profane,

[shall Never sound more! when drums and trumpets I' the field prove flatterers, let courts and cities be Made all of false-fac'd soothing!

When steel grows soft as the parasite's silk,
Let him be made an overture for the wars! "
No more, I say! For that have not wash'd
My nose that bled, or foil'd some debile wretch,-
Which, without note, here's many else have
done,-

You shout* me forth in acclamations hyperbolical;
As if I lov'd my little should be dieted
In praises sauc'd with lies.
Сом.
Too modest are you;
More cruel to your good report, than grateful
To us that give you truly: by your patience,
If 'gainst yourself you be incens'd, we'll put you
(Like one that means his proper harm) in
[known,

manacles,

Then reason safely with you.-Therefore, be it
As to us, to all the world, that Caius Marcius
Wears this war's garland: in token of the which,
My noble steed, known to the camp, I give him,
With all his trim belonging; and from this time,
For what he did before Corioli, call him,
With all the applause and clamour of the host,
CAIUS MARCIUS CORIOLANUS! +-Bear
The addition nobly ever!

[Flourish. Trumpets sound, and drums. ALL. Caius Marcius Coriolanus !† COR. I will go wash ;

:

And when my face is fair, you shall perceive
Whether I blush, or no: howbeit I thank you :-
I mean to stride your steed; and at all times,
To undercrest your good addition
To the fairness of my power.

COм.
So, to our tent;
Where, ere we do repose us, we will write
To Rome of our success.-You, Titus Lartius,
Must to Corioli back: send us to Rome
The best, with whom we may articulate,
For their own good and ours.

LART.
I shall, my lord.
COR. The gods begin to mock me.
I that now

Take it 'tis yours. What is't?
COR. I sometime lay here in Corioli
At a poor man's house; he us'd me kindly :
He cried to me; I saw him prisoner;
But then Aufidius was within my view,
And wrath o'erwhelm'd my pity: I request you
To give my poor host freedom.

Сом.
O, well begg'd!
Were he the butcher of my son, he should
Be free as is the wind.-Deliver him, Titus.
LART. Marcius, his name?
COR.

By Jupiter! forgot :-
I am weary; yea, my memory is tir'd.-
Have we no wine here?

and Mr. Collier's annotator,

He's the devil.

"Let it be made a coverture for the wars."

If an alteration be absolutely needed, that of "a coverture" for "an overture," understanding "him" to be used for the nenter it, is the least objectionable; but we are strongly disposed to think that "overture," if not a misprint for ovation, is employed here in the same sense, and that the meaning is,-When steel grows soft as the parasite's silk, let him be made, i. e. let there be made for him, a triumph, as for a successful warrior. bhis proper harm)-] His peculiar or personal harm.

e The best, with whom we may articulate,-] The chief personages of Corioli, with whom we may enter into articles.

Enter MENENIUS, SICINIUS, and BRUTUS.

MEN. The augurer tells me we shall have news to-night.

BRU. Good or bad?

MEN. Not according to the prayer of the people, for they love not Marcius.

SIC. Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.
MEN. Pray you, who does the wolf love?
SIC. The lamb.

MEN. Ay, to devour him; as the hungry plebeians would the noble Marcius.

BRU. He's a lamb indeed, that baes like a bear.

MEN. He's a bear, indeed, that lives like a lamb. You two are old men: tell me one thing that I shall ask you.

BOTH TRI. Well, sir.

MEN. In what enormity is Marcius poor in, that you two have not in abundance?

BRU. He's poor in no one fault, but stored with all.

SIC. Especially in pride.

BRU. And topping all others in boasting. MEN. This is strange now: do you two know how you are censured here in the city, I mean of us o' the right-hand file? do you?

Bотн. Why, how are we censured?

MEN. Because you talk of pride now,-will you not be angry?

BOTH. Well, well, sir, well?

MEN. Why, 'tis no great matter; for a very little thief of occasion will rob you of a great deal of patience: give your dispositions the reins, and be angry at your pleasures; at the least, if you take it as a pleasure to you in being so. You blame Marcius for being proud?

BRU. We do it not alone, sir.

MEN. I know you can do very little alone, for your helps are many, or else your actions would grow wondrous single: your abilities are too infant-like for doing much alone. You talk of pride: O, that you could turn your eyes toward the napes of your necks, and make but an interior survey of your good selves! O, that you could! BRU. What then, sir?

my

MEN. I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in't; said to be something imperfect in favouring the first complaint; hasty and tinder-like upon too trivial motion; one that converses more with the buttock of the night than with the forehead of the morning. What I think I utter, and spend my malice in breath. Meeting two such weal's-men as you are, (I cannot call you Lycurguses) if the drink you give me touch my palate adversely, I make a crooked face at it. I cannot say your worships have delivered the matter well, when I find the ass in compound with the major part of your syllables: and though I must be content to bear with those that say you are reverend grave men, yet they lie deadly that tell you have good faces. If you see this in the map of my microcosm, follows it that I am known well enough too? What harm can your bisson + conspectuities glean out of this character, if I be known well enough too?

*

MEN. You know neither me, yourselves, nor any thing. You are ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs: you wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orangewife and a fosset-seller; and then rejourn the controversy of three-pence to a second day of audience. When you are hearing a matter between party and party, if you chance to be pinched with the colic, you make faces like mummers; set up the bloody flag against all patience; and, in roaring for a chamberpot, dismiss the controversy bleeding, the more entangled by your hearing: all the peace you make in their cause is, calling both the parties knaves. You are a pair of strange

ones.

BRU. Come, come, you are well understood to be a perfecter giber for the table, than a necessary bencher in the Capitol.

MEN. Our very priests must become mockers, if they shall encounter such ridiculous subjects as you are. When you speak best unto the purpose,

(*) Old text, can, corrected by Theobald.
(†) Old text, beesome, corrected by Theobald.

a I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in't; said to be something imperfect in favouring the first complaint; hasty and tinder-like upon too trivial motion;] The pose in this passage is the expression, "the first complaint." What is "the first complaint"? At one time we conceived the sprightly, warm-hearted old senator, among his other failings, "cried out of women," and referred to what Ben Jonson as obscurely terms "the primitive work of darkness" ("The Devil is an Ass," Act II. Sc. 2); but

it is not worth the wagging of your beards; and your beards deserve not so honourable a grave as to stuff a botcher's cushion, or to be entombed in an ass's pack-saddle. Yet you must be saying, Marcius is proud; who, in a cheap estimation, is worth all your predecessors since Deucalion; though, peradventure, some of the best of 'em were hereditary hangmen. God-den to your worships; more of your conversation would infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly plebeians; I will be bold to take my leave of you.— [BRUTUS and SICINIUS retire.

VOL. Look, here's a letter from him: the state hath another, his wife another; and I think there's one at home for you.

MEN. I will make my very house reel tonight:-a letter for me?

VIR. Yes, certain, there's a letter for you; I saw it.

MEN. A letter for me! it gives me an estate of seven years' health; in which time I will make a lip at the physician: the most sovereign prescription in Galen is but empiricutic, and, to this preservative, of no better report than a horsedrench.-Is he not wounded? he was wont to come home wounded.

VIR. O, no, no, no!

VOL. O, he is wounded,-I thank the gods for 't.

MEN. So do I too, if it be not too much:brings 'a victory in his pocket?-the wounds become him.

what militates against this supposition, and the wonderfully acute emendation of Mr. Collier's annotator,-"the thirst complaint,' also is the doubt whether "complaint" obtained the sense of malady or ailment until many years after these plays were written. If it did not bear this meaning in Shakespeare's day, the only explanation of "something imperfect, in favouring the first com. plaint," appears to be that he was too apt to be led away by first impressions; to act rather upon impulse than from reflection. bempericutic,-] In the old text, "Emperickqutique," which Pope altered to "emperic," and for which Mr. Collier's annotator substitutes, "empiric physic."

VOL. On's brows, Menenius, he comes the third time home with the oaken garland.

MEN. Has he disciplined Aufidius soundly? VOL. Titus Lartius writes,-they fought together, but Aufidius got off.

MEN. And 'twas time for him too, I'll warrant him that an he had stayed by him, I would not have been so 'fidiused for all the chests in Corioli, and the gold that's in them. Is the senate possessed of this?

VOL. Good ladies, let's go.-Yes, yes, yes; the senate has letters from the general, wherein he gives my son the whole name of the war: he hath in this action outdone his former deeds doubly. VAL. In troth, there's wondrous things spoke of him.

MEN. Wondrous! ay, I warrant you, and not without his true purchasing.

VIR. The gods grant them true!

VOL. True! pow, wow.

MEN. True! I'll be sworn they are true.Where is he wounded?-[To the Tribunes.] God save your good worships! Marcius is coming home: he has more cause to be proud.-Where is he wounded?

VOL. I' the shoulder and i' the left arm: there will be large cicatrices to show the people, when he shall stand for his place. He received in the repulse of Tarquin seven hurts i' the body.

MEN. One i' the neck, and two i' the thigh,— there's nine that I know.

VOL. He had, before this last expedition, twenty-five wounds upon him.

MEN. Now it's twenty-seven: every gash was an enemy's grave. [4 shout and flourish.] Hark! the trumpets.

VOL. These are the ushers of Marcius: before him

He carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears: Death, that dark spirit, in's nervy arm doth lie; Which, being advanc'd, declines; and then men

die.

COR. Menenius, ever, ever.
HER. Give way there, and go on!
COR.

Your hand, and yours:
[To VIRG. and VOLUM.
Ere in our own house I do shade my head,
The good patricians must be visited;
From whom I have receiv'd not only greetings,
But with them change of honours.

VOL.

I have liv'd

To see inherited my very wishes,
And the buildings of my fancy:
Only there's one thing wanting, which I doubt not,
But our Rome will cast upon thee.

(*) Old text, Martius Caius Coriolanus.

additional honours, may be right, though we incline to Theobald's substitution, "charge of honours."