1 The plain and simple meaning of this is, where 7 Allowed here signifies confirmed. To approve or sach of you is, a villain must be in his company, because confirme. Ratum habere aliquid.' Baret. This word you are both of you arch villains,' therefore a villain is generally used by our old writers in the sense of ap goes with you every where. Thus in Promos and Cas-prored, and I am doubtful whether it has been rightly Bandra, 1578, Go, and a knave with thee, explained in other places in these dramas by licensed. An allowed fool, I think, means an approved fool, a confirmed fool.

3 With one united voice of affection. So in Stern-xxx. 13. -hold's version of the hundredth Psalm.→→

With one consent let all the earth.'

4 Which should be and. It is now vain to inquire whether the mistake be attributable to the poet, or to a careless transcriber or printer, but in such a glaring error as this, it is but charitable to suppose of the last.

5 The Athenians have a sense of the danger of their own fall by the arms of Alcibiades, by their withholding aid that should have been given to Timon.

6 Render is confession. So in Cymbeline, Act iv. Sc. 4:-

That nature's fragile vessel doth sustain
In life's uncertain voyage, I will some kindness do
them:

I'll teach them to prevent wild Alcibiades' wrath.
2 Sen. I like this well, he will return again.
Tim. I have a tree, which grows here in my close,
That mine own use invites me to cut down,
And shortly must I fell it; Tell my friends,
Tell Athens, in the sequence of degree,
From high to low throughout, that whoso please
To stop affliction, let him take his haste,
Come hither, ere my tree hath felt the axe,
And hang himself:'-I pray you, do my greeting.
Flav. Trouble him no further, thus you still shall
find him.

Tim. Come not to me again: but say to Athens,
Timon hath made his everlasting mansion
Upon the beached verge of the salt flood;
Whom once a day with his embossed froth
The turbulent surge shall cover; thither come,
And let my grave-stone be your oracle.-
Lips, let sour words go by, and language end:
What is amiss, plague and infection mend!
Graves only be men's works; and death their gain!
Sun, hide thy beams! Timon hath done his reign.
[Exit TIMON.
11 Sen. His discontents are unremoveably
Coupled to nature.

2 Sen. Our hope in him is dead: let us return,
And strain what other means is left unto us
In our dear peril.
1 Sen.
It requires swift foot.
SCENE III. The Walls of Athens.
Senators and a Messenger.

[Exeunt. Enter Two

SCENE IV. The Woods. Timon's Cave, and a
Tombstone seen. Enter a Soldier, seeking Timon.

Sol. By all description this should be the place. Who's here? speak, ho!-No answer? What is this?

Timon is dead, who hath outstretch'd his span:
Some beast rear'd this; there does not live a man.
Dead, sure; and this his grave.-
What's on this tomb I cannot read; the character
I'll take with wax.

[Exit.

Our captain hath in every figure skill;
An ag'd interpreter, though young in days:
Before proud Athens he's set down by this,
Whose fall the mark of his ambition is.
SCENE V. Before the Walls of Athens. Trum-
pets sound. Enter ALCIBIADES, and Forces.
Alcib. Sound to this coward and lascivious town
Our terrible approach.
[A parley sounded.

Enter Senators on the Walls.
Till now you have gone on, and fill'd the time
With all licentious measure, making your wills
The scope of justice; till now, myself, and such
As slept within the shadow of your power,
Have wander'd with our travers'd arms," and
breath'd

Our sufferance vainly: Now the time is flush,7
When crouching marrow, in the bearer strong,
Cries, of itself, No more: now breathless wrong
Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease;
And pursy insolence shall break his wind,
With fear and horrid flight.
1 Sen.
Noble and young,
When thy first griefs were but a mere conceit,
Ere thou hadst power, or we had cause of fear,

1 Sen. Thou hast painfully discover'd; are his We sent to thee; to give thy rages balm,

files

1 Sen.

Enter Senators from TIMON.

Here come our brothers.

To wipe out our ingratitude with loves
Above their quantity."

2 Sen.

So did we woo
Transformed Timon to our city's love,
we were not all unkind, nor all deserve
By humble message, and by promis'd means;"
The common stroke of war.

1 Sen.

These walls of ours

Were not erected by their hands, from whom
You have receiv'd your griefs: nor are they such,
That these great towers, trophies, and schools

should fall
For private faults in them.
2 Sen.
Nor are they living
Who were the motives that you first went out ;
Shame, that they wanted cunning, in excess
Hath broke their hearts. March, noble lord,

5 The old copy has Some beast read this.' The 3 Sen. No talk of Timon, nothing of him expect.-emendation is Warburton's. It is evident that the solThe enemies' drum is heard, and fearful scouring Doth choke the air with dust: in and prepare; Ours is the fall, I fear, our foes, the snare.

[Exeunt.

1 This was suggested by a passage in Plutarch's Life of Antony, where it is said Timon addressed the people of Athens in similar terms from the public tribune In the market-place. See also The Palace of Pleasure, vol. 1. Nov. 28.

The first folio reads who. It was altored to which In the second folio. Malone reads thom, saying it refers to Timon, and not to his grave; as appears from The Palace of Pleasure:- By his last will he ordained himself to be interred upon the seashore, that the waves and surges might beate and vexe his dead

carcas.'

Embossed froth is foaming, puffed or blown up froth. Among our ancestors a loss or a bubble of water when it raineth, or the pot seetheth,' were used indif 'ferently.

3 So in Twelfth Night, Act v. Sc. 1:

Whom thou in terms so bloody and so dear Hast made thy enemies.'

dier, when he first sees Timon's everlasting dwelling,
does not know it to be a tomb. He concludes Timon must
be dead, because he receives no answer. It is evident
that when he utters the words some beast, &c. he has
not seen the inscription. What can this be? (says the
soldier,) Timon is certainly dead: Some beast must have
rear'd this; a man could not live in it. Yes, he is dead
sure enough, and this must be kis tomb; What is this
writing upon it?
6 Travers'd arms are arms crossed. The Image
occurs in The Tempest :-

His arms in this sad knot.

At every joint and motive of her body.' 11 Cunning is used in its old sense of skill or wisdom, extremity of shame that they wanted wisdom in procur. ing your banishment hath broke their hearts. Theo

4 This passage Steevens, with great reason, consi-bald had nearly thus interpreted the passage; and

ders corrupt, the awkward repetition of the verb made,
and the obscurity of the whole, countenance his opinion.
Might we not read :-

Yet our old love had a particular force,
And male us speak like friends.

Which nature loathes,) take thou the destin'd tenth; Entomb'd upon the very hem o' the sea: And by the hazard of the spotted die,

CORIOLANUS.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

open declaration of it: he could not bear to hear nothings monstered.'

Pray you, no more; my mother, Who has a charter to extol her blood, When she does praise me, grieves me." But yet his pride was his greatest characteristic: Which out of daily fortune ever taints The happy man.'

This it was that made him seek distinction from the
ordinary herd of popular heroes; his honour must be
won by difficult and daring enterprise, and worn in
silence. It was this pride which was his overthrow; and
from which the moral of the piece is to be drawn. He
had thrown himself with the noble and confiding mag.
nanimity of a hero into the hands of an enemy, know-
ing that the truly brave are ever generous; but two
suns could not shine in one hemisphere; Tullus Aufi-
dius found he was darkened by his light, and he ex-
claims :-

'He bears himself more proudlier
Even to my person than I thought he would
When I did first embrace him: Yet his nature
In that's no changeling.'

his riolanus that I bear. For I never hau other benefit of
the true and painful service I have done, and the ex
treme dangers I have been in, but this surname :
good memory and witness of the malice and displeasure
thou shouldest bear me. Indeed the name only re
maineth with me; for the rest, the envy and cruelty of
the people of Rome have taken from me, by the suf
ferance of the dastardly nobility and magistrates, who
have forsaken me, and let me be banished by the peo
ple. This extremity hath now driven me to come as a
poor suitor, to take thy chimney-hearth, not of any hope
I have to save my life thereby. For if I feared death, I
would not have come hither to put myself in hazard;
but pricked forward with desire to be revenged of them
that have thus banished me, which now I do begin, by
putting my person in the hands of their enemies.
Wherefore if thou hast any heart to be wreaked of the
injuries thy enemies have done thee, speed thee now,
and let my misery serve thy turn, and so use it as my
service may be a benefit to the Volces; promising
thee that I will fight with better good-will for all you,
than I did when I was against you, knowing that they
fight more valiantly who know the force of the ene-
my, than such as have never proved it. And if it be so
that thou dare not, and that thou art weary to prove
fortune any more, then am I also weary to live
any longer. And it were no wisdom in thee to save the
life of him who hath been heretofore thy mortal ene
my, and whose service now can nothing help or plea.
sure thee.-Tullus, hearing what he said, was a mar
vellous glad man, and, taking him by the hand, he
said to him, "Stand up, O Martius, and be of good
cheer, for in proffering thyself unto us, thou doest us
great honour: and by this means thou mayest hope
also of greater things at all Volces' hands."
feasted him for that time, and entertained him in the
honourablest manner he could, talking with him of no
other matter at that present; but within a few days
after they fell to consultation together in what sort they
should begin their wars.'

The closeness with which Shakspeare has followed his original, Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch, will be observed upon comparison of the following passage, with the parallel scene in the play, describing Coriolanus's flight to Antium, and his reception by Aufidius. It was even twilight when he entered the city of Antium, and many people met him in the streets, but no man knew him. So he went immediately to Tullus Aufidius' house; and when he came thither he got him up straight to the chimney hearth, and sat him down, and spake not a word to any man, his face all muffled over. They of the house spying him, wondered what he should be, and yet they durst not bid him rise. For ill-favouredly muffled and disguised as he was, yet there appeared a certain majesty in his countenance and in his silence; whereupon they went to Tullus, who was at supper, to tell him of the strange disguising of this man." Tullus rose presently from the board, and, coming towards him, asked him what he was, and wherefore he came. Then Martius unmuffled himself, and, after he had paused awhile, making no answer, he said unto himself, If thou knowest me not yet, Tullus, and seeing me, dost not perhaps believe me to be the man I am indeed, I must of necessity discover myself to be that I am. I am Caius Martius, who hath done to thyself particularly, and to all the Volces generally, great hurt and mischief, which I cannot deny for my surname of Co-year 1610,

So he

In the scene of the meeting of Coriolanus with his wife and mother, when they come to supplicate him to spare Rome, Shakspeare has adhered very closely to his original. He felt that it was sufficient to give it merely a dramatic form. The speech of Volumnia, as we have observed in a note, is alinost in the very words of the old translator of Plutarch.

The time comprehended in the play is about four years; commencing with the secession to the Mons Sacer, in the year of Rome 262, and ending with the death of Coriolanus, A. U. C. 266.

Malone conjectures it to have been written in the

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

CAIUS MARCIUS CORIOLANUS, a noble Roman,
TITUS LARTIUS,Generals against the Volcians.
COMINIUS,
MENENIUS AGRIPPA, Friend to Coriolanus.

SICINIUS VELUTUS, Tribunes of the People.
JUNIUS BRUTUS,

Young MARCIUS, Son to Coriolanus,

A Roman Herald.

TULLUS AUFIDIUS, General of the Volcians.
Lieutenant to Aufidius.

Conspirators with Aufidius.

A Citizen of Antium.

ACT I.

"SCENE I-Rome. A Street. Enter a Company of mutinous Citizons, with Staves, Clubs, and other Weapons.

1 Citizen.

BEFORE We proceed any further, hear me speak. Cit. Speak, speak. [Several speaking at once. 1 Cit. You are all resolved rather to die, than to famish?

Cit. Resolved, resolved.

1 Cit. First you know, Caius Marcius is chief

enemy to the people.

Cit. We know't, we know't.

Two Volcian Guards,

VOLUMNIA, Mother to Coriolanus,
VIRGILIA, Wife to Coriolanus.
VALERIA, Friend to Virgilia.
Gentlewoman, attending Virgilia

Roman and Volcian Senators, Patricians, Ediles,
Lictors, Soldiers, Citizens, Messenger, Servants
to Aufidius, and other Attendants.

SCENE-partly in Rome; and partly in the Ter• ritories of the Volcians and Antiates.

Cit. No more talking on't; let it be done: away,

away.

2 Cit. One word, good citizens.

1 Cit. We are accounted poor citizens; the patricians, good: What authority surfeits on, would relieve us; If they would yield us but the superfluity, while it were wholesome, we might guess, they relieved us humanely; but they think, we are too dear: the leanness that afflicts us, the object of our misery, is as an inventory to particularize their abundance: our sufferance is a gain to them.-Let us revenge this with our pikes, ere we become 1 Good, in a commercial sense. As in Eastward Hoe:known good men, well monied,' Antonio's a good man'

1 Cit. Let us kill him, and we'll have corn at Again in the Merchant of Venice:

our own price. Is't a verdict

rakes: for the gods know, I speak this in hunger usury, to support usurers: repeal daily any wholefor bread, not in thirst for revenge.

ful version of the text. "Though some of you have 1 It should be remembered that as lean as a ruke' is heard the story, I will spread it yet wider, and diffuse it an old proverbial expression. There is, as Warburton among the rest." There is nothing of this in Shakobserves, a miserable joke intended:- Let us now re-speare; and indeed I cannot avoid looking upon the venge this with forks, before we become rukes ;' a pike, or pike-fork, being the ancient term for a pitchfork. The origin of the proverb is doubtless as lean as a rache or race,' (pronounced rake,) and signifying a greyhound.

3 The old copies have "scale't a little more ;" for 8 The heart was anciently esteemed the seat of the unwhich Theobald judiciously proposed stale. To this derstanding, See the next note. There has been Warburton objects petulantly enough, it must be constrange confusion in the appropriation of some parts of fessed, because to scale signifies to weigh; so indeed it this dialogue in all editions, even to the last by Mr. Bosdoes, and many other things; none of which, however, well. Not to encumber the page, I must request the bear any relation to the text. Steevens too prefers scale, reader to compare this with the former editions, and which he proves from a variety of authorities to mean have no doubt he will approve the transposition of scatter, disperse, spread to make any of them, how-names which has been here made.

ever, suit his purpose, he is obliged to give an unfaith- 9 Shakspeare uses seat for throne. I send it (says