MEN. Why, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting, proud, violent, testy magistrates, (alias fools) as any in Rome.

too.

Sic. Menenius, you are known well enough

MEN. I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in't; said to be something imperfect in favouring the first complaint; hasty and tinder-like upon too trivial motion; one that converses more with the buttock of the night than with the forehead of the morning. What I think I utter, and spend my malice in my breath. Meeting two such weal's-men as you are, (I cannot call you Lycurguses) if the drink you give me touch my palate adversely, I make a crooked face at it. I cannot say your worships have delivered the matter well, when I find the ass in compound with the major part of your syllables: and though I must be content to bear with those that say you are reverend grave men, yet they lie deadly that tell you have good faces. If you see this in the map of my microcosm, follows it that I am known well enough too? What harm can your bisson † conspectuities glean out of this character, if I be known well enough too?

BRU. Come, sir, come, we know you well enough.

MEN. You know neither me, yourselves, nor any thing. You are ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs: you wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orangewife and a fosset-seller; and then rejourn the controversy of three-pence to a second day of audience. When you are hearing a matter between party and party, if you chance to be pinched with the colic, you make faces like mummers; set up the bloody flag against all patience; and, in roaring for a chamberpot, dismiss the controversy bleeding, the more entangled by your hearing: all the peace you make in their cause is, calling both the parties knaves. You are a pair of strange

ones.

BRU. Come, come, you are well understood to be a perfecter giber for the table, than a necessary bencher in the Capitol.

MEN. Our very priests must become mockers, if they shall encounter such ridiculous subjects as you are. When you speak best unto the purpose,

(*) Old text, can, corrected by Theobald. (†) Old text, beesome, corrected by Theobald.

I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in't; said to be something imperfect in favouring the first complaint; hasty and tinder-like upon too trivial motion;] The pose in this passage is the expression, "the first complaint." What is "the first complaint"? At one time we conceived the sprightly, warm-hearted old senator, among his other failings, "cried out of women," and referred to what Ben Jonson as obscurely terms "the primitive work of darkness" ("The Devil is an Ass," Act II. Sc. 2); but

it is not worth the wagging of your beards; and your beards deserve not so honourable a grave as to stuff a botcher's cushion, or to be entombed in an ass's pack-saddle. Yet you must be saying, Marcius is proud; who, in a cheap estimation, is worth all your predecessors since Deucalion; though, peradventure, some of the best of 'em were hereditary hangmen. God-den to your worships; more of your conversation would infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly plebeians; I will be bold to take my leave of you.— [BRUTUS and SICINIUS retire.

VOL. Look, here's a letter from him: the state hath another, his wife another; and I think there's one at home for you.

MEN. I will make my very house reel tonight:-a letter for me? VIR. Yes, certain, there's a letter for you; I saw it.

MEN. A letter for me! it gives me an estate of seven years' health; in which time I will make a lip at the physician: the most sovereign prescription in Galen is but empiricutic, and, to this preservative, of no better report than a horsedrench.-Is he not wounded? he was wont to come home wounded.

what militates against this supposition, and the wonderfully acute emendation of Mr. Collier's annotator," the thirst complaint," also is the doubt whether "complaint" obtained the sense of malady or ailment until many years after these plays were written. If it did not bear this meaning in Shakespeare's day, the only explanation of "something imperfect, in favouring the first com plaint," appears to be that he was too apt to be led away by first impressions; to act rather upon impulse than from reflection. bempericutic,-] In the old text, "Emperickqutique," which Pope altered to "emperic," and for which Mr. Collier's annotator substitutes, "empiric physic."

VOL. On's brows, Menenius, he comes the third time home with the oaken garland.

MEN. Has he disciplined Aufidius soundly? VOL. Titus Lartius writes,-they fought together, but Aufidius got off.

MEN. And 'twas time for him too, I'll warrant him that an he had stayed by him, I would not have been so fidiused for all the chests in Corioli, and the gold that's in them. Is the senate possessed of this?

VOL. Good ladies, let's go.-Yes, yes, yes; the senate has letters from the general, wherein he gives my son the whole name of the war: he hath in this action outdone his former deeds doubly. VAL. In troth, there's wondrous things spoke of him.

MEN. Wondrous! ay, I warrant you, and not without his true purchasing.

VIR. The gods grant them true!

VOL. True! pow, wow.

MEN. True! I'll be sworn they are true.Where is he wounded?-[To the Tribunes.] God save your good worships! Marcius is coming home: he has more cause to be proud.—Where is he wounded?

VOL. I' the shoulder and i' the left arm: there will be large cicatrices to show the people, when he shall stand for his place. He received in the repulse of Tarquin seven hurts i' the body.

MEN. One i' the neck, and two i' the thigh,there's nine that I know.

VOL. He had, before this last expedition, twenty-five wounds upon him.

MEN. Now it's twenty-seven: every gash was an enemy's grave. [4 shout and flourish.] Hark! the trumpets.

VOL. These are the ushers of Marcius: before him

He carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears: Death, that dark spirit, in's nervy arm doth lie; Which, being advanc'd, declines; and then men die.

COR. Menenius ever, ever.
HER. Give way there, and go on
COR.

!

Your hand, and yours: [To VIRG. and VOLUM.

Ere in our own house I do shade my head,
The good patricians must be visited;
From whom I have receiv'd not only greetings,
But with them change" of honours.

VOL.
To see inherited my very wishes,
And the buildings of my fancy:

I have liv'd

Only there's one thing wanting, which I doubt not, But our Rome will cast upon thee.

(*) Old text, Martius Caius Coriolanus.

additional honours, may be right, though we incline to Theobald's substitution, "charge of honours."

Clambering the walls to eye him: stalls, bulks, windows,

Are smother'd up, leads fill'd, and ridges hors'd
With variable complexions; all agreeing

In earnestness to see him: seld-shown flamens a
Do press among the popular throngs, and puff
To win a vulgar station: our veil'd dames
Commit the war of white and damask, in
Their nicely-gawded cheeks, to the wanton spoil
Of Phoebus' burning kisses: such a pother,
As if that whatsoever god who leads him,
Were slily crept into his human powers,
And gave him graceful posture.

SIC.

I warrant him consul.

BRU.

On the sudden,

Then our office may,

1 OFF. Come, come, they are almost here. How many stand for consulships?

2 OFF. Three, they say: but 't is thought of every one, Coriolanus will carry it.

1 OFF. That's a brave fellow; but he's vengeance proud, and loves not the common people.

2 OFF. Faith, there have been many great men that have flattered the people, who ne'er loved them; and there be many that they have loved, they know not wherefore: so that, if they love they know not why, they hate upon no better a ground: therefore, for Coriolanus neither to care whether they love or hate him, manifests the true knowledge he has in their disposition;

c Shall reach the people,-] In the old text, "teach the People." The correction is Theobald's. Mr. Knight suggested, "Shall touch the people," which is equally probable and good.

and, out of his noble carelessness, lets them plainly see 't.

1 OFF. If he did not care whether he had their love or no, he waved indifferently 'twixt doing them neither good nor harm; but he seeks their hate with greater devotion than they can render it him; and leaves nothing undone that may fully discover him their opposite. Now, to seem to affect the malice and displeasure of the people, is as bad as that which he dislikes,-to flatter them for their love.

2 OFF. He hath deserved worthily of his country; and his ascent is not by such easy degrees as those who, having been supple and courteous to the people, bonneted, without any further deed to heave them at all into their estimation and report: but he hath so planted his honours in their eyes, and his actions in their hearts, that for their tongues to be silent, and not confess so much, were a kind of ingrateful injury; to report otherwise, were a malice, that, giving itself the lie, would pluck reproof and rebuke from every ear that heard it.

1 OFF. No more of him; he 's a worthy man : make way, they are coming.

abonneted,-] This is accepted as meaning, took off the cap, as in "Othello," Act I. Sc. 1, we have,-"Oft capp'd to him: " but it may signify,-invested with the badge of consular dignity.

to heave them-] Pope's emendation; the old text reading, "to have them," &c.