more than the costs. The point is that no large indemnity had been secured from the Romans. [This somewhat cryptic sentence may be derived from this passage in North: ‘Tullus, having procured many of his confederacy, required Martius might be deposed from his estate to render up account to the Volsces of his charge and government. Martius, fearing to become a private man again under Tullus being general, . . . answered, he was willing to give up his charge, and would resign it into the hands of the lords of the Volsces, if they did all command him, as by all their commandment he received it.’ Thus the complaint of the 1 Lord is, that Martius merely handed back to them the money and office entrusted to him, without any addition on his part.—Ed.]
no excuse Abbott (§ 462) quotes this line as an example wherein, for the sake of rendering the metre exact, these words are to be pronounced as though but two syllables—noxcuse. It is, I think, gravely to be questioned whether this trifling gain in metrical exactness be worth the slurring of two such important words in this accusation. Who among the auditors would detect that the line, if uttered slowly and gravely, was prosodically defective?—Ed. 88. Haile Lords, etc.] A. C. Bradley (Coriolanus, p. 14): Since we know that Coriolanus's nature, though the good in it has conquered, remains unchanged, and since his rival's plan is concerted before our eyes, we await with little suspense, almost indeed with tranquillity, the certain end. As it approaches it is felt to be the more inevitable because the steps which lead to it are made to repeat as exactly as possible the steps which led to his exile. His task, as then, is to excuse himself, a task the most repugnant to his pride. Aufidius, like the Tribunes then, knows how to render its fulfilment impossible. He hears a word of insult, the same that he heard then—‘traitor.’ It is followed by a sneer at the most sacred tears he ever shed, and a lying description of their effect on the bystanders; and his pride and his loathing of falsehood and meanness explode, as before, in furious speech. . . . As he turns on Aufidius the conspirators rush upon him, and in a moment, before the vision of his glory has faded from his brain, he lies dead. The instantaneous cessation of enormous energy (which is like nothing else in Shakespeare) strikes us with awe, but not with pity.
a full third part For other examples of this transposition of an adverbial expression see Abbott, § 420. Compare I, i, 37.
in the highest degree Delius: It may appear doubtful whether ‘in the highest degree’ is to be connected with ‘traitor’ or with ‘he hath abus'd.’ The first alternative is the more natural; thus likewise ‘perjury in the highest degree’ appears in Richard III: V, iii, 196.—W. A. Wright: In other passages in which this phrase occurs it appears to be used in a technical and almost legal sense as a qualification to a criminal charge. For instance, in Twelfth Night, I, v, 61, ‘Misprision in the highest degree.’ And Richard III: V, iii, 196.
Coriolanus in Corioles Whitelaw: ‘And if not there, how in any Volscian city—how here in Antium?’ For (unless in this line) we have no indication, and it is unlikely that Shakespeare intended the scene (as some editors have thought) to be laid in Corioli.—Schmidt (Coriolanus): Does ‘in Corioles’ belong with ‘stolen’ or with ‘grace’? In the latter the locality of this scene should not be Antium. [See notes at beginning of this scene.—Ed.]
drops of Salt Malone: For certain tears. So in King Lear, ‘Why this would make a man, a man of salt,’ [IV, vi, 199].—W. A. Wright: Compare also, ‘Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,’ Hamlet, I, ii, 154.
each at others W. A. Wright: If this be the true reading we must either suppose the sentence to be interrupted by Coriolanus, ‘Look'd wondering each at others’; or we must regard ‘others’ as equivalent to ‘the others,’ ‘each’ being used, as it frequently is, of every individual of an indefinite number. [W. S. Walker gives this as an example of the interpolation of a final s in many instances in the Folio; see Crit., i, Art. xxxviii.]
Aufid. No more Tyrwhitt: This should rather be given to the first Lord. It was not the business of Aufidius to put a stop to the altercation.— Monck Mason (Comments, etc., p. 48): It appears to me that by these words Aufidius does not mean to put a stop to the altercation, but to tell Coriolanus that he was no more than a ‘boy of tears.’—Dyce (ed. ii.): That is, No more than a boy of tears. But perhaps Tyrwhitt is right in supposing that these words belonged to the First Lord, and in understanding them to mean Have done.— C. & M. Cowden Clarke (Shakespeare): Perhaps these words are meant to express, ‘name the god Mars no more.’ But we believe [Mason's explanation rather than Tyrwhitt's] to be the right one.—Rolfe: Probably to be explained as equivalent to, no more than a boy of tears.—Schmidt (Coriolanus): This may mean either, enough, or speak no further! Whereby Aufidius cuts short the speech of Coriolanus, and also wishes at the same time to give a signal to the conspirators; or, no more than a boy of tears.—Case (Arden Sh.): The choice is supposed to be between giving this, with Tyrwhitt, to the First Lord in order to take it naturally as, Have done, and to understand it from Aufidius as, No more than a boy of tears. But why could not Aufidius bid Coriolanus be silent?—[Mason's interpretation is accepted by the majority of commentators.—Ed.]
my heart . . . what containes it Deighton: That is, your words have made my heart swell till it threatens to burst my breast. Compare Ant. & Cleo., I, i, 6-8, ‘his captain's heart Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst The buckles on his breast.’ [Also Ibid., IV, xiv, 40, 41, ‘Heart once be stronger than thy continent, Crack thy frail case.’—Case compares also Kyd, Soliman and Perseda, II, i, 85, ‘I must unclaspe me or my heart will breake,’ remarking, ‘But the idea is a common one.’—Ed.]
Boy? Oh Slaue Verplanck: It is but justice to Thomson to observe that he has here [in his Tragedy of Coriolanus] a thought worthy of Shakespeare, and embodied in language not unworthy to be his. Instead of the hero's being exhibited as provoked to violent language by an insult personal to himself, he is made to fire up by Tullus's invective against his countrymen: ‘—the Roman nobles
The seed of outlaws and of Robbers.
Cor. The seed of gods!—'Tis not for thee vain boaster—
By her victorious sword, to talk of Rome
But with respect and awful veneration.
Whate'er her blots, whate'er her bloody factions,
There is more virtue in a single year
Of Roman story, than your Volscian annals
Can boast through all your creeping dark duration.’
This passage was retained by John Kemble in his revision of the stage edition, and as he declaimed the lines none but the most exclusive Shakespearian could wish them away.
'tis the first time . . . to scoul'd Case (Arden Sh.): In this he is much mistaken. [Is it not, however, a remarkably natural touch? One of a proud, imperious character rarely acknowledges more than that he is justifiably provoked. Coriolanus here terms the most opprobrious names he could utter merely ‘scolding.’—Ed.]
I was Walker (Crit., ii, 204) quotes this as an example where, for the sake of the metre, ‘I was’ is to be pronounced as one syllable. Walker himself admits that he is not quite certain in what manner the contraction was affected.—Ed.
Notion W. A. Wright: That is, understanding, sense. Compare Macbeth, III, i, 83, ‘And all things else that might To half a soul and to a notion crazed Say “Thus did Banquo.”’ And Lear, I, iv, 248, ‘Either his notion weakens, his discernings are lethargied.’
That like an Eagle . . . in Corioles M. Sherlock (p. 16): A more just, a more noble, a more apposite comparision cannot be conceived. A lion among heifers, a wolf among sheep; this has been said a thousand times. An eagle among doves presents a new image. But it is more than an eagle among doves; it is an eagle among doves in a dove-house, where the disturbance and the terror are far greater. This image is here a characteristic stroke, it is a sentiment, and a sentiment which can only suit that particular moment. It is to the valiant, the susceptible, the proud Coriolanus that Tullus gives an affront which touches him in the most delicate point—his military glory. Coriolanus makes a comparison without knowing it; nor does the reader, who also takes fire, perceive it any more than he. He only sees one line of character, which completely discovers to him the whole Coriolanus, and a sublime sentiment, which transports his soul. . . . The brilliant, the flowery, the light Voltaire has introduced a fashion, as it were, of reading without attention. This magician has infused into our minds a most pernicious idleness, and a beauty which is not superficial passes unobserved. One of the first lords of the city speaks to Coriolanus. Coriolanus, transported with rage, does not hear him; this is one beauty; he makes a violent apostrophe to the soldiers; this is another beauty; and with the same fierceness, the same fury he makes, at the same instant, another apostrophe to Tullus; and these three beauties, founded in nature and in the particular character of Coriolanus, will never be perceived by those who are accustomed to read superficially.—Walker (Crit., ii, 167) places these lines among his examples of apparent rhymes in Shakespeare, remarking that it is only when the modern reading Corioli is used that there is any suggestion of rhyme. See Text. Notes.—Ed.
Flatter'd Schmidt (Coriolanus): This is Shakespeare's own word (compare the German flattern), not the modern word fluttered, the correction of later editors.—W. A. Wright, commenting on the foregoing, says: There is also the Dutch fladderen, and the Swedish fladra. But in the absence of better evidence for the existence of the form ‘flatter'd’ than the spelling of the first and second folios I have preferred the more usual form which is found as early as Spenser, and has the support of the analogous form ‘floteren,’ which occurs in the fourteenth century. in Corioles See note by Rolfe on locality of this scene, ante.
All People Collier (Notes & Emendations, p. 364): Where ‘All People’ is the prefix to various exclamations by different citizens against Coriolanus the figures 1, 2, 3, 4 are placed in manuscript in the margin to show that the speeches, ‘He killed my son—my daughter—he killed my cousin Marcus—he killed my father’ were uttered by different people, whose families Coriolanus was charged with having thinned. do it presently R. G. White: That is, instantly, at the present moment. The change in the meaning of this word—which, used always as it is here in Shakespeare's day, is now universally used to mean a time between on the instant and by and by—seems to indicate that procrastination is inherent in man.
his Fame folds in This Orbe o'th'earth Johnson: His fame overspreads the world.—Steevens: So before, ‘The fires i'th' lowest hell, fold in the people,’ [III, iii, 89].
Iudicious hearing Steevens: Perhaps ‘judicious,’ in the present instance, signifies judicial; such a hearing as is allowed to criminals in courts of judicature. Thus imperious is used by our author for imperial.—Schmidt (Coriolanus): Rightly explained by Steevens as judicial. In its modern and usual sense the word would here be quite superfluous. [In his Lexicon Schmidt gives the present as the only passage wherein ‘judicious’ is used in this sense.—Ed.]—Murray (N. E. D., s. v. 3 = Judicial) quotes the present line; also Lear, III, iv, 76, ‘Judicious punishment, 'twas this flesh begot Those Pelicane Daughters,’ remarking that in both these passages ‘the actual sense is doubtful.’ As manifest examples of the word in the sense judicial Murray gives: 1611 Coryat Crudities 279, ‘Their courts of justice their judicious proceedings.’ 1632. J. Hayward, tr. Biondi's Eromena 178, ‘To proceede against him by judicious way.’—Whitelaw: Wise and careful. Steevens explains it as judicial; but Shakespeare does not so use it elsewhere.—Case (Arden Sh.): Mr Hart considered the meaning here to be ‘of good judgment, discerning, rational, fair,’ and referred to Ben Jonson, Apologetical Dialogue appended to The Poetaster, near the end, ‘Where, if I prove the pleasure but of one, So he judicious be, he shall be alone A theatre unto me.’ But the fact that judicious has evidently its modern sense here, being applied to a critical spectator, is no evidence for the same sense in a different context. [The majority are in favour of Steevens's interpretation.—Ed.]
O that I had him . . . or more Whitelaw: Coriolanus ends, as he began, with intemperate speech, which would ‘take from Aufidius a great part of blame’ had we not overheard him plotting the murder of the Roman in cold blood. It is to be noticed how our admiration of the noble side of the character of Coriolanus, on which depends the tragic interest of his death, is excited to the utmost by the contrast between him and Aufidius, strongly marked throughout the play, most strongly here.
Kill, kill, . . . kill him Case (Arden Sh.): Compare Lear, IV, vi, 191, ‘And when I have stolen upon those sons-in-law, Then kill, kill, kill, kill kill, kill!’ Cotgrave has: ‘À mort, à mort: Kill, kill; the cry of bloudie souldiors persuing their fearefull enemies unto death.’
Draw both the Conspirators Collier (Notes & Emendations, p. 364): We have already seen Aufidius instructing three Conspirators. Perhaps in the economy of our old stage only two were so employed at the time the hero was actually struck, and that the actor, who had played the third Conspirator in the early part of this scene, had other duties to perform in the busy last scene of the drama. kils Martius MacCallum (p. 626): It is not as a martyr to retrieved patriotism that Coriolanus perishes, but as the victim of his own passion. In truth, the victory he won over himself under the influence of his mother, though real, is very incomplete. His piety to the hearth saves him from the superlative infamy of destroying his country, which is something, and even a good deal; but it is not everything; and beyond that it has no result, public or personal. On the contrary, Coriolanus' isolated and but partly justified act of clemency receives its comment from the motives that induced it, the troth-breach that accompanied it, and the rage in which he passed away. If, like his son with the butterfly, he did grasp honour at the close, it was disfigured by his rude handling. But at least he never belies his own great, though mixed, nature, and it is fitting that his death, needless but heroic, should have its cause in his nature and be such as his nature would select. Indeed, it is both his nemesis and his guerdon. For he would not be a Roman, he could not be a Volsce; what part could he have played in the years to come? Perhaps Shakespeare read in Philemon Holland's rendering the alternative account that Livy gives of the final scene: ‘I find in Fabius, a most ancient writer, that he [Coriolanus] lived untill he was an old man: who repeateth this of him: that oftentimes in his latter daies he used to utter this speech: A heavie case and most wretched, for an aged man to live banisht.’ At all events some such feeling as his regrets in this variant tradition suggest makes us prefer the version that Plutarch followed and that Shakespeare adapted. Coriolanus deserves to be spared the woes that the future has in store. As it is, he falls in the fullness of his power, inspired by great memories to greater audacity, and, no doubt, elated at the thought of challenging and outbraving death, when death is sure to win.— Stanley Wood: Poetic justice requires that Coriolanus should die in order to make atonement for the wrongs he has committed in his life. His death has been more than once foreshadowed, by himself and by Aufidius. Our remaining interest is in the circumstances and in the manner of his death, and this we shall find to be such that when his mother hears of it she shall still hear nothing of him but what was like him formerly. His physical bravery remains with him to the last, and as he dies at the hands of the Volscian conspirators it seems to fall as a shroud around him.
Thou hast . . . will weepe W. S. Walker (Criticisms, iii, 214), without in this case consulting the Folio text, proposes this identical arrangement in order to correct the modern distribution (see Text. Notes) as given by Steevens in his own edition, 1793, and since universally followed. Lettsom in a foot-note calls attention to this lapse on the part of Walker.—Ed.
Tread not vpon him Masters, all be quiet, As will be seen by reference to the Text. Notes, Rowe's punctuation, slightly modified by Capell, has been generally accepted. Schmidt and W. A. Wright, with a change of semicolons for commas, follow the Ff; the latter while noting Rowe's change adds that such is however needless, wherein I must beg to differ. The stage-direction, l. 157, mentions specifically that Aufidius ‘stands on’ Coriolanus; the 2 Lord addresses Aufidius directly, the 3d Lord continues this with an admonition to Aufidius, and a general order to the people to be silent.
the great danger Abbott (§ 457) gives several examples wherein, as here, an unemphatic monosyllable, ‘the,’ is allowed to stand in an emphatic place, and to receive an accent.
did owe you Verity (Student's Sh.): Literally ‘possessed for you,’ hence ‘made you liable to.’ [Gordon also so interprets ‘owe’ here.—Ed.]—Deighton: That is, which while this man lived was owing to you, would sooner or later have fallen upon you.—Case (Arden Sh.): Deighton puts this clearly. But for the irresistible attraction which obsolete meanings exert upon commentators it would be difficult to see why several make ‘owe’ = possess here, with the further awkwardness of making ‘owe you’ = possess for you. The modern meaning is, in fact, rather the most frequent in Shakespeare, and occurs in this play, III, i, 292, ‘One time will owe another.’ [Deighton is unquestionably right.—Ed.]
Herald Did follow to his Vrne Steevens: This allusion is to a custom unknown, I believe, to the ancients, but observed in the public funerals of English princes, at the conclusion of which a herald proclaims the style of the deceased.—Schmidt (Coriolanus): So in Henry V: I, ii, 228, ‘Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn, Tombless, with no remembrance over them.’—W. A. Wright: Compare also Hamlet, I, iv, 49, where ‘inurn'd’ is the reading of the folios, while the quartos have ‘interr'd.’
His owne impatience . . . the Best of it Stopford Brooke (p. 243): These lines might serve as Coriolanus's epitaph. Yet, Aufidius is not ignoble. He can see more clearly than either patrician or plebeian what is of a fine nature in Coriolanus. He has not been subjected as much as they to the worry of his pride and rage. Even when he most envies Coriolanus he can make a judgment of his character and career—as he does to the Lieutenant at the end of Act IV.—which is at once tolerant and wise, and which in itself is a most noble piece of poetry. It is given almost against his will, for he is as determined as the Tribunes were to put an end to Coriolanus: ‘When, Caius, Rome is thine, Thou'rt poor'st of all; then shortly thou art mine.’ He has now done this work; he has sated his hatred and envy, and thinks it politic to seem sorry for his fate. It is not true sorrow; envy has no grief; it is only to seem noble that he says, ‘My rage is gone, And I am struck with sorrow.’ 181. My Rage is gone, etc.] A. C. Bradley (Coriolanus, p. 16): Such an emotion as mere disgust is out of place in a tragic close, but I confess I feel nothing but disgust as Aufidius speaks the last words, except some indignation with the poet who allowed him to speak them, and an unregenerate desire to see the head and body of the speaker lying on opposite sides of the stage.—[T. A. Buckley, editor of the Oxford translation of the Ajax of Sophocles (p. 284), calls attention to the similarity between this speech of Aufidius and that of Ulysses over the dead body of Ajax: ‘I wish to help bury this dead body here, to share the labor, and omit nothing of all that is man's duty to care for in honor of the noblest of mankind,’ ll. 1377-80.]—E. K. Chambers (Warwick Sh.): The closing speech is well put in the mouth of Aufidius, who throughout the play has been divided between envy and admiration of his rival.
three a'th'cheefest Souldiers, Ile be one Theobald: Not one of the three, but one to assist them; he would make the fourth man. So in the conclusion of Hamlet, ‘Let four Captains Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage,’ [V, ii, 406].
Traile your steele Pikes J. W. Fortescue (Sh's England, vol. i, p. 116: The Army): A special occasion for trailing a pike was a military funeral, a duty which the train-bands enjoyed immensely. The classical instance of a military funeral at St Paul's is that of Sir Philip Sidney in 1586. Shakespeare must have witnessed more than one; and hence at the close of Coriolanus we find Aufidius saying over the corpse of the hero, ‘Trail your steel pikes.’ [In Lant's plates of Sir Philip Sidney's Funeral, which are reproduced accompanying this description, the pikes are shown reversed.—Ed.]
a Noble Memory That is, a noble memorial. See also IV, v, 73.
Exeunt Figgis (p. 276): As the tragedies proceed in their course a change can be noticed coming over them, and it is Macbeth that makes the border-line of distinction. In Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear the conclusions are about as perplexing as they well may be. Everything ends in disorder and disaster; scarce anything is resolved on this earth, all things, even subsidiary perplexities, being dismissed to a further court for settlement. But in the tragedies that succeed, Antony & Cleopatra and Coriolanus, the ends are far more peaceful, owing to the fact that they fall to more of a conclusion. They are in no way so perplexed. In Antony & Cleopatra the judgment beyond is plainly hinted at, and so in a measure achieved. In Coriolanus the end is not one of perplexity, but one of rest: Tullus Aufidius' words, together with something in Coriolanus that altogether loses our patience, make the end seem something complete in itself.