Sic. The custom of request you have discharg'd:
The people do admit you; and are summon'd
To meet anon, upon your approbation.

Cor. Where? at the senate-house?

Sic.

There, Coriolanus.

Cor. May I then change these garments?
Sic.

You may, sir. Cor. That I'll straight do; and, knowing myself again, Repair to the senate-house.

Men. I'll keep you company.-Will you along?
Bru. We stay here for the people.

Sic.

Fare you well. [Exeunt COR. and MEN.

He has it now; and by his looks, methinks, 'Tis warm at his heart.

Bru.

With a proud heart he wore

His humble weeds: Will you dismiss the people?

Re-enter Citizens.

Sic. How now, my masters? have you chose this man? 1 Cit. He has our voices, sir.

Bru. We pray the gods, he may deserve your loves. 2 Cit. Amen, sir: To my poor unworthy notice, He mock'd us, when he begg'd our voices.

3 Cit.

He flouted us down-right.

Certainly,

1 Cit. No, 'tis his kind of speech, he did not mock us. 2 Cit. Not one amongst us, save yourself, but says, He us'd us scornfully: he should have show'd us His marks of merit, wounds receiv'd for his country. Sic. Why, so he did, I am sure.

Cit.

No; no man saw 'em. [Several speak. 3 Cit. He said he had wounds, which he could show in

private;

And with his hat, thus waving it in scorn,
I would be consul, says he: aged custom,5
But by your voices, will not so permit me;

May I then, &c.] Then, which is wanting in the old copy, was supplied, for the sake of metre, by Sir T. Hanmer. Steevens.

5 aged custom,] This was a strange inattention. The Romans at this time had but lately changed the regal for the consular government: for Coriolanus was banished the eighteenth year after the expulsion of the kings. Warburton.

Your voices therefore: When we granted that,
Here was, I thank you for your voices,thank you,-
Your most sweet voices:-now you have left your voices,
I have no further with you :—
-Was not this mockery?
Sic. Why, either, were you ignorant to see 't?6
Or, seeing it, of such childish friendliness
To yield your voices?

Bru.
Could you not have told him,
As you were lesson'd,-When he had no power,
But was a petty servant to the state,

He was your enemy; ever spake against
Your liberties, and the charters that you bear
I' the body of the weal: and now, arriving
A place of potency, and sway o' the state,
If he should still malignantly remain
Fast foe to the plebeii, your voices might
Be curses to yourselves? You should have said,
That, as his worthy deeds did claim no less
Than what he stood for; so his gracious nature
Would think upon yous for your voices, and
Translate his malice towards you into love,
Standing your friendly lord.

Sic.
Thus to have said,
As you were fore-advis'd, had touch'd his spirit,

Perhaps our author meant by aged custom, that Coriolanus should say, the custom which requires the consul to be of a certain prescribed age, will not permit that I should be elected, unless by the voice of the people that rule should be broken through. This would meet with the objection made in p. 65, n. 4; but I doubt much whether Shakspeare knew the precise consular age even in Tully's time, and therefore think it more probable that the words aged custom were used by our author in their ordinary sense, however inconsistent with the recent establishment of consular government at Rome. Plutarch had led him into an error concerning this aged custom. See p. 70, n. 1. Malone.

6 ignorant to see 't?] Were you ignorant to see it, is, did you want knowledge to discern it? Johnson.

7

arriving

A place of potency,] Thus the old copy, and rightly. So, in The Third Part of King Henry VI, Act V, sc. iii:

66

those powers that the queen

"Hath rais'd in Gallia, have arriv'd our coast." Steevens.

8 Would think upon you-] Would retain a grateful remembrance of you, &c. Malone.

And try'd his inclination; from him pluck'd
Either his gracious promise, which you might,
As cause had call'd you up, have held him to;
Or else it would have gall'd his surly nature,
Which easily endures not article

Tying him to aught; so, putting him to rage,
You should have ta'en the advantage of his choler,
And pass'd him unelected.

Bru.

Did you perceive,
He did solicit you in free contempt,9

When he did need your loves; and do you think,
That his contempt shall not be bruising to you,

When he hath power to crush? Why, had your bodies
No heart among you? Or had you tongues, to cry
Against the rectorship of judgment?

Sic.
Have you,
Ere now, deny'd the asker? and, now again,
On him,' that did not ask, but mock, bestow
Your su'd-for tongues?2

3 Cit. He's not confirm'd, we may deny him yet.
2 Cit. And will deny him:

I'll have five hundred voices of that sound.

1 Cit. Itwice five hundred, and their friends to piece 'em. Bru. Get you hence instantly; and tell those friends,→→ They have chose a consul, that will from them take Their liberties; make them of no more voice Than dogs, that are as often beat for barking, As therefore kept to do so.

Sic.

Let them assemble;

And, on a safer judgment, all revoke

Your ignorant election: Enforce his pride,'

-free contempt,] That is, with contempt open and unrestrained. Johnson.

1 On him,] Old copy-of him. Steevens.

2 Your su'd-for tongues?] Your voices that hitherto have been solicited. Steevens.

Your voices, not solicited, by verbal application, but sued-for by this man's merely standing forth as a candidate.-Your suedfor tongues, however, may mean, your voices, to obtain which so many make suit to you; and perhaps the latter is the more just interpretation. Malone.

3 Enforce his pride,] Object his pride, and enforce the objection. Johnson.

And his old hate unto you: besides, forget not
With what contempt he wore the humble weed;
How in his suit he scorn'd you: but your loves,
Thinking upon his services, took from you
The apprehension of his present portance,*
Which gibingly, ungravely, he did fashion
After the inveterate hate he bears you.

Bru.
Lay
A fault on us, your tribunes; that we labour'd,
(No impediment between) but that you must
Cast your election on him.

Sic.
Say, you chose him
More after our commandment, than as guided
By your own true affections: and that, your minds
Pre-occupy'd with what you rather must do

Than what you should, made you against the grain
To voice him consul: Lay the fault on us.

Bru. Ay, spare us not. Say, we read lectures to you, How youngly he began to serve his country,

How long continued: and what stock he springs of,
The noble house o' the Marcians; from whence came
That Ancus Marcius, Numa's daughter's son,
Who, after great Hostilius, here was king:
Of the same house Publius and Quintus were,
That our best water brought by conduits hither;
And Censorinus, darling of the people,

So afterwards:

"Enforce him with his envy to the people." Steevens.
his present portance,] i. e. carriage. So, in Othello:
"And portance in my travels' history." Steevens.

5 Which gibingly,] The old copy, redundantly :

Which most gibingly, &c. Steevens.

6 And Censorinus darling of the people,] This verse I have supplied; a line having been certainly left out in this place, as will appear to any one who consults the beginning of Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus, from whence this passage is directly translated. Pope.

The passage in North's translation, 1579, runs thus: "The house of the Martians at Rome was of the number of the patricians, out of which hath sprong many noble personages: whereof Ancus Martius was one, king Numaes daughter's sonne, who was king of Rome after Tullus Hostilius. Of the same house were Publius and Quintus, who brought to Rome their best water they had by conduits. Censorinus also came of that familie, that was so surnamed because the people had chosen him censor

And nobly nam'd so, being censor twice,7
Was his great ancestor.3

Sic.
One thus descended,
That hath beside well in his person wrought
To be set high in place, we did commend
To your remembrances: but you have found,
Scaling his present bearing with his past,
That he 's your fixed enemy, and revoke
Your sudden approbation.

Bru.

Say, you ne'er had done 't, (Harp on that still) but by our putting on:1

twice."-Publius and Quintus and Censorinus were not the ancestors of Coriolanus, but his descendants. Caius Martius Rutilius did not obtain the name of Censorinus till the year of Rome 487; and the Marcian waters were not brought to that city by aqueducts till the year 613, near 350 years after the death of Coriolanus.

Can it be supposed, that he who would disregard such anachronisms, or rather he to whom they were not known, should have changed Cato, which he found in his Plutarch, to Calves, from a regard to chronology? See a former note, p. 28. Malone.

7 And nobly nam'd so, being censor twice,] The old copy reads : -being twice censor; but for the sake of harmony, I have arranged these words as they stand in our author's original,—Sir T. North's translation of Plutarch: "-the people had chosen him censor twice." Steevens.

8 And Censorinus

Was his great ancestor.] Now the first censor was created U. C. 314, and Coriolanus was banished U. C. 262. The truth is this: the passage, as Mr. Pope observes above, was taken from Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus; who, speaking of the house of Coriolanus, takes notice both of his ancestors and of his posterity, which our author's haste not giving him leave to observe, has here confounded one with the other. Another instance of his inadvertency, from the same cause, we have in The First Part of King Henry IV, where an account is given of the prisoners taken on the plains of Holmedon:

"Mordake the earl of Fife, and eldest son

"To beaten Douglas

وو

But the earl of Fife was not son to Douglas, but to Robert duke of Albany, Governor of Scotland. He took his account from Holinshed, whose words are, And of prisoners amongst others were these, Mordack earl of Fife, son to the governor Arkimbald, earl Douglas, &c. And he imagined that the governor and earl Douglas were one and the same person. Warburton.

9 Scaling his present bearing with his past,] That is, weighing his past and present behaviour. Johnson.

1 by our putting on:] i. e. incitation. So, in King Lear: