193. Pick my lance. This is merely another form of pitch. Such a change (k to ch, g to j, technically called palatisation) is a frequent source of double forms-e.g., lock, latch; sack, satchel; nick, notch; dyke, ditch, etc.

198. An-hungry. The prefix here is not the article, but the Anglo-Saxon intensive of, which was used with participles and adjectives. A-thirst is Old English of-thirst. Similarly we have a-weary, a-shamed. Cp. Matt. xxv, 44: 'When saw we thee anhungered or a-thirst.' An-hungered appears also as af-ingered and of-hungered in Old English.

199. That hunger broke stone walls. In Sackville's Induction to the Mirror for Magistrates (1555), Famine is thus personified :

'Great was her force, whom stone wall could not stay,

Her tearing nails snatching at all she saw.'

Professor Morley (Shorter English Poems) remarks, in connection with Sackville's expression, that 'Honger eet door steenen muuren' was a Dutch proverb current also in England.

201. With these shreds. Coriolanus thus contemptuously designates the disjointed series of proverbial sayings which he has just enumerated. Cp. Hamlet, III, iv, 102: ‘A king of shreds and patches.' Shred is a bit; to shred onions is to slice them. The oldest form of the word is the Gothic dis-skreitan, to tear, rend, and is still preserved in the Scotch screed, a rent, and, figuratively, a portion of a discourse.

204. Heart of generosity—aiming a fatal blow at the class-feeling of the nobles, the patrician caste: generosity here in its literal sense, from Latin generosus, of good or noble birth.

207. Emulation-factious contention or malicious rivalry, not as now, generous striving of competitors.

212. It will in time-it, not the rabble, but the dangerous concession of the five tribunes, which will yet encroach upon the privileged class, and develop a still more radical programme of revolutionary action.

219. To vent our musty superfluity—to let the wind blow upon our mouldy refuse, get rid of the plebeians, the 'residuum' in the body politic.

220. Lately told us-in the sense of foretold. That is here demonstrative. The relative that is frequently, as here, omitted, probably from its resemblance to the demonstrative.

225. Only he him alone. Personal pronouns are peculiarly liable to be influenced by colloquialism, so that we have sometimes, as here, he for him, I for me, and 'vice versâ,' in defiance of grammar. In these cases the pronoun is regarded as a quasi-proper noun. Similarly he and she are used quite impersonally as synonyms for 'man' and 'woman.'

226. Were half to half the world by the ears-were mankind engaged in a tussle at close quarters, and he upon my side, I would fight at my own hand so as to have him alone for antagonist. The

metaphor is borrowed from the wrangling of dogs and swine, which try to seize each other by the ears. North's Plutarch has: Many times they were at variance together, and by the ears-Life of Theseus.

232. I am constant-resolute, referring to the former promise. 240. Right worthy you priority-well deserving as you are of such precedence.

243. Mutiners. Ff. Cotgrave's French-English Dictionary (1650) has: To mutine (or raise a mutinie) = mutiner: a mutiner (raiser of mutinies)=mutinateur.' Mutine, the verb, occurs in Hamlet, III, iv, 83. Similarly Shakespeare has pioner, enginer, muleter. North uses mountainer for mountaineer.

249. To gird the gods-mock, jeer at. form girde or gride, meant to strike, cut and is thus the same as the German Cp. Chaucer's Prologue, 148:

Gird, in the Old English severely as with a switch, gerte, Old English yard.

'But sore wepte sche if oon of hem were deed,
Or if men smot it with a yerde smerte,'

referring to the Prioress and her pet dogs. Figuratively, gird comes to mean, as here, the lash, sarcasm, or reproach of wit. Cp. 2 Henry IV, I, ii, 7: 'Fal. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me.'

250. Be-mock the modest moon-insult the moon-goddess herself, Diana-'queen and huntress, chaste and fair.'

252. Too proud to be so valiant. Cp. Troilus and Cressida, II, iii, 164: ‘He that is proud eats up himself: pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle; and whatever praises itself but in the deed, devours the deed in the praise.' To be in being, the gerundial use of to with the infinitive.

253. Disdains the shadow which he treads on at noon-in his overweening pride he spurns the very ground he treads on. 261. To th' utmost of a man. Čp. Macbeth, I, vii, 46:

'I dare do all that may become a man,

Who dares do more is none.'

Ib. Censure frequently in Shakespeare means judgment, opinion, not necessarily, as now, unfavourable. Cp. Winter's Tale, II, i, 37: How blest am I in my just censure, in my true opinion.' ÏII, iii, 46, and V, v, 141, it signifies a judicial sentence, condemnation.

In

265. Of his demerits--what is earned by service in a good or a bad sense, as desert is still used. Thus in Cavendish's Life of Wolsey: 'I' (the cardinal to his servants) 'have not promoted and preferred you to condign preferments according to your demerits.' About this time the word was losing its neutral signification, apparently under the influence of the French démérite, always ill-desert, fault. Shakespeare's demerit is classical, Latin de-mereri always having a good sense, the de being intensive, not negative.

H

271. His singularity. Sicinius has just described, in terms of ironical exaggeration, the insolent arrogance of Coriolanus, and he is now anxious to hear what armament, besides his own incomparable excellence, he takes into the field.

SCENE II.

4. Whatever have been thought on in this state. It has been proposed to read, with the Fol. of 1632, hath for have, or understand things after what; but the real nominative is counsels, supplied from the preceding speech.

5. Ere Rome had circumvention (of it)? Circumvention has here not only its usual signification of over-reaching, but also that of gaining information by superior cunning so as to foil or disappoint.

9. They have press'd a power. Press'd does not mean ready, prepared (Latin præsto, French prêt), as might be thought, but is for impressed, raised for sudden service, mobilised; just as we find print for imprint, pressure for impressure, parting for departing. The very word occurs twice in North: 'The common people would not appear when the consuls called their names by a bill to prest them for the wars'-Skeat's Shakespeare's Plutarch, Life of Coriolanus, p. 13. His' (Antony's) 'captains did prest by force all sorts of men out of Greece'-Life of Antony, p. 208.

19. Nor did you think it folly—and yet you were foolish enough not to conceal your designs till action disclosed them; since, as it appears, the enemy divined them even while they were yet under consideration.

20. Pretences often means 'designs,' 'intentions.' Gentlemen, III, i, 46:

'For love of you, not hate unto my friend,

Hath made me publisher of this pretence,

i.e., the design of stealing Silvia.

24. Take in-take, capture.

Cp. Two

Ib. Almost we put before the word it governs, not after, as here. 28. For the remove-raising of the siege. Cp. the use of the verb 'remove' in Romeo and Juliet, V, iii, 237:

'You, to remove that siege of grief from her,

Betrothed and would have married her perforce
To County Paris.'

We often find a word in its verb-form used as a noun, e.g., supervise for supervision (Hamlet, V, ii, 23), and converse for conversation (Comus, 459).

SCENE III.

In Livy the mother's name is Veturia, and that of the wife Volumnia.

6. Plucked all gaze his way. Cp. Lear, V, iii, 49: To pluck

the common bosom on his side.'

...

9. Considering. . . . stir-believing that distinction would well befit one so comely, but that his comeliness, unless moved by ambition, would be but the beauty of a picture. Cp., from the speech of Ulysses in Troilus and Cressida, III, iii, 151:

'To have done, is to hang

Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail

In monumental mockery.

Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,
That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax;

Since things in motion sooner catch the eye
Than what not stirs.'

13. Brows bound with oak-refers to the corona civica, or wreath of oak leaves, the reward for the rescue of a Roman citizen in battle. 24. Retire generally intransitive, is here used reflexively for 'withdraw.' Cp. Winter's Tale, IV, iv, 663: You must retire yourself into some covert.'

26. Hither. Many adverbs may be used without a verb of motion, if motion be sufficiently implied. Understand here 'approaching.'

28. As children from a bear. A much more significant illustration in the days of Elizabeth than now.

37. Gilt-often used for 'gilding.' Cp. Richard II, II, i, 294: 'Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt.'

Troilus and Cress, III, iii, 178:

'And give to dust that is a little grit,

More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.'

40. At Grecian sword, contemning. Fol. has: 'At Grecian sword. Contenning tell Valeria,' etc., where contenning (a misprint for contemning) is italicised as if it were the name of the person addressed. The reading of the text is Collier's: it suits the contempt expressed in 'spits forth.'

42. Heavens bless my lord, etc.-protect him with a blessing: frequently so in Spenser. Cp. Faerie Queene, I, vii, 12:

'And, were not hevenly grace that did him blesse,

He had been pouldred all as thin as floure.'

48. Manifest-convicted by discovery.

49. A fine spot-of embroidery. Desdemona's handkerchief is 'spotted with strawberries '-Othello, III, iii, 435.

56. Confirmed countenance-set, resolute, determined.

61. How he mammocked it—tore it in pieces. Mammock does not elsewhere occur in Shakespeare. The syllable mam might very well express a small bit torn off and held by the closed lips. Cp. to mumble. Steevens quotes The Devil's Charter (1607): 'That

he were chopped in mammocks, I could eat him.' The following illustrations are notable. Florio's Italian Dictionary (1611): ' Frégola-a crum, a mite, a scrap, a mammocke.' Howell's Dictionary (1660): 'The train or mammocks of flesh sowd up and down to catch the wolf.' ""Don't mammock your wittles so, bor," said a Suffolk woman to her child, who was pulling his food about'

HALLIWELL-PHILLIPPS.

62. One on's father's moods. On is frequently used for of, particularly before an enclitic pronoun. N combined better in such contractions than ƒ; Scotch in such cases uses o', e.g., ‘ane o's' = one of us. Cp. II, i, 174: 'Root on's heart;' II, ii, 78: 'One on's ears;' IV, v, 164: Worth six on him.' This use of on still survives as a vulgarism.

63. Indeed, la, 'tis a noble child. La is a common expletive joined to terms of asseveration, but always in familiar passages. It is probably the French là, which is somewhat similarly used for emphasis. We still employ there, and the Germans da, in much the same fashion.

64. A crack—a self-willed, pert youngster; a word often used by Ben Jonson and his contemporaries. Cp. Cynthia's Revels: 'Let's study to be like cracks, act freely, carelessly, and capriciously.'

79. Full of moths-probably an implied reference to the swarms of suitors for the hand of Penelope.

80. Sensible-Latin sensibilis, perceptible by the senses; here, as in many other passages, means capable of perception,' 'endowed with feeling-ideas now expressed by 'sensitive.' A curious Scotticism is to speak of being 'sensible of a smell.'

99. Disease. We should rather print this dis-ease. The word means trouble, annoy, the prefix reversing the meaning. Both as verb and as noun this was a common use of disease among Elizabethan writers.

SCENE IV.

10. Make us quick in work—so aid us that, with swords still reeking from our victory here (before Corioli), we may march to the help of our friends in the field, under Cominius.

15. That's lesser than a little-belongs to the preceding 'less,' and means, and his fear of you is next to nothing.'

See

17. Pound us up-i.e., enclose us as in a pound, the enclosure in which straying beasts are confined until redeemed by their owners. In many towns there is yet a public official called the Pinder. Notes and Queries, new series, No. 177. Cp. Sheep-pen, pin-fold (Comus, 7), mill-pond, impound (water).

21. Cloven-split as by a wedge, through the attack of Aufidius. 30. All the contagion of the south. This quarter was in bad repute with the poet. Cp.: 'The rotten diseases of the south' (Troilus and Cressida, V, i, 21); 'The south fog rot him' (Cym beline, II, iii, 136); The foggy south, puffing with wind and rain'

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