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Cor. I am content.

Men. Lo, citizens, he says, he is content :
The warlike service he has done, consider ;

Think on the wounds his body bears, which show
Like graves i'the holy churchyard.

Cor. Scratches with briars, scars to move laughter only.
Men. Consider further,

That when he speaks not like a citizen,
You find him like a soldier: Do not take
His rougher accents for malicious sounds,
But, as I say, such as become a soldier,
Rather than envy you.

Com. Well, well, no more.

Cor. What is the matter,

That being past for consul with full voice,
I am so dishonour'd, that the very hour
You take it off again?

Sic. Answer to us.

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Cor. Say then: 'tis true, I ought so.

Sic. We charge you, that you have contriv'd to take From Rome all season'd office, and to wind

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Yourself unto 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 thine hands clutch'd' 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 with him; 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.

[5] Envy---is here taken at large for malignity or ill intention.

JOHNSON.

[6] All office established and settled by time, and made familiar to the people by long use. JOHNSON. [7] i. e. grasped.

STEEVENS.

Bru. But since he hath

Serv'd well for Rome,

Cor. What do you prate of service?
Bru. I talk of that, that know it.

Cor. You?

Men. Is this the promise that you made your mother? Com. Know, I pray you,

Cor. I'll know no further:

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

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 banish'd, and so it shall be.

Com. Hear me, my masters, and my common friends ;— Sic. He's sentenc'd: no more hearing.

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 banish'd, As enemy to the people, and his country :

[8] Not---stands again for not only. JOHNSON.--So in Thessa. iv. 8. "He therefore, that despiseth, despiseth not man but God." STEEVENS.

[9] I love my country beyond the rate at which I value my dear wife. JOHNSON.

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 carcases of unburied men

That do corrupt my air, I banish you;
And here remain with your uncertainty !
Let every feeble rumour 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 not reservation of yourselves,
Still your own foes,) deliver you, as most
Abased 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 banish'd! 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 follow'd you, with all despite ;
Give him deserv'd 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.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.—The same. Before a Gate of the City. Enter
CORIOLANUS, VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, MENENIUS, COMIN-
IUS, and several young
Patricans.

Coriolanus.

COME, leave your tears; a brief farewell :-The beast With many heads butts me away.-Nay, mother, Where is your ancient courage? You were us'd

[1] Cry here signifies a troop or pack.

MALONE.

[2] Still retain the power of banishing your defenders, till your undiscerning folly, which can foresee no consequences, leave none in the city but yourselves, who are always labouring your own destruction.It is remarkable, that, among the political maxims of the speculative Harrington, there is one which he might have borrowed from this speech. "The people (says he) cannot see, but they can feel" It is not much to the honour of the people, that they have the same character of stupidity from their enemy and their friend. Such was the power of our author's mind, that he looked through life in all its relations private and civil. JOHNSON.

To say, extremity was the trier of spirits;
That common chances common men could bear;
That, when the sea was calm, all boats alike
Show'd mastership in floating: Fortune's blows,
When most struck home, being gentle wounded, craves
A noble cunning. You were us'd to load me
With precepts, that would make invincible
The heart that conn'd 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 lov'd, when I am lack'd. Nay, mother, Resume that spirit, when you were wont to say, you had been the wife of Hercules,

If

mother!

Six of his labours you'd have done, and sav'd
Your husband so much sweat.-Cominius,
Droop not; adieu :-Farewell, my wife! my
I'll do well yet.-Thou old and true Menenius,
Thy tears are salter than a young man's,
And venomous to thine eyes.-My sometime general,
I have seen thee stern, and thou hast oft beheld
Heart-hard'ning 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 fear'd and talk'd of more than seen,) your son

Will, or exceed the common, or be caught

With cautelous baits and practice."

Vol. My first son, 6

Whither wilt thou go? Take good Cominius

With thee a while Determine on some course,

More than a wild exposure to each chance
That starts i'the way before thee.

Cor. O the gods!

[3] The sense is, When Fortune strikes her hardest blows, to be wounded, and yet continue calm, requires a generous policy. He calls this calmness cunning, because it is the effect of reflection and philosophy. Perhaps the first emotions of nature are nearly uniform, and one man differs from another in the powers of indurance, as he is better regulated by precept and instruction.-----" They bore as beroes, but they felt as men." JOHNSON.

[4] i. e. 'tis foolish. [5] By artful and false tricks, and treason. [6] First-i. e. noblest, most eminent of men.

WARBURTON.

JOHNSON:

Com. I'll follow thee a month, devise with thee
Where thou shalt rest, that thou may'st 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 unbruis'd: bring me but out at gate.--
Come, my sweet wife, my dearest mother, and
My friends of noble touch," 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

From these old arms and legs, by the good gods,

I'd with thee every foot.

Cor. Give me thy hand :-Come.

SCENE II.

[Exeunt

The same. A street near the Gate. Enter SICINIUS, BRUTUS,

and an Edile.

Sic. Bid them all home; He's gone, and we'll no further. -The nobility are vex'd, who, we see, have sided

In his behalf.

Bru. Now we have shown our power,

Let us seem humbler after it is done,

Than when it was a-doing.

Sic. Bid them home.

Say, their great enemy is gone, and they

Stand in their ancient strength.

Bru. Dismiss them home.

[Exit Edile.

Enter VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, and MENENIUS.

Here comes his mother.

Sic. Let's not meet her.

Bru. Why?

[i. e. Of true metal unallay'd. Metaphor taken from the trying gold on the touchstone. WARBURTON.

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