Men. Do not cry, havock, where you should but hunt With modest warrant.

2 He shall, sure on 't.] The meaning of these words is not very obvious. Perhaps they mean, He shall, that 's sure. I am inclined to think that the same error has happened here and in a passage in Antony and Cleopatra, and that in both places sure is printed instead of sore. He shall suffer for it, he shall rue the vengeance of the people.-The editor of the second folio readsHe shall, sure out; and u and n being often confounded, the emendation might be admitted, but that there is not here any question concerning the expulsion of Coriolanus. What is now proposed, is, to throw him down the Tarpeian rock. It is absurd, therefore, that the rabble should by way of confirmation of what their leader Sicinius had said, propose a punishment he has not so much as mentioned, and which, when he does afterwards mention it, he disapproved of:

66 to eject him hence,
"Were but one danger."

I have therefore left the old copy undisturbed. Malone. Perhaps our author wrote-with reference to the foregoing speech:

He shall, be sure on 't.

i.e. be assured that he shall be taught the respect due to both the tribunes and the people. Steevens.

3 Sir,] Old copy, redundantly— Sir, sir. Steevens.

4 Do not cry, havock, where you should but hunt

With modest warrant.] i. e. Do not give the signal for unlimited slaughter, &c. See Vol. VII, p. 320, n. 1. Steevens.

To cry havock, was, I believe, originally a sporting phrase, from hafoc, which in Saxon signifies a hawk. It was afterwards used in war. So, in King John:

Cry havock, kings."

And in Julius Cæsar :

"Cry havock, and let slip the dogs of war."

It seems to have been the signal for general slaughter, and is expressly forbid in The Ordinances des Battailles, 9 R. ii, art. 10: "Item, que nul soit si hardy de crier havok sur peine d'avoir la test coupe."

The second article of the same Ordinances seems to have been fatal to Bardolph. It was death even to touch the pix of little price. "Item, que nul soit si hardy de toucher le corps de nostre Seigneur, ni le vessel en quel il est, sur peyne d'estre trainez et pendu, et le teste avoir coupe." MS. Cotton. Nero D. VI.Tyrwhitt. Again: "For them that crye hauoke. Also that noo man be so

Sic.

Sir, how comes 't, that you

Have holp to make this rescue?

Men.

Hear me speak:

As I do know the consul's worthiness,
So can I name his faults:

I

Men. If, by the tribunes' leave, and yours, goad people, may be heard, I'd crave a word or two;

The which shall turn you to5 no further harm,

Than so much loss of time.

Sic.

Speak briefly then;

For we are peremptory, to despatch

This viperous traitor: to eject him hence,

Were but one danger; and, to keep him here, «
Our certain death; therefore, it is decreed,

He dies to-night.

Men.
Now the good gods forbid,
That our renowned Rome, whose gratitude
Towards her deserved children is enroll'd
In Jove's own book, like an unnatural dam
Should now eat up her own!

Sic. He's a disease, that must be cut away.
Men. O, he's a limb, that has but a disease;
Mortal, to cut it off; to cure it, easy.

What has he done to Rome, that 's worthy death?
Killing our enemies? The blood he hath lost,
(Which, I dare vouch, is more than that he hath,
By many an ounce,) he dropp'd it for his country:
And, what is left, to lose it by his country,

hardy to crye hauoke, vpon payne of hym that so is founde begyn ner, to dye therefore, and the remenaunt to be emprysoned, and theyr bodyes to be punyshed at the kynges wyll." Certayne Statutes and Ordenaunces of Warre made &c. by Henry the VIII, bl. 1. 4to. emprynted by R. Pynson, 1513. Todd.

5

shall turn you to -] This singular expression has already occurred in The Tempest:

my heart bleeds

"To think o' the teen that I have turn'd you to." Steevens. 6 Towards her deserved children -] Deserved, for deserving. S delighted for delighting. So, in Othello:

"If virtue no delighted beauty lack

"Malone.

Were to us all, that do 't, and suffer it,
A brand to the end o' the world.

Sic.

This is clean kam.7

Bru. Merely awry: When he did love his country, It honour'd him.

Men.

The service of the foot

Being once gangren'd, is not then respected
For what before it was??

Bru.

We'll hear no more:

Pursue him to his house, and pluck him thence;
Lest his infection, being of catching nature,
Spread further.

7 This is clean kam.] i. e. Awry. So Cotgrave interprets, Tout va à contrepoil. All goes clean kam. Hence a cambrel for a crooked stick, or the bend in a horse's hinder leg. Warburton.

The Welsh word for crooked is kam; and in Lyly's Endymion, 1591, is the following passage: "But timely, madam, crooks that tree that will be a camock, and young it pricks that will be a thorn." Again, in Sappho and Phao, 1591:

"Camocks must be bowed with sleight, not strength." Vulgar pronunciation has corrupted clean kam into kim kam, and this corruption is preserved in that great repository of ancient vulgarisms, Stanyhurst's translation of Virgil, 1582:

"Scinditur incertum studia in contraria vulgus."

'The wavering commons in kym kam sectes are haled."

Steevens.

In the old translation of Gusman de Alfarache the words kim, kam, occur several times. Amongst others, take the following instance: "All goes topsie turvy; all kim, kam, all is tricks and devices: all riddles and unknown mysteries." P. 100. Reed.

8 Merely awry:]i. e. absolutely. See Vol. II, p. 12, n. 2. Steevens. 9 Being once gangren'd, is not then respected

For what before it was?] Nothing can be more evident, than that this could never be said by Coriolanus's apologist, and that it was said by one of the tribunes; I have therefore given it to Sicinius. Warburton.

I have restored it to Menenius, placing an interrogation point at the conclusion of the speech. Mr. Malone, considering it as an imperfect sentence, gives it thus:

For what before it was;

Steevens.

You alledge, says Menenius, that being diseased, he must be cut away. According then to your argument, the foot, being once gangrened, is not to be respected for what it was before it was gangrened." Is this just ?" Menenius would have added, if the tribune had not interrupted him: and indeed, without any such addition, from his state of the argument these words are understood. Malone.

Men.

One word more, one word.

This tiger-footed rage, when it shall find

The harm of unscann'd swiftness, will, too late,
Tie leaden pounds to his heels. Proceed by process;
Lest parties (as he is belov'd) break out,

And sack great Rome with Romans.

Bru.

Sic. What do ye talk?

If it were so,

Have we not had a taste of his obedience?

Our Ediles smote? ourselves resisted?-Come:
Men. Consider this;-He has been bred i' the wars
Since he could draw a sword, and is ill school'd
In boulted language; meal and bran together
He throws without distinction. Give me leave,
I'll go to him, and undertake to bring him1
Where he shall answer, by a lawful form,
(In peace) to his utmost peril.

1 Sen.
Noble tribunes,
It is the humane way: the other course
Will prove too bloody; and the end of it
Unknown to the beginning.2

Noble Menenius,

Sic.
Be you then as the people's officer:—
Masters, lay down your weapons.

Bru.

Go not home.

Sic. Meet on the market-place:-We 'll attend you

there:

Where, if you bring not Marcius, we 'll proceed
In our first way.

Men.

I'll bring him to you:

Let me desire your company. [To the Senators.] He

must come,

Or what is worst will follow.

1 Sen.

Pray you, let's to him.

[Exeunt.

1 to bring him-] In the old copy the words in peace are found at the end of this line. They probably were in the MS. placed at the beginning of the next line, and caught by the transcriber's eye glancing on the line below. The emendation was made by Mr. Pope. Malone.

2

the end of it

Unknown to the beginning.] So, in The Tempest, Act II, sc. i: "The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning."

Steevens.

SCENE II.

A Room in Coriolanus's House.

Enter CORIOLANUS, and Patricians.

Cor. Let them pull all about mine ears; present me Death on the wheel, or at wild horses' heels ;3 Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock, That the precipitation might down stretch Below the beam of sight, yet will I still Be thus to them.

3 Death on the wheel, or at wild horses' heels;] Neither of these punishments was known at Rome. Shakspeare had probably read or heard in his youth that Balthazar de Gerrard, who assassinated William Prince of Orange in 1584, was torn to pieces by wild horses; as Nicholas de Salvedo had been not long before, for conspiring to take away the life of that gallant prince.

When I wrote this note, the punishment which Tullus Hosti lius inflicted on Metius Suffetius for deserting the Roman standard, had escaped my memory:

"Haud procul inde cita Metium in diversa quadrige
"Distulerant, (at tu dictis, Albane, maneres,)
Raptabatque viri mendacis viscera Tullus

66

"Per sylvam; et sparsi rorabant sanguine vepres."

En. VIII, 642. However, as Shakspeare has coupled this species of punishment with another that certainly was unknown to ancient Rome, it is highly probable that he was not apprized of the story of Metius Suffetius, and that in this, as in various other instances, the practice of his own time was in his thoughts: (for in 1594 John Chastel had been thus executed in France for attempting to assassinate Henry the Fourth:) more especially as we know from the testimony of Livy that this cruel capital punishment was never inflicted from the beginning to the end of the Repub. lick, except in this single instance :

"Exinde, duabus admotis quadrigis, in currus earum distentum illigat Metium. Deinde in diversum iter equi concitati, lacerum in utroque curru corpus quâ inhæserant vinculis membra, portantes. Avertêre omnes a tantâ fœditate spectaculi oculos. Primum ultimumque illud supplicium apud Romanos exempli parum memoris legum humanarum fuit: in aliis, gloriari licet nulli gentium mitiores placuisse pœnas." Liv. Lib. Ï, xxviii.

Malone.

Shakspeare might have found mention of this punishment in our ancient romances. Thus, in The Sowdon of Babyloyne, p. 55: Thou venemouse serpente

"With wilde horses thou shalt be drawe to morowe
"And on this hille be brente."

Steevens.