Tullus Aufidius, General of the Volfcians. Lieutenant to Aufidius. Young Marcius, Son of Coriolanus. Confpirators with Aufidius. Volumnia, Mother to Coriolanus. Virgilia, Wife to Coriolanus. Valeria, Friend to Virgilia. Roman and Volfcian Senators, Ædiles, Li&tors, Soldiers, Common People, Servants to Aufidius, and other Attendants. The SCENE is partly in Rome; and partly in the Territories of the Volfcians and Antiates. The whole hiftory is exactly followed, and many of the principal fpeeches exactly copied from the Life of Coriolanus in Plutarch. POPE. Of this play there is no edition before that of the players, in folio, in 1623. JOHNSON. CORIO CORIOLANU S. ACT I. SCENE I. A Street in Rome. Enter a company of mutinous Citizens, with ftaves, clubs, and other weapons. 1 Cit. Before we proceed any further, hear me fpeak. All. Speak, fpeak. 1 Cit. You are refolv'd rather to die, than to famish? All. Refolv'd, refolv'd. 1 Cit. First, you know, Caius Marcius is chief enemy to the people. All. We know't, we know't. 1 Cit. Let us kill him, and we'll have corn at our own price. Is't a verdict? All. No more talking on't; let it be done: away, away. 2 Cit. One word, good citizens'. 1 Cit. We are accounted poor citizens; the patricians, good: What authority furfeits on, would re One word, good citizens. 1 Cit. We are accounted poor citizens; the patricians, good.] Good is here ufed in the mercantile fenfe. So, Touchstone in Eastward Hoe: "known good men, well monied." FARMER. Again, in the Merchant of Venice: "Antonio's a good man." MALONE. Z 2 lieve 2 lieve us If they would yield us but the fuperfluity, while it were wholesome, we might guefs, they relieved us humanely: but they think, we are too dear: the leanness that afflicts us, the object of our mifery, is as an inventory to particularize their abundance; our fufferance is a gain to them. Let us revenge this with our pikes, 4ere we become rakes: 2 but they think, we are too dear:] They think that the charge of maintaining us is more than we are worth. JoHNSON. 3 Let us revenge this with our pikes, ere we become rakes:] It was Shakspeare's defign to make this fellow quibble all the way. But time, who has done greater things, has here ftifled a miferable joke; which was then the fame as if it had been now wrote, Let us now revenge this with forks, ere we become rakes: for pikes then fignified the fame as forks do now. So Jewel in his own tranflation of his Apology, turns Chriftianos ad furcas condemnare, to-To condemn Chriftians to the pikes. But the Oxford editor. without knowing any thing of this, has with great fagacity found out the joke, and reads on his own authority, pitch-forks. WARBURTON. 4 ere we become rakes:] It is plain that, in our author's time, we had the proverb, as lean as a rake. Of this proverb the original is obfcure. Rake now fignifies a diffolute man, a man worn out with difeafe and debauchery. But the fignification is, I think, much more modern than the proverb. Rakel, in Islandick, is faid to mean a cur-dog, and this was probably the firft ufe among us of the word rake; as lean as a rake is, therefore, as lean as a dog too worthlefs to be fed. JOHNSON. It may be fo: and yet I believe the proverb, as lean as a rake, owes its origin fimply to the thin taper form of the inftrument made ufe of by hay-makers. Chaucer has this fimile in his defcription of the clerk's horfe in the prologue to the Canterbury Tales, late edit. v. 288: "As lene was his hors as is a rake." Spenfer introduces it in the fecond book of his Faery Queen, Canto II: "His body lean and meagre as a rake." As thin as a whipping-poft, is another proverb of the fame kind. Stanyhurst, in his tranflation of the third book of Virgil, 1582, defcribing Achaemenides, fays: A meigre leane rake, &c." This paffage feems to countenance Dr. Johnfon's fuppofition. STEEVENS. for the gods know, I speak this in hunger for bread, not in thirft for revenge. 2 Cit. Would you proceed especially against Caiuş Marcius? All. Against him firft; he's a very dog to the commonalty. 2 Cit. Confider you what fervices he has done for his country? 1 Cit. Very well; and could be content to give him good report for't, but that he pays himself with being proud. All. Nay, but fpeak not maliciously. I Cit. I fay unto you, what he hath done famously, he did it to that end: though foft-confcienc'd men can be content to fay, it was for his country, he did it to please his mother, and to be partly proud; which he is, even to the altitude of his virtue. 2 Cit. What he cannot help in his nature, you account a vice in him: You must in no way fay, he is covetous. 1 Cit. If I must not, I need not be barren of accufations; he hath faults, with furplus, to tire in repetition. [Shouts within.] What shouts are these? The other fide o'the city is rifen: Why ftay we prating here? to the Capitol. All. Come, come. 1 Cit. Soft; who comes here? Enter Menenius Agrippa. 2 Cit. Worthy Menenius Agrippa; one that hath always lov'd the people, 1 Cit. He's one honeft enough; 'Would, all the reft were fo! Men. What work's, my countrymen, in hand? Where go you With |