I lov'd the maid I married; never man
Sigh'd truer breath; but that I see thee here,
Thou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart,
Than when I first my wedded mistress saw
Bestride my threshold. Why, thou Mars! I tell
thee,

We have a power on foot; and I had purpose
Once more to hew thy target from thy brawn,
Or lose mine arm for 't: thou hast beat me out
Twelve several times, and I have nightly since
Dreamt of encounters 'twixt thyself and me;
We have been down together in my sleep,
Unbuckling helms, fisting each other's throat,
And wak'd half dead with nothing.
Marcius,

Worthy

Had we no other quarrel else to Rome, but that
Thou art thence banish'd, we would muster all
From twelve to seventy; and, pouring war
Into the bowels of ungrateful Rome,
Like a bold flood o'er-bear. O, come, go in,
And take our friendly senators by the hands;
Who now are here, taking their leaves of me,
Who am prepar'd against your territories,
Though not for Rome itself.
COR.
You bless me, gods!
AUF. Therefore, most absolute sir, if thou
wilt have

The leading of thine own revenges, take
The one half of my commission, and set down,-
As best thou art experienc'd, since thou know'st
Thy country's strength and weakness,-thine own
ways;

Whether to knock against the gates of Rome,
Or rudely visit them in parts remote,
To fright them, ere destroy. But come in ;
Let me commend thee first to those, that shall
Say yea to thy desires. A thousand welcomes!
And more a friend than e'er an enemy;
Yet, Marcius, that was much. Your hand! Most
welcome!

[Exeunt CORIOLANUS and AUFIDIUS. 1 SERV. [Advancing.] Here's a strange alteration!

2 SERV. By my hand, I had thought to have strucken him with a cudgel; and yet my mind gave me his clothes made a false report of him.

1 SERV. What an arm he has! He turned me about with his finger and his thumb, as one would set up a top.

2 SERV. Nay, I knew by his face that there was something in him: he had, sir, a kind of face, methought, I cannot tell how to term it.

1 SERV. He had so; looking, as it were, Would I were hanged, but I thought there was more in him than I could think.

asowle-] The etymology of this word is uncertain, but it is still employed in many English counties for lugging and dragging. Steevens quotes a line from Heywood's comedy, called "Love's

2 SERV. So did I, I'll be sworn: he is simply the rarest man i' the world.

1 SERV. I think he is; but a greater soldier than he, you wot one.

2 SERV. Who? my master?

1 SERV. Nay, it's no matter for that. 2 SERV. Worth six on him.

1 SERV. Nay, not so neither; but I take him to be the greater soldier.

2 SERV. Faith, look you, one cannot tell how to say that for the defence of a town, our general is excellent.

1 SERV. Ay, and for an assault too.

Re-enter third Servant.

3 SERV. O, slaves, I can tell you news! news, you rascals!

1 and 2 SERV. What, what, what? let's partake. 3 SERV. I would not be a Roman, of all nations; I had as lieve be a condemned man.

1 and 2 SERV. Wherefore? wherefore? 3 SERV. Why, here's he that was wont to thwack our general, Caius Marcius.

1 SERV. Why do you say, thwack our general? 3 SERV. I do not say, thwack our general; but he was always good enough for him.

2 SERV. Come, we are fellows and friends; he was ever too hard for him; I have heard him say so himself.

1 SERV. He was too hard for him directly, to say the truth on't: before Corioli, he scotched him and notched him like a carbonado.

2 SERV. An he had been cannibally given, he might have broiled and eaten him too. 1 SERV. But more of thy news.

3 SERV. Why, he is so made on here within, as if he were son and heir to Mars; set at upper end o' the table; no question asked him by any of the senators but they stand bald before him: our general himself makes a mistress of him; sanctifies himself with 's hand, and turns up the white o' the eye to his discourse. But the bottom of the news is, our general is cut i' the middle, and but one half of what he was yesterday; for the other has half, by the entreaty and grant of the whole table. He'll go, he says, and sowle" the porter of Rome gates by the ears: he will mow down all before him, and leave his passage polled."

2 SERV. And he's as like to do't as any man I can imagine.

3 SERV. Do't! he will do 't: for, look you, sir, he has as many friends as enemies: which friends, sir, as it were, durst not, look you, sir, show them

Mistress," 1636, where it occurs,

"Venus will sowle me by the ears for this." bpolled.] Cleared.

selves, as we term it, his friends, whilst he's in directitude.a

1 SERV. Directitude! What's that?

3 SERV. But when they shall see, sir, his crest up again, and the man in blood," they will out of their burrows, like conies after rain, and revel all with him.

1 SERV. But when goes this forward?

3 SERV. To-morrow; to-day; presently: you shall have the drum struck up this afternoon: 'tis, as it were, a parcel of their feast, and to be executed ere they wipe their lips.

2 SERV. Why, then we shall have a stirring world again. This peace is nothing but to rust iron, increase tailors, and breed ballad-makers.

1 SERV. Let me have war, say I; it exceeds peace, as far as day does night; it's spritely walking, audible, and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more bastard children than wars a destroyer of men.

2 SERV. 'Tis so: and as war, in some sort, may be said to be a ravisher, so it cannot be denied but peace is a great maker of cuckolds.

1 SERV. Ay, and it makes men hate one another. 3 SERV. Reason; because they then less need one another. The wars for my money. I hope to see Romans as cheap as Volscians. rising, they are rising.

ALL. In, in, in, in!

They are

[Exeunt.

a-directitude.] Mr. Collier's azotator would read, dejectitude. bin blood,-] See note (c), p. 71, Vol. I.

c-it's spritely walking,-] That is, quick moving, or marching. The modern editors all read, "it's spritely, waking," &c. d-full of vent.] Vent is voice, utterance.

SCENE VI.-Rome. A Public Place.

Enter SICINIUS and BRUTUS.

SIC. We hear not of him, neither need we fear him;

His remedies are tame i' the present peace
And quietness o' the people, which before
Were in wild hurry. Here do we make his friends
Blush that the world goes well; who rather had,
Though they themselves did suffer by 't, behold
Dissentious numbers pestering streets, than see
Our tradesmen singing in their shops, and going
About their functions friendly.

BRU. We stood to't in good time.-Is this
Menenius?

SIC. "T is he, 'tis he: O he is grown most kind Of late.-Hail, sir!

Enter MENENIUS.

MEN. Hail to you both!

SIC. Your Coriolanus is not much missed but with his friends: the commonwealth doth stand; and so would do, were he more angry at it.

MEN. All's well; and might have been much better, if he could have temporized.

SIC. Where is he, hear you?

MEN. Nay, I hear nothing; his mother and his wife hear nothing from him.

e His remedies are tame i' the present peace-] A correction by Theobald, the old copies having,-"His remedies are tame, the present peace." Omission, however, is not, perhaps, the only de fect in the line; the word "remedies" is very equivocal.

There is a slave, whom we have put in prison,
Reports, the Volsces with two several powers
Are enter'd in the Roman territories ;
And with the deepest malice of the war
Destroy what lies before 'em.

ΜΕΝ.

'Tis Aufidius, Who, hearing of our Marcius' banishment, Thrusts forth his horns again into the world, Which were inshell'd when Marcius stood for Rome, And durst not once peep out.

SIC. Come, what talk you of Marcius ? BRU. Go see this rumourer whipp'd.-It cannot be

The Volsces dare break with us.

MEN. Cannot be! We have record that very well it can ; And three examples of the like have been Within my age. But reason with the fellow, Before you punish him, where he heard this; Lest you shall chance to whip your information,

Good Marcius-] Mr. Collier's annotator proposes to read,"God Marcius," which may be right; yet in "Macbeth," Act III. Sc. 1, when Macbeth, by way of instigating the murderers to slay Banquo, expatiates on the wrongs that chief had done them, he asks, ironically,

Enter another Messenger.

MESS. You are sent for to the senate: A fearful army, led by Caius Marcius Associated with Aufidius, rages Upon our territories; and have already O'er-borne their way, consum'd with fire, and took What lay before them.

Enter COMINIUS.

Coм. O, you have made good work!
MEN.
What news? what news?
COM. You have holp to ravish your own daugh-
ters, and

To melt the city leads upon your pates;
To see your wives dishonour'd to your noses ;-
MEN. What's the news? what's the news?
COм. Your temples burned in their cement; and
Your franchises, whereon you stood, confin'd
Into an augre's bore.
MEN.

Pray now, your news?—

(*) Old text, comming.
"are you so gospell'd

To pray for this good man?"

MEN.

Enter a troop of Citizens.

Here come the clusters.And is Aufidius with him?—You are they That made the air unwholesome, when you cast Your stinking greasy caps in hooting At Coriolanus' exile. Now he's coming; And not a hair upon a soldier's head,

As

And

Which will not prove a whip: as many coxcombs you threw caps up will he tumble down, pay you for your voices. 'Tis no matter; If he could burn us all into one coal, We have deserv'd it.

CITIZENS. Faith, we hear fearful news. 1 CIT. For mine own part, When I said, banish him, I said, 't was pity. 2 Crr. And so did I.

3 CIT. And so did I; and, to say the truth, so did very many of us that we did, we did for the best; and though we willingly consented to his banishment, yet it was against our will. COм. Ye're goodly things, you voices! MEN. You have made good work,

You and your cry!-Shall's to the Capitol?
COм. O, ay; what else?

[Exeunt Coм. and MEN. SIC. Go, masters, get you home; be not dis

may'd:

These are a side that would be glad to have
This true, which they so seem to fear. Go home,
And show no sign of fear.

1 CIT. The gods be good to us! Come, masters, let's home. I ever said we were i' the wrong, when we banished him.

2 CIT. So did we all. But, come, let's home. [Exeunt Citizens.

BRU. I do not like this news.
SIC. Nor I.

BRU. Let's to the Capitol.-Would half my
wealth
Would buy this for a lie!
SIC.

Pray, let us go. [Exeunt.

SCENE VII.-A Camp; at a small distance from Rome.

Enter AUFIDIUS and his Lieutenant.

Aur. Do they still fly to the Roman ?
LIEU. I do not know what witchcraft's in him,
but

Your soldiers use him as the grace 'fore meat,
Their talk at table, and their thanks at end;
And you are darken'd in this action, sir,
Even by your own.

Mr. Collier's annotator reads it

LIEU.

Yet I wish, sir, (I mean for your particular) you had not Join'd in commission with him; but either Had* borne the action of yourself, or else To him had left it solely.

AUF. I understand thee well; and be thou
sure,

When he shall come to his account, he knows not
What I can urge against him. Although it seems,
And so he thinks, and is no less apparent
To the vulgar eye, that he bears all things fairly,
And shows good husbandry for the Volscian state,
Fights dragon-like, and does achieve as soon
As draw his sword; yet he hath left undone
That which shall break his neck or hazard mine,
Whene'er we come to our account.

LIEU. Sir, I beseech you, think you he'll carry
Rome?

AUF. All places yield to him ere he sits down ; And the nobility of Rome are his :

The senators and patricians love him too:
The tribunes are no soldiers; and their people

(*) Old text, have.

a By sovereignty of nature.] The image is founded on the fabulous power attributed to the ospray, of fascinating the fish on which it preys. Thus, in Peele's play, called "The Battle of Alcazar," 1594, Act II. Sc. 1,

"I will provide thee of a princely osprey,
That as she flieth over fish in pools,

The fish shall turn their glistering bellies up,
And thou shalt take thy liberal choice of all."
but he has a merit,

To choke it in the utterance.]

The latter portion of this speech is miserably confused. After "So bated, and so banish'd," there is obviously a chasm, which it were vain to think of filling up.

So our virtues

Lie in the interpretation of the time;
And power, unto itself most commendable,
Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair
To extol what it hath done.]

Will be as rash in the repeal, as hasty
To expel him thence. I think he'll be to Rome,
As is the ospray to the fish, who takes it
By sovereignty of nature. First he was
A noble servant to them; but he could not
Carry his honours even whether 'twas pride,
Which out of daily fortune ever taints
The happy man; whether defect of judgment,
To fail in the disposing of those chances
Which he was lord of; or whether nature,
Not to be other than one thing, not moving
From the casque to the cushion, but commanding
peace

Even with the same austerity and garb
As he controll'd the war; but one of these,
(As he hath spices of them all, not all,
For I dare so far free him) made him fear'd,
So hated, and so banish'd: but he has a merit,
To choke it in the utterance. So our virtues *
Lie in the interpretation of the time;
And power, unto itself most commendable,
Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair
To extol what it hath done."

b

Their virtues else (be they as pure as grace,

As infinite as man may undergo,)

Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault."

And so, proceeds Aufidius, our very virtues appear false by the misconstruction of the age, and even authority, which can exact applause, has not a more inevitable, i.e. certain, tomb for its best actions than the very chair of triumph wherein they are extolled.

d Rights by rights founder,-] The old copies have "fouler,' which has been changed to,-fouled; foul are; suffer; foil'd are and faller. The emendation we adopt is by Malone.