What's the news in Rome? I have a note from the Volcian state, to find you out there: you have well saved me a day's journey. ROM. There hath been in Rome strange insurrection: the people against the senators, patricians, and nobles. VOL. Hath been! Is it ended then? Our state thinks not so; they are in a most warlike preparation, and hope to come upon them in the heat of their division. Roм. The main blaze of it is past, but a small thing would make it flame again. For the nobles receive so to heart the banishment of that worthy Coriolanus, that they are in a ripe aptness, to take all power from the people, and to pluck from them their tribunes for ever. This lies glowing, I can tell you, and is almost mature for the violent breaking out. VOL. Coriolanus banished? To repeal may be to bring to remembrance, but appeal has another meaning. JOHNSON. I would read: "Your favour is well approved by your tongue." i. e. your tongue confirms the evidence of your face. So, in Hamlet, Sc. I.: "That if again this apparition come, "He may approve our eyes and speak to it." STEEVENS. If there be any corruption in the old copy, perhaps it rather is in a preceding word. Our author might have written-" your favour has well appeared by your tongue :" but the old text may, in Shakspeare's licentious dialect, be right. Your favour is fully manifested or rendered apparent, by your tongue. In support of the old copy it may be observed, that becomed was formerly used as a participle. So, in North's translation of Plutarch, Life of Sylla, p. 622, edit. 1575: "—which perhaps would not have becomed Pericles or Aristides." We have the same participle in Romeo and Juliet, vol. vi. p. 192: "And gave him what becomed love I might." So Chaucer uses dispaired: Alas, quod Pandarus, what may this be "That thou dispaired art," &c. MALONE. ROM. Banished, sir. VOL. You will be welcome with this intelligence, Nicanor. ROM. The day serves well for them now. I have heard it said, The fittest time to corrupt a man's wife, is when she's fallen out with her husband. Your noble Tullus Aufidius will appear well in these wars, his great opposer, Coriolanus, being now in no request of his country. VOL. He cannot choose. I am most fortunate, thus accidentally to encounter you: You have ended my business, and I will merrily accompany you home. ROM. I shall, between this and supper, tell you most strange things from Rome; all tending to the good of their adversaries. Have you an army ready, say you? VOL. A most royal one: the centurions, and their charges, distinctly billeted, already in the entertainment, and to be on foot at an hour's warning. ROM. I am joyful to hear of their readiness, and am the man, I think, that shall set them in present action. So, sir, heartily well met, and most glad of your company. VOL. You take my part from me, sir; I have the most cause to be glad of yours. ROM. Well, let us go together. 3 already in the entertainment,] [Exeunt. That is, though not actually encamped, yet already in pay. To entertain an army is to take them into pay. JOHNSON. See vol. viii. p. 39, n. 6. MALone. SCENE IV. Antium. Before AUFIDIUS'S House. Enter CORIOLANUS, in mean Apparel, disguised and muffled. COR. A goodly city is this Antium: City, 'Tis I that made thy widows; many an heir Of these fair edifices 'fore my wars Have I heard groan, and drop: then know me not; Lest that thy wives with spits, and boys with stones, Enter a Citizen. In puny battle slay me.-Save you, sir. CIT. And you. COR. Direct me, if it be your will, Where great Aufidius lies: Is he in Antium ? CIT. He is, and feasts the nobles of the state, At his house this night. COR. Which is his house, 'beseech you? CIT. This, here, before you. COR. Thank you, sir; farewell. O, world, thy slippery turns! Friends now fast sworn, Whose double bosoms seem to wear one heart, Whose hours, whose bed, whose meal, and exercise, Are still together, who twin, as 'twere, in love 5 4 O, world, thy slippery turns! &c.] This fine picture of common friendship, is an artful introduction to the sudden league which the poet made him enter into with Aufidius, and no less artful an apology for his commencing enemy to Rome. WARBURTON. 5 Whose double bosoms seem to wear one heart, Whose hours, whose bed, whose meal, and exercise, Are still together, who TWIN, as 'twere, in love-] Our au thor has again used this verb in Othello: Unseparable, shall within this hour, Whose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep To take the one the other, by some chance, Some trick not worth an friends, And interjoin their issues. egg, shall grow dear So with me: My birth-place hate I, and my love's upon "And he that is approv'd in this offence, 66 Though he had twinn'd with me,-" &c. [Exit. Part of this description naturally reminds us of the following lines in A Midsummer-Night's Dream: 66 We, Hermia, like two artificial gods, "Have with our neelds created both one flower, "Two lovely berries molded on one stem: 6 - HATE I.] The old copy instead of hate, reads-have. The emendation was made by Mr. Steevens. I'll enter the house of Aufidius. MALONE. "I'll enter," means, Instead of this easy emendation Mr. Rowe thus altered this line: "My birth-place have I, and my lovers left." BOSWELL. 7 This ENEMY town.-I'll enter:] Here, as in other places, our author is indebted to Sir Thomas North's Plutarch: "For he disguised him selfe in suche arraye and attire, as he thought no man could euer haue knowen him for the persone he was, seeing him in that apparell he had vpon his backe: and as Homer sayed of Vlysses: "So dyd he enter into the enemies tovvne." Perhaps, therefore, instead of enemy, we should read-enemy's or enemies' town. STEEVENS. SCENE V. The Same. A Hall in AUFIDIUS'S House. Musick within. Enter a Servant. 1 SERV. Wine, wine, wine! What service is here! I think our fellows are asleep. Enter another Servant. [Exit. 2 SERV. Where's Cotus? my master calls for Cotus! him. [Exit. Enter CORIOLANUS. COR. A goodly house: The feast smells well : but I Appear not like a guest. Re-enter the first Servant. 1 SERV. What would you have, friend? Whence are you? Here's no place for you: Pray, go to the door. COR. I have deserv'd no better entertainment, In being Coriolanus 8. Re-enter second Servant. 2 SERV. Whence are you, sir? Has the porter his eyes in his head, that he gives entrance to such companions? Pray, get you out. 8 In being CORIOLANUS.] i. e. in having derived that surname from the sack of Corioli. STEEVENS. 9 that he gives entrance to such COMPANIONS ?] Companion was formerly used in the same sense as we now use the word fellow. MALONE. The same term is employed in All's Well That Ends Well, King Henry VI. Part II. Cymbeline, Othello, &c. STEEVENS. See also, Lord Clarendon's History, vol. i. p. 378: " - by this |