Men.

Pray now, your news?—

You have made fair work, I fear me.-Pray, your news? If Marcius should be joined with Volcians,

Com.

He is their god; he leads them like a thing
Made by some other deity than nature,

That shapes man better; and they follow him,
Against us brats, with no less confidence,
Than boys pursuing summer butterflies,

Or butchers killing flies.

Men.

If!

You have made good work, You, and your apron men ; you that stood so much Upon the voice of occupation, and

The breath of garlic-eaters!

Com.

He will shake

As Hercules

Did shake down mellow fruit. You have made fair

work!

Bru. But is this true, sir?

Com.

Ay; and you'll look pale

Before you find it other. All the regions

Do smilingly revolt, and who resist,

Are mocked for valiant ignorance,

And perish constant fools. Who is't can blame him?

Your enemies, and his, find something in him.

Men. We are all undone, unless

The noble man have mercy.

Com.

Who shall ask it?

The tribunes cannot do't for shame; the people

Deserve such pity of him, as the wolf

Does of the shepherds. For his best friends, if they Should say, Be good to Rome, they charged him even As those should do that had deserved his hate,

And therein showed like enemies.

Men.

1 i. e. mechanics.

'Tis true.

2 A ludicrous allusion to the apples of the Hesperides.

3 Revolt with pleasure.

4 "They charged, and therein showed," has here the force of "they would charge, and therein show."

If he were putting to my house the brand
That should consume it, I have not the face

To say, 'Beseech you, cease.-You have made fair hands,
You, and your crafts! you have crafted fair!

You have brought

Com.
A trembling upon Rome, such as was never
So incapable of help.

Tri.

Say not we brought it.

Men. How! was it we? We loved him; but, like

beasts,

And cowardly nobles, gave way to your clusters,
Who did hoot him out o' the city.

Com.
But I fear
They'll roar him in again.1 Tullus Aufidius,
The second name of men, obeys his points
As if he were his officer.-Desperation
Is all the policy, strength, and defence,
That Rome can make against them.

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,

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

We have deserved it.

Cit. 'Faith, we hear fearful news. 1 Cit.

For mine own part,

When I said banish him, I said 'twas pity.

2 Cit. 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

1 "As he went out with scoffs, he will come back with lamentations."

though we willingly consented to his banishment, yet

it was against our will.

Com. You are goodly things, you voices!

Men. You have made Good work, you and your cry!-Shall us to the

Capitol ?

Com. O, ay; what else? [Exeunt Coм. and MEN. Sic. Go, masters, get you home; be not dismayed: 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.

Bru. I do not like this news.

Sic. Nor I.

[Exeunt Citizens.

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.

Auf. 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 darkened in this action, sir,
Even by your own.

Auf.
I cannot help it now;
Unless, by using means, I lame the foot

Of our design. He bears himself more proudlier
Even to my person, than I thought he would,
When first I did embrace him. Yet his nature

1 Pack.

In that's no changeling; and I must excuse
What cannot be amended.

Lieu.

Yet I wish, sir,
(I mean for your particular,) you had not
Joined 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 Volcian 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.

Rome?

Lieu. Sir, I beseech you, think you he'll carry
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
Will be as rash in the repeal, as hasty

To expel him thence. I think he'll be to Rome,
As is the ospray1 to the fish who takes it
By sovereignty of nature. First he was
A noble servant to them; but he could not
Carry his honors 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

2

From the casque to the cushion, but commanding peace

1 The ospray was supposed to possess a fascinating power over fish. 2 Aufidius assigns three probable reasons for the miscarriage of Coriolanus; pride, which easily follows an uninterrupted train of success; unskilfulness to regulate the consequences of his own victories; a stubborn uniformity of nature, which could not make the proper transition from the casque to the cushion, or chair of civil authority, but acted with the same despotism in peace as in war.

Even with the same austerity and garb
As he controlled the war; but one of these
(As he hath spices of them all, not all,

For I dare so far free him) made him feared,
So hated, and so banished. But he has a merit,
To choke it in the utterance.1 So our virtues
Lie in the interpretation of the time;
And power, unto itself most commendable,
Hath not a tomb so evident as a hair

To extol what it hath done.2

One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail;
Rights by rights fouler,3 strengths by strengths do fail.
Come, let's away. When, Caius, Rome is thine,
Thou art poor'st of all; then shortly art thou mine.

[Exeunt.

1 But such is his merit as ought to choke the utterance of his faults.

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."

Thus the old copy. Well Steevens might exclaim that the passage and the comments upon it were equally intelligible. The whole speech is very incorrectly printed in the folio. Thus we have 'was for 'twas; detect for defect; virtue for virtues; and, evidently, chair for hair. What is the meaning of

"Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair?"

A hair has some propriety, as used for a thing almost invisible. As in The Tempest:

66

not a hair perished."

I take the meaning of the passage to be, "So our virtues lie at the mercy of the time's interpretation; and power, which esteems itself while living so highly, hath not, when defunct, the least particle of praise allotted to it." -Singer.

3 "Rights by rights fouler, strengths by strengths do fail." Malone reads founder, with a worthy but unsatisfactory argument in favor of his reading. Singer would read "Rights by rights foiled," &c., an easy and obvious emendation. Steevens has given the following explanation of the passage:-"What is already right, and is received as such, becomes less clear when supported by supernumerary proof."