In the play Virgilia speaks barely a hundred words. But they are truly the speech of a gracious silence,' as precious and revealing as they are rare. She appears first (Act I., Sc. 3) in her own house, sitting silent at her sewing. Coriolanus has gone to the wars. Volumnia tries to kindle her with something of her own Amazonian ecstasy at the thought of men in battle. 'I tell thee, daughter, I sprang not more in joy at first hearing he was a man child than now in first seeing he had proved himself a man.' Virgilia's reply, the first words she speaks in the play, touch to the quick of the reality of war and her own unquiet mind.

'But had he died in the business, madam; how then?'

The thoughts of her silence thus revealed, she says no more until chattering Valeria, for all the world like one of the fashionable ladies in Colonel Repington's diary, is announced. She has come to drag her out to pay calls. Virgilia tries to withdraw. Volumnia will not let her, and even while the maid is in the room waiting to know whether she may show Valeria in, she bursts into another ecstatic vision of her son in the midst of battle, 'his bloody brow with his mailed hand then wiping.' Again Virgilia reveals herself.

'His bloody brow! O Jupiter, no blood!' Valeria enters on a wave of small talk. She has

seen Virgilia's little boy playing. The very image of his father; such a confirmed countenance.' She had watched him chase a butterfly, catching it and letting it go, again and again. He did so set his teeth and tear it; oh, I warrant how he mammocked it!'

' Volum. One on's father's moods.
Val. Indeed, la, it is a noble child.
Virg. A crack, madam.

'An imp, madam!' The meaning leaps out of the half-contemptuous word. Don't call him a noble child for his childish brutality. It pains, not rejoices Virgilia. Nor, for all the persuasions of Volumnia and Valeria, will she stir out of the house. She does not want society; she cannot visit the good lady that lies in.' She is as firm as she is gentle.

''Tis not to save labour, nor that I want love.'

Simply that she is anxious and preoccupied. She will not turn her solemness out of door'; she cannot. Coriolanus is at the wars.

So, in two dozen words and a world of unspoken contrast Virgilia is given to us: her horror of brutality and bloodshed, her anxiety for her husband, her reticence, her firmness. She is not a bundle of nerves, but she is full of the aching fears of love. Truly, a gracious silence."

She next appears when the news is come that

Coriolanus has triumphed (Act II., Sc. 1). Volumnia and Valeria are talking with Menenius. She stands aside listening. He is sure to be wounded, says Menenius; he always is. She breaks out: 'Oh, no, no, no!' She retires into her silence again while Volumnia proudly tells the story of her son's twenty-five wounds. In troth, there's wondrous things spoken of him,' says chattering Valeria. Virgilia murmurs: 'The gods grant them true!' True! Pow-wow!' says Volumnia, in hateful scorn: one can see her sudden turn, hear her rasping voice. Virgilia is not one of the true breed of Roman wives and mothers. And indeed she is not. She is thinking of wounds, not as glorious marks of bravery, but as the mutilated body of the man she adores. Wounds, wounds! They talk of nothing but wounds. Virgilia suffers in silence. Coriolanus

is wounded. That is a world wounded to her.

Coriolanus enters, swathed in bandages, unrecognisable. He kneels before his mother. Then he sees Virgilia, standing apart, weeping silently. These are the words of the Folio text. Only the spelling has been modernised; the punctuation has been left untouched.

Corio. My gracious silence, hail:

Would'st thou have laughed, had I come coffin'd home

That weep'st to see me triumph? Ah my dear,

Such eyes the widows in Corioli were

And mothers that lack sons. Mene. Now the Gods crown thee.

Com. And live you yet? Oh my sweet Lady, pardon.

Volum. I know not where to turn.

Oh welcome home: and welcome General,
And y'are welcome all.'

The first two of these speeches and their speakers contain no difficulty. But, obviously, And live you yet? Oh, my sweet Lady, pardon,' does not belong to Cominius. On his lips it is nonsense. The editors have resolved the problem by giving the line to Coriolanus, and the following speech of Volumnia to Valeria. Coriolanus is supposed to say to Menenius, And live you yet?' then, suddenly catching sight of Valeria, to beg her pardon for not having seen her before.

We have a free hand in disposing of the line. There is no objection to Volumnia's speech being given to Valeria, whose effusive manner it suits better. But to make Coriolanus surprised that Menenius is still alive is pointless; he had no reason to suppose that the armchair hero was dead. Moreover, to make him turn to Valeria, and say, 'Oh, my sweet Lady, pardon,' is to give the great warrior the manners of a carpet knight.

Now think of the relation between Virgilia and Coriolanus; remember how her imagination has been preoccupied by his wounds; see her in imagination weeping at the pitiful sight of her wounded husband-and read the lines through

without regard to the speakers. It will, I believe, occur to any one with an instinct for psychology that 'And live you yet?' takes up Coriolanus's previous words. Ah, my dear,' he has said, it is the women who have no husbands who weep as you do.' Then, and not till then, Virgilia breaks. silence. And live you yet?' And are you really my husband? Is this thing of bandages the lord of my heart? At her sudden, passionate words, Coriolanus understands her tears. He has a glimpse of the anguish of her love. He has been an unimaginative fool. Oh, my sweet Lady, pardon!' This, I suggest, is the way the passage should be read:

'Corio.

Ah my dear,

Such eyes the widows in Corioli wear
And mothers that lack sons.

Mene. Now the gods crown thee!
Virg. And live you yet?

Corio. Oh, my sweet lady, pardon
Val. I know not where to turn.'

And to my own mind it is an essential part of the beauty of the passage that these few lightning words of love should flash through the hubbub of Menenius's welcome and Valeria's effusive congratulations.

Virgilia appears again in the scene following Coriolanus's banishment (Act IV., Sc. 2). Here the alterations necessary are self-evident, and it is difficult to understand why they have not