That we shall hardly in our ages see COR. Saw you Aufidius? LART. On safe-guard he came to me;5 and did curse Against the Volces, for they had so vilely COR. Spoke he of me? LART. COR. He did, my lord. How? what? LART. How often he had met you, sword to sword: That, of all things upon the earth, he hated Be call'd your vanquisher. To COR. LART. At Antium. At Antium lives he? COR. I wish, I had a cause to seek him there, oppose his hatred fully.-Welcome home. [TO LARTIUS. Enter SICINIUS and BRUtus. Behold! these are the tribunes of the people, The tongues o'the common mouth. I do despise them; For they do prank them in authority," On safe-guard he came to me ;] i. e. with a convoy, a guard appointed to protect him. STEEvens. 6 - prank them in authority,] Plume, deck, dignify themselves. JOHNSON. So, in Measure for Measure, Act II. sc. ii: "Drest in a little brief authority." STEEVENS. COм. Hath he not pass'd the nobles, and the commons ?7 BRU. Cominius, no. COR. Have I had children's voices? 1 SEN. Tribunes, give way; he shall to the market-place, BRU. The people are incens'd against him. SIC. Or all will fall in broil. Stop, COR. Are these your herd?Must these have voices, that can yield them now, And straight disclaim their tongues?-What are your offices? You being their mouths, why rule you not their teeth ?8 • Hath he not pass'd the nobles, and the commons?] The first folio reads: "—noble," and "common" The second hascommons. I have not hesitated to reform this passage on the authority of others in the play before us. 66 the nobles bended "As to Jove's statue: the commons made Thus: 66 "A shower and thunder," &c. STEEVENS. why rule you not their teeth?] The metaphor is from men's setting a bull-dog or mastiff MEN. Be calm, be calm. COR. It is a purpos'd thing, and grows by plot, To curb the will of the nobility: Suffer it, and live with such as cannot rule, Call❜t not a plot: BRU. The people cry, you mock'd them; and, of late, When corn was given them gratis, you repin'd; Scandal'd the suppliants for the people; call'd them Time-pleasers, flatterers, foes to nobleness. BRU. COR. Have you inform'd them since ?? BRU. Not to them all: How! I inform them! Not unlike, COR. You are like to do such business. BRU. Each way, to better yours.' COR. Why then should I be consul? By yon clouds, Let me deserve so ill as you, and make me Your fellow tribune. SIC. You show too much of that, For which the people stir: If you will pass 9 since?] The old copy-sithence. STEEVENS. Not unlike, Each way, to better yours. &c.] i. e. likely to provide better for the security of the commonwealth than you (whose business it is) will do. To which the reply is pertinent: Why then should I be consul?" WARBURTON. 2 Sic. You show too much of that, &c.] This speech is given in the old copy to Cominius. It was rightly attributed to Sicinius by Mr. Theobald. MALONE. To where you are bound, you must inquire your way, Which you are out of, with a gentler spirit; Nor yoke with him for tribune, MEN. Let's be calm. COм. The people are abus'd:-Set on. This palt'ring 3 Becomes not Rome; nor has Coriolanus COR. Tell me of corn! This was my speech, and I will speak't again ; MEN. Not now, not now. 1 SEN, Not in this heat, sir, now. COR. Now, as I live, I will.-My nobler friends, I crave their pardons : For the mutable, rank-scented many,5 let them 3 This palt'ring Becomes not Rome;] That is, this trick of dissimulation; this shuffling: "And be these juggling fiends no more believ'd, JOHNSON, Coriolanus being accented on the first, and not the second syllable, in former instances. STEEVENS. - · rub, laid falsely &c.] Falsely for treacherously. JOHNSON, The metaphor is from the bowling-green. MALONE. 4 many,] i. e. the populace. The Greeks used of woλXOL exactly in the same sense. HOLT WHITE. Therein behold themselves: I say again, In soothing them, we nourish 'gainst our senate The cockle of rebellion," insolence, sedition, Which we ourselves have plough'd for, sow'd and scatter'd, By mingling them with us, the honour'd number; Who lack not virtue, no, nor power, but that Which they have given to beggars. MEN. Well, no more. How! no more? 1 SEN. No more words, we beseech you. COR, my lungs BRU. You speak o'the people, As if you were a god to punish, not A man of their infirmity. -let them Regard me as I do not flatter, and Therein behold themselves:] Let them look in the mirror which I hold up to them, a mirror which does not flatter, and see themselves. JOHNSON. "The cockle of rebellion,] Cockle is a weed which grows up with the corn. The thought is from Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch, where it is given as follows: "Moreover, he said, that they nourished against themselves the naughty seed and cockle of insolency and sedition, which had been sowed and scattered abroad among the people," &c. STEEVens. The cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition,] Here are three syllables too many. We might read, as in North's Plutarch: "The cockle of insolency and sedition." RITSON. 8 meazels,] Mesell is used in Pierce Plowman's Vision, for a leper. The same word frequently occurs in The London Prodigal, 1605. STEEVENS. |