Were I as patient as the midnight sleep, Sic. It is a mind That shall remain a poison where it is, Cor. Shall remain ! Hear you this Triton of the minnows? mark you His absolute "shall ?" Com. Cor. O, good but most unwise patricians! why, That with his peremptory "shall," being but 6 6 To vail is to lower or let fall. See Measure for Measure, Act v. sc. 1, note 1. So that the meaning seems to be something thus: "If this man have power, then let your ignorance that gave it him bow down before him." H. 7 The original has, "awake your dangerous lenity;" where it seems clear enough that awake reverses the drift of the argument. In Mr. Collier's second folio the passage is made to read thus: "If he have power, then vail your impotence; if none, revoke your dangerous bounty." But the following clause, -"if you are learn'd," - makes against impotence, as it is evidently meant to be antithetic to "your ignorance." As to the substitution of bounty for lenity, it is to be observed that Coriolanus is here speaking, not against the Senate's bounty in letting the people have corn gratis, but against the Senate's indulgent temper, or lenity, in letting them have Tribunes as their own special magistrates. See Act i. sc. 1, note 12. H. Be not as common fools; if you are not, Let them have cushions by you. You are plebeians, If they be senators; and they are no less, 8 When, both your voices blended, the great'st state May enter 'twixt the gap of both, and take Com. Well-on to th' market-place. Cor. Whoever gave that counsel, to give forth The corn o'the storehouse gratis, as 'twas us'd Sometime in Greece, Men. Cor. Well, well; no more of that. Though there the people had more abso lute power, I say, they nourish'd disobedience, fed The ruin of the state. 8 That is, most relishes their (the people's) voice. The origi nal reads, "the great'st taste." The change is Mr. Singer's, who remarks that "the compositors, finding palates in the subsequent line, printed taste instead of state, consisting of the same letters." The meaning of the passage may now be rendered somewhat thus: "In giving the plebs a voice, you have reduced yourselves to a level with them, and, when the voices of the two orders are thus blended, the greatest state prefers the people's voice, they being the most numerous." This is corroborated by the corresponding passage in North's Plutarch, where Coriolanus is made to speak as follows: "We should, if we were wise, take from them their Tribuneship, which most manifestly is the embasing of the Consulship, and the cause of the division of their city. The state whereof, as it standeth, is not now as it was wont to be, but becometh dismembred in two factions, which maintaines alwaies civill dissention and discord between us, and will never suffer us againe to be united into one body." H. 9 They know the Was not our recompense, resting well assur'd They ne'er did service for't. Being press'd to th' war, Even when the navel of the state was touch'd, They would not thread the gates: 10 this kind of ser vice Did not deserve corn gratis. Being i'the war, The senate's courtesy ? Let deeds express 9 That is, the recompense due from us to them. We learn from Mr. Collier, that in a copy of the fourth folio, which once belonged to Southern, our is changed to their. But it seems indifferent whether the reading be, our recompense to them, or their recompense from us. 10 To thread the gates is to pass through them. H. 11 The original has "could never be the native of our so frank donation." What may be the meaning of native here, is a question that has baffled editorial ingenuity. Motive was proposed by Monck Mason, and is found written in Mr. Collier's second folio. Bisson multitude, in the next sentence, is from the same source; the reading of the original being bosome multiplied. The emendation is undoubtedly right, and is one of great value. For the meaning of bisson, see Act ii. sc. 1, note 5. H. The locks o'the senate, and bring in the crows Men. Come, enough. Bru. Enough, with over-measure. Cor. No, take more: What may be sworn by, both divine and human, Seal what I end withal! This double worship, — Where one part does disdain with cause, the other Insult without all reason; where gentry, title, wisdom Cannot conclude, but by the yea and no Of general ignorance, it must omit Real necessities, and give way the while To unstable slightness. Purpose so barr'd, it follows Nothing is done to purpose: therefore, beseech you, You that will be less fearful than discreet; More than you doubt 12 the change on't; that prefer To jump 13 a body with a dangerous physic, 12 To doubt is to fear. 13 To jump is to risk, venture, or set on a hazard; explained by Richardson thus: "To come or go at a jump, that is, suddenly, hastily, without seeing the ground to alight upon, at a risk or venture." The word occurs as a verb with the same sense in the well known speech of Macbeth, Act i. sc. 7: "We'd jump the life to come." Likewise as a substantive in Antony and Cleopatra, Act iii. sc. 8: "Our fortune lies upon this jump." The same use of the word is found in Holland's Pliny: "If we looke for good successe in our cure by ministring ellebore, &c., for certainly it putteth the patient to a jumpe or greate hazard." Mr. Singer has lately set forth, with much confidence, an opinion, which we were at first inclined to adopt, that jump in this place is a mis-print for imp. Imp is a term in falconry, and signifies, primarily, to graft or insert feathers into the damaged wing of a hawk; and so runs into a secondary meaning of to repair or restore by artificial means. He says of jump that "nothing can be made of it." Mr. Singer is entitled to more respect than he sometimes shows That's sure of death without it, at once pluck out Bru. 14 He has said enough. Sic. He has spoken like a traitor, and shall answer As traitors do. Cor. Thou wretch! despite o'erwhelm thee! What should the people do with these bald tribunes? On whom depending, their obedience fails To th' greater bench. In a rebellion, When what's not meet, but what must be, was law, Bru. Manifest treason. Sic. This a consul? no. Bru. The Ædiles, ho!-Let him be apprehended. Enter an Edile. Sic. Go, call the people; [Exit Edile] in whose name, myself Attach thee, as a traitorous innovator, towards others who are not less worthy of it than himself. As explained and confirmed by our quotations, to jump a body is just the very thing that would needs be done by using dangerous physic; nor is any thing more natural or more common than to usc such physic in cases where the patient is "sure of death without it." In other words, the sense of risk agrees much better with the context here, than that of mend. H. 14 Integrity seems to be here used in its primitive sense of wholeness, or entireness. H. 15 Let it be said by you that what is meet to be done, must be meet, that is, shall be done, and put an end at once to the tribunitian power." |