Yourself into a power tyrannical;

For which, you are a traitor to the people.
Cor. How! traitor?

Men.

Nay; temperately: your promise.
Cor. The fires i' the lowest hell fold in the people!
Call me their traitor!-Thou injurious tribune!
Within thine eyes sat twenty thousand deaths,
In thy hands clutched as many millions, in
Thy lying tongue both numbers, I would say,
Thou liest, unto thee, with a voice as free
As I do pray the gods.

Sic.

Mark you this, people?
Cit. To the rock; to the rock with him!
Sic.

Peace.

We need not put new matter to his charge.
What you have seen him do, and heard him speak,
Beating your officers, cursing yourselves,
Opposing laws with strokes, and here defying
Those whose great power must try him; even this,
So criminal, and in such capital kind,

Deserves the extremest death.

Let them pronounce the steep Tarpeian death,
Vagabond exile, flaying; pent to linger
But with a grain a day, I would not buy
Their mercy at the price of one fair word;
Nor check my courage for what they can give,
To have 't with saying, Good morrow.

Sic.
For that he has
(As much as in him lies) from time to time

1

2

Envied against the people, seeking means
To pluck away their power; as now at last
Given hostile strokes, and that not in the presence
Of dreaded justice, but on the ministers

3

That do distribute it; in the name o' the people,
And in the power of us the tribunes, we,
Even from this instant, banish him our city;
In peril of precipitation

From off the rock Tarpeian, never more

To enter our Rome gates. I' the people's name,
I say, it shall be so.

Cit. It shall be so, it shall be so: let him away.
He's banished, and it shall be so.

Com. Hear me, my masters, and my common

friends;—————

Sic. He's sentenced; no more hearing.

4

Com. Let me speak. I have been consul, and can show from Rome, Her enemies' marks upon me. I do love My country's good, with a respect more tender, More holy, and profound, than mine own life, My dear wife's estimate, her womb's increase, And treasure of my loins; then if I would Speak that

Sic.

We know your drift; speak what!' Bru. There's no more to be said, but he is banished, As enemy to the people, and his country.

It shall be so.

Cit. It shall be so, it shall be so.

Cor. You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate

As reek o'the rotten fens, whose loves I prize
As the dead carcasses of unburied men

That do corrupt my air, I banish you;

1 Showed hatred.

2 As may here be a misprint for has or and; or it may signify as well as; such elliptical modes of expression are not uncommon.

3 Not is here again used for not only.

4 i. e. received in her service, or on her account.

5 "I love my country beyond the rate at which I value my dear vife," &c.

6 Cry here signifies a pack.

And here remain with your uncertainty!
Let every feeble rumor shake your hearts!
Your enemies, with nodding of their plumes,
Fan you into despair! Have the power still
To banish your defenders; till, at length,
Your ignorance, (which finds not, till it feels,)
Making but reservation of yourselves,1
(Still your own foes,) deliver you, as most
Abated captives, to some nation

That won you without blows! Despising,
For you, the city, thus I turn my back;
There is a world elsewhere.

[Exeunt CORIOLANUS, COMINIUS, Menenius, Senators, and Patricians.

Ed. The people's enemy is gone, is gone!
Cit. Our enemy's banished! he is gone! Hoo! hoo!
[The people shout, and throw up their caps

Sic. Go, see him out at gates, and follow him,
As he hath followed you, with all despite ;
Give him deserved vexation. Let a guard

Attend us through the city.

Cit. Come, come, let us see him out at gates;

come..

The gods preserve our noble tribunes!-Come.

[Exeunt.

1 Thus in the old copy. Malone, following Capell, changed this line to

66 'Making not reservation of yourselves," &c.

Dr. Johnson's explanation of the text is as correct as his subsequent remark upon it is judicious. Coriolanus imprecates upon the base plebeians that they may still retain the power of banishing their defenders, till their undiscerning folly, which can foresee no consequences, leave Aone in the city but themselves.

2 Abated is overthrown, depressed.

ACT IV.

SCENE I. The same. Before a Gate of the City.

Enter CORIOLANUS, VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, MENENIUS, COMINIUS, and several young Patricians.

Cor. Come, leave your tears; a brief farewell.—
The beast

With many heads butts me away.-Nay, mother,
Where is your ancient courage? you were used
To say extremity' was the trier of spirits;
That common chances common men could bear;
That when the sea was calm, all boats alike
Showed mastership in floating; fortune's blows,
When most struck home, being gentle wounded, craves
A noble cunning: you were used to load me
With precepts, that would make invincible

2

The heart that conned them.

Vir. O Heavens! O Heavens !

Cor.

Nay, I pr'ythee, woman,―

Vol. Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome, And occupations perish!

Cor.

What, what, what!

I shall be loved when I am lacked. Nay, mother,
Resume that spirit, when you were wont to say,
If you had been the wife of Hercules,

Six of his labors you'd have done, and saved
Your husband so much sweat.-Cominius,

Droop not; adieu.-Farewell, my wife! my mother!
I'll do well yet.-Thou old and true Menenius,
Thy tears are salter than a younger man's,

And venomous to thine eyes.-My sometime general.
I have seen thee stern, and thou hast oft beheld

1 This is the reading of the second folio; the first folio reads, extremities was, &c.

2 "When fortune strikes her hardest blows, to be wounded, and yet continue calm, requires a noble wisdom." Cunning is often used in this sense by Shakspeare.

Heart-hardening spectacles; tell these sad women, 'Tis fond' to wail inevitable strokes,

As 'tis to laugh at them.-My mother, you wot well,
My hazards still have been your solace; and
Believe't not lightly, (though I go alone

Like to a lonely dragon, that his fen

Makes feared, and talked of more than seen,) your son
Will, or exceed the common, or be caught

With cautelous 2 baits and practice.

My first 3 son,

Vol.
Whither wilt thou go? Take good Cominius
With thee a while. Determine on some course,
More than a wild exposture to each chance
That starts i'the way before thee.

O the gods!

Cor.
Com. I'll follow thee a month, devise with thee
Where thou shalt rest, that thou mayst hear of us,
And we of thee: so, if the time thrust forth
A cause for thy repeal, we shall not send
O'er the vast world to seek a single man;
And lose advantage, which doth ever cool
I' the absence of the needer.

Cor.
Fare ye well;-
Thou hast years upon thee; and thou art too full
Of the wars' surfeits, to go rove with one
That's yet unbruised; bring me but out at gate.-
Come, my sweet wife, my dearest mother, and
My friends of noble touch,5 when I am forth,
Bid me farewell, and smile. I pray you, come.
While I remain above the ground, you shall
Hear from me still; and never of me aught
But what is like me formerly.

Men.

That's worthily

As any ear can hear. Come, let's not weep.-
If I could shake off but one seven years

1 Foolish.

2 Cautelous here means insidious.

3 i. e. noblest.

4 Exposure; for which it is probably a typographical error.

5 i. e. of true metal. The metaphor from the touchstone for trying metals, is common in Shakspeare.

VOL. V.

67