Cor.

I would have had you put your power well on,
Before you had worn it out.

Let go.

Vol. You might have been enough the man you

are,

With striving less to be so: lesser had been 20
The thwartings of your dispositions, if

Cor.

You had not show'd them how ye were disposed,
Ere they lack'd power to cross you.

Vol. Aye, and burn too.

Let them hang.

Enter Menenius with the Senators.

Men. Come, come, you have been too rough, some

thing too rough;

You must return and mend it.

First Sen.

Unless, by not so doing, our good city
Cleave in the midst, and perish.

There's no remedy;

Pray, be counsel'd:

30

Vol.
I have a heart as little apt as yours,
But yet a brain that leads my use of anger
To better vantage.

Men.

Well said, noble woman!

“O, son, son, son!" which is certainly a plausible, perhaps an admissible change.-H. N. H.

21. "thwartings of"; Theobald's reading; Ff., "things of"; Rowe, "things that thwart"; Wright conj. "things that cross."-I. G.

24. "Aye, and burn too"; the Folios give this speech to Volumnia; but modern editors, arguing that she is advising patience, take it from her. Yet her point of view is quite clear. She despises and hates the plebeians as much as Coriolanus can, but she would choose her own time to show her wrath.-C. H. H.

29-31. This speech certainly appears very elliptical as it stands. In

Cor.

Before he should thus stoop to the herd, but that
The violent fit o' the time craves it as physic
For the whole state, I would put mine armor on,
Which I can scarcely bear.

What must I do?

Men. Return to the tribunes.

Cor.

Well, what then? what then?

Men. Repent what you have spoke.

Cor. For them! I cannot do it to the gods;
Must I then do 't to them?

Vol.

You are too absolute; Though therein you can never be too noble, 40 But when extremities speak. I have heard you

Cor.

say,

Honor and policy, like unsever'd friends,

I' the war do grow together: grant that, and tell

me,

In peace what each of them by the other lose,
That they combine not there.

Men.

Tush, tush!

A good demand.

Vol. If it be honor in your wars to seem

Mr. Collier's second folio a whole line is supplied to complete the sense, thus:

"I have a heart as little apt as yours

To brook control without the use of anger;
But yet a brain that leads my use of anger
To better vantage."

Which, though not admissible into the text, forms a good comment on it, and brings out the right meaning. Mr. Singer thinks it probable "that the word apt has been misprinted for soft.”— H. N. H.

32. "to the herd"; Warburton's suggestion, adopted by Theobald; Ff., "to the heart"; Collier MS., "o' th' heart,” etc.-I. G.

Cor.

The same you are not, which, for your best
ends,
You adopt your policy, how is it less or worse,
That it shall hold companionship in peace
With honor, as in war, since that to both
It stands in like request?

Why force you this?
Vol. Because that now it lies you on to speak

50

To the people; not by your own instruction,
Nor by the matter which your heart prompts

you,

But with such words that are but roted in
Your tongue, though but bastards and syllables
Of no allowance to your bosom's truth.
Now, this no more dishonors you at all

Than to take in a town with gentle words, 59
Which else would put you to your fortune and
The hazard of much blood.

I would dissemble with my nature, where
My fortunes and my friends at stake required
I should do so in honor. I am in this,
Your wife, your son, these senators, the nobles;
And you will rather show our general louts

How you can frown than spend a fawn upon
'em,

55. "roted"; the old copy reads roated. Mr. Boswell says, perhaps it should be rooted: we have no example of roted for got by rote, but it is much in Shakespeare's manner of forming expressions.— H. N. H.

56. “though but bastards and syllables"; Capell, “but bastards"; Seymour conj. "although but bastards, syllables"; Badham conj. "thought's bastards, and but syllables.”—I. G.

64. "I am in this"; Warburton, “In this advice I speak as your wife, your son," etc.-I. G.

For the inheritance of their loves and safeguard
Of what that want might ruin.

Men.

Vol.

Noble lady!

Come, go with us; speak fair: you may salve so,
Not what is dangerous present, but the loss 71
Of what is past.

I prithee now, my son,
Go to them, with this bonnet in thy hand;
And thus far having stretch'd it-here be with
them-

Thy knee bussing the stones-for in such busi

ness

Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the igno

rant

More learned than the ears-waving thy head,
Which often, thus, correcting thy stout heart,
Now humble as the ripest mulberry

79

That will not hold the handling: or say to them,

69. "that want"; i. e. the want of that inheritance.-I. G.

78. "Which often, thus, correcting thy stout heart"; Johnson, "With often," etc.; Capell, "And often"; Staunton conj. "While often"; Nicholson conj. "Whiles-often"; Warburton, "Which soften.”—I. G.

That is, "which often do-thus,-correcting thy stout heart." Of course at the word thus she waves her head several times, acting out the verb while omitting it in her speech, and so making a practical illustration of what she would have him do. Commentators have stumbled much at the passage, from not knowing what to do with which. All becomes clear enough, when we thus make which to be governed, not by the verbal sign of the action, but by the action itself.-H. N. H.

If the text is right, "humble" must be an imperative. "Humble (your head), correcting thy pride with submissive gestures, like these." The passage barely yields sense; but of the many alterations proposed (such as Johnson's "with" for "which") none can be called convincing. Prof. Littledale proposes instead of "often," "offer" (as if for decapitation).-C. H. H.

Thou art their soldier, and being bred in broils
Hast not the soft way which, thou dost confess,
Were fit for thee to use, as they to claim,

In asking their good loves; but thou wilt frame
Thyself, forsooth, hereafter theirs, so far
As thou hast power and person.

Men.

Vol.

This but done,

Even as she speaks, why, their hearts were

yours;

For they have pardons, being ask'd, as free
As words to little purpose.

Prithee now,

Go, and be ruled; although I know thou hadst rather

Follow thine enemy in a fiery gulf

Than flatter him in a bower.

Enter Cominius.

Here is Cominius.

90

Com. I have been i̇' the market-place; and, sir, 'tis fit

You make strong party, or defend yourself
By calmness or by absence: all's in anger.

Men. Only fair speech.

Com.

Vol.

I think 'twill serve, if he

He must, and will.

Can thereto frame his spirt.

Prithee now, say you will, and go about it.

Cor. Must I go show them my unbarb'd sconce? must I,

With my base tongue, give to my noble heart 100
A lie, that it must bear? Well, I will do 't;