To make coals cheap: A noble memory!3 COM. I minded him, how royal 'twas to pardon When it was less expected: He replied, It was a bare petition of a state To one whom they had punish'd. MEN. Could he say less? Very well: Com. I offer'd to awaken his regard For his private friends: His answer to me was, Of noisome, musty chaff: He said, 'twas folly, MEN. grains: I believe it here means in general, You that have been such good stewards for the Roman people, as to get their houses burned over their heads, to save them the expence of coals. -memory !] for memorial. See p. 184, n. 4. STEEVENS. STEEVENS. * It was a bare petition -] A bare petition, I believe, means only a mere petition. Coriolanus weighs the consequence of verbal supplication against that of actual punishment. See Vol. IV. p. 251, n. 5. STEEVENS. I have no doubt but we should read: It was a base petition &c. meaning that it was unworthy the dignity of a state, to petition a man whom they had banished. M. MASON. In King Henry IV. P. I. and in Timon of Athens, the word bare is used in the sense of thin, easily seen through; having only a slight superficial covering. Yet, I confess, this interpretation will hardly apply here. In the former of the passages alluded to, the editor of the first folio substituted base for bare, improperly. In the passage before us perhaps base was the author's word. MALONE. You are the musty chaff; and you are smelt In this so never-heeded help, yet do not Upbraid us with our distress. But, sure, if you MEN. No; I'll not meddle. What should I do? SIC. I pray you, go to him. MEN. BRU. Only make trial what your love can do For Rome, towards Marcius. MEN. Well, and say that Marcius Return me, as Cominius is return'd, But as a discontented friend, grief-shot I think, he'll hear me. Yet to bite his lip, I pray you, &c.] The pronoun personal-I, is wanting in the old copy. STEEVENS. He was not taken well; he had not din'd: &c.] This observation is not only from nature, and finely expressed, but admirably befits the mouth of one, who in the beginning of the play had told us, that he loved convivial doings. WARBURTON. The veins unfill'd, our blood is cold, and then To give or to forgive: but when we have stuff'd him Till he be dieted to my request, BRU. You know the very road into his kindness, And cannot lose your way. MEN. Good faith, I'll prove him, Speed how it will. I shall ere long have knowledge Of my success. 8 Сом. SIC. He'll never hear him. [Exit. Not? Mr. Pope seems to have borrowed this idea. See Epist. I. ver. 127: 7 "Perhaps was sick, in love, or had not din'd." STEEVENS. —our priest-like fasts:] I am afraid, that when Shakspeare introduced this comparison, the religious abstinence of modern, not ancient Rome, was in his thoughts. STEEVENS. Priests are forbid, by the discipline of the church of Rome, to break their fast before the celebration of mass, which must take place after sun-rise, and before mid-day. C. 8 • Speed how it will. I shall ere long have knowledge The Of my success.] There could be no doubt but Menenius himself would soon have knowledge of his own success. sense therefore requires that we should read: Speed how it will, you shall ere long have knowledge That Menenius at some time would have knowledge of his success is certain; but what he asserts is, that he would ere long gain that knowledge. MALONE. in All Menenius designs to say, may be-I shall not be kept long suspence as to the result of my embassy. STEEVENS. COм. I tell you, he does sit in gold, his eye Red as 'twould burn Rome; and his injury The gaoler to his pity. I kneel'd before him; 'Twas very faintly he said, Rise; dismiss'd me Thus, with his speechless hand: What he would do, He sent in writing after me; what he would not, Bound with an oath, to yield to his conditions:1 I tell you, he does sit in gold,] He is enthroned in all the pomp and pride of imperial splendour: ·Xguribgovos "Hen.” Hom. JOHNSON. So, in the old translation of Plutarch: "he was set in his chaire of state, with a marvellous and unspeakable majestie." Shakspeare has a somewhat similar idea in King Henry VIII. Act I. sc. i: "All clinquant, all in gold, like heathen gods." The idea expressed by Cominius occurs also in the 8th Iliad, 442: « Αὐτὸς δὲ χρύσειον ἐπὶ θρόνον εὐρύοπα Ζεὺς �ས་ ""ELETO." In the translation of which passage Mr. Pope was perhaps indebted to Shakspeare: “Th' eternal Thunderer sat thron'd in gold." STEEVENS. 'Bound with an oath, to yield to his conditions:] This is ap parently wrong. Sir T. Hanmer, and Dr. Warburton after him, read: Bound with an oath not yield to new conditions. They might have read more smoothly: -to yield no new conditions. But the whole speech is in confusion, and I suspect something left out. I should read: What he would do, He sent in writing after; what he would not, Bound with an oath. To yield to his conditions. Here is, I think, a chasm. The speaker's purpose seems to be this: To yield to his conditions is ruin, and better cannot be obtained, so that all hope is vain. Johnson. I suppose, Coriolanus means, that he had sworn to give way to the conditions, into which the ingratitude of his country had forced him. FARMER. So, that all hope is vain, Unless his noble mother, and his wife; The amendment which I have to propose, is a very slight deviation from the text-the reading, "in his conditions," instead of "to his conditions."-To yield, in this place, means to relax, and is used in the same sense, in the next scene but one, by Coriolanus himself, where, speaking of Menenius, he says: 66 to grace him only, "That thought he could do more, a very little What Cominius means to say, is, "That Coriolanus sent in writing after him the conditions on which he would agree to make a peace, and bound himself by an oath not to depart from them." The additional negative which Hanmer and Warburton wish to introduce, is not only unnecessary, but would destroy the sense; for the thing which Coriolanus had sworn not to do, was to yield in his conditions. M. MASON. What he would do, i. e. the conditions on which he offered to return, he sent in writing after Cominius, intending that he should have carried them to Menenius. What he would not, i. e. his resolution of neither dismissing his soldiers, nor capitulating with Rome's mechanicks, in case the terms he prescribed should be refused, he bound himself by an oath to maintain. If these conditions were admitted, the oath of course, being grounded on that proviso, must yield to them, and be cancelled. That this is the proper sense of the passage, is obvious from what follows: Cor." if you'd ask, remember this before; "The things I have foresworn to grant, may never "Again with Rome's mechanicks." HENLEY. I believe, two half lines have been lost; that Bound with an oath was the beginning of one line, and to yield to his conditions the conclusion of the next. See Vol. X. p. 319, n. 9. Perhaps, however, to yield to his conditions, means to yield only to his conditions; referring these words to oath that his oath was irrevocable, and should yield to nothing but such a reverse of fortune as he could not resist. MALONE. |