Bru.

Sir, thofe cold ways,

That seem like prudent helps, are very poisonous Where the difeafe is violent:-Lay hands upon him, And bear him to the rock.

COR.

No; I'll die here.
[Drawing his fword.

There's fome among you have beheld me fighting; Come, try upon yourselves what you have seen me. MEN. Down with that fword;-Tribunes, withdraw a while.

MEN. Help, help Marcius! help, You that be noble; help him, young, and old!

CIT. Down with him, down with him!

[In this mutiny, the Tribunes, the Ædiles, and the people, are beat in.

MEN. Go, get you to your house;' be gone,

We have as many friends as enemies.

MEN. Shall it be put to that?

I. SEN.

The gods forbid !

I pr'ythee, noble friend, home to thy house;

very poisonous] I read:

are very poifons. JOHNSON.

get you to your houfe ;] Old Copy-our houfe. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. So below:

I pr'ythee, noble friend, home to thy houfe." MALONE.

6 Stand faft; &c.] [Old copy-Com. Stand faft; &c.] This fpeech certainly fhould be given to Coriolanus; for all his friends perfuade him to retire. So, Cominius prefently after:

"Come, fir, along with us." WARBURTON.

Leave us to cure this cause.

MEN.

For 'tis a fore upon us, You cannot tent yourfelf: Begone, 'befeech you. COM. Come, fir, along with us.

COR. I would they were barbarians, (as they are, Though in Rome litter'd,) not Romans, (as they

are not,

Though calv'd i' the porch o' the Capitol,)—

MEN.

Be gone;'

Put not your worthy rage into your tongue;
One time will owe another.

For 'tis a fore upon us,] The two laft impertinent words, which destroy the meafure, are an apparent interpolation.

STEEVENS.

7 Cor. I would they were barbarians (as they are, Though in Rome litter'd,) not Romans, (as they are not, Though calv'd i' the porch o' the Capitol.)

Be gone; &c.] The beginning of this fpeech, [attributed in the old copy to Menenius,] I am perfuaded, fhould be given to Coriolanus. The latter part only belongs to Menenius:

"Be gone;

"Put not your worthy rage" &c. TYRWHITT.

I have divided this fpeech according to Mr. Tyrwhitt's direction.

STEEVENS.

The word, begone, certainly belongs to Menenius, who was very anxious to get Coriolanus away.-In the preceding page he says, "Go, get you to your houfe; begone, away,-,”

And in a few lines after, he repeats the fame request.
Pray you, be gone:

"I'll try whether my old wit be in request

"With those that have but little;" M. MASON.

One time will owe another.] I know not whether to owe in this place means to poffefs by right, or to be indebted. Either sense may be admitted. One time, in which the people are feditious, will give us power in fome other time: or, this time of the people's predominance will run them in debt: that is, will lay them open to the law, and expose them hereafter to more fervile fubjection.

JOHNSON.

COR.

I could beat forty of them.

MEN.

On fair ground,

I could myself

Take up a brace of the best of them; yea, the two tribunes.

COм. But now 'tis odds beyond arithmetick; And manhood is call'd foolery, when it ftands Against a falling fabrick.-Will you hence, Before the tag return?" whose rage doth rend Like interrupted waters, and o'erbear

What they are us'd to bear.

MEN.

I'll try

Pray you, be gone: whether my old wit be in request With those that have but little; this must be patch'd With cloth of any colour.

Сом.

Nay, come away. [Exeunt CORIOLANUS, COMINIUS, and Others. 1. PAT. This man has marr'd his fortune. MEN. His nature is too noble for the world: He would not flatter Neptune for his trident, Or Jove for his power to thunder. His heart's his mouth:

What his breast forges, that his tongue muft vent; And, being angry, does forget that ever

He heard the name of death.

[A noife within.

I believe Menenius means, "This time will owe us one more fortunate." It is a common expreffion to fay, "This day is yours, the next may be mine." M. MASON.

The meaning feems to be, One time will compenfate for another. Our time of triumph will come hereafter: time will be in our debt, will owe us a good turn, for our prefent difgrace. Let us truft to futurity. MALONE.

9 Before the tag return?] The lowest and most despicable of the populace are ftill denominated by those a little above them, Tag, rag, and bobtail. JOHNSON.

Here's goodly work!

2. PAT.

I would they were a-bed!

MEN. I would they were in Tiber!-What, the vengeance,

Could he not speak them fair?

Re-enter BRUTUS and SICINIUS, with the rabble.

SIC.

Where is this viper,

That would depopulate the city, and

Be every man himself?

MEN.

You worthy tribunes,

SIC. He fhall be thrown down the Tarpeian rock With rigorous hands; he hath refifted law, And therefore law fhall fcorn him further trial Than the severity of the publick power,

Which he fo fets at nought.

9 He fall, fure on't.] The meaning of these words is not very obvious. Perhaps they mean, He fhall, that's fure. I am inclined to think that the fame error has happened here and in a paffage in Antony and Cleopatra, and that in both places fure is printed instead of fore. He fhall fuffer for it, he fhall rue the vengeance of the people. The editor of the fecond folio reads-He fhall, fure out; and and n being often confounded, the emendation might be admitted, but that there is not here any queftion concerning the expulfion of Coriolanus. What is now propofed, is, to throw him down the Tarpeian rock. It is abfurd therefore that the rabble

น

MEN. Do not cry, havock,' where you fhould

fhould by way of confirmation of what their leader Sicinius had faid, propofe a punishment he has not fo much as mentioned and which, when he does afterwards mention it, he disapproved of:

66

to ejed him hence,

"Were but one danger."

I have therefore left the old copy undisturbed. MALONE.

Perhaps our author wrote-with reference to the foregoing fpeech,

He fhall, be fure on't.

i. c. be affured that he shall be taught the respect due to both the tribunes and the people. STEEVENS.

2 Sir,] Old copy-redundantly, Sir, fir. STEEVENS.

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

With modeft warrant.] i. e. Do not give the fignal for unlimited flaughter, &c. See Vol. VIII. p. 51, n. 5. STEEVENS.

To cry havock, was, I believe, originally a fporting phrafe, from bafoc, which in Saxon fignifies a hawk. It was afterwards ufed So, in King John:

in war.

Cry havock, kings."

And in Julius Cæfar:

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

It feems to have been the fignal for general flaughter, and is exprefsly forbid in The Ordinances des Battailles, 9 R. ii. art. 10: "Ítem, que nul foit fi hardy de crier havok fur peine d'avoir la teft coupe.

The fecond article of the fame Ordinances feems to have been fatal to Bardolph. It was death even to touch the pix of little price.

"Item, que nul foit fi hardy de toucher le corps de nostre Seigneur, ni le veffel en quel il eft, fur peyne d'eftre trainez & pendu, & le tefte avoir coupe.' MS. Cotton. Nero D. VI.

TYRWHITT.