Ere yet the fight be done, pack up:-Down with them. And hark, what noife the general makes!-To him: There is the man of my foul's hate, Aufidius, Piercing our Romans: Then, valiant Titus, take Convenient numbers to make good the city; Whilft I, with thofe that have the fpirit, will hafte To help Cominius. LART. Worthy fir, thou bleed'ft; Thy exercise hath been too violent for MAR. Sir, praise me not: My work hath yet not warm'd me: Fare you well. The blood I drop is rather phyfical Than dangerous to me: To Aufidius thus I will appear, and fight. LART. Now the fair goddess, Fortune, Fall deep in love with thee; and her great charms MAR. [Exit MARCIUS, Go, found thy trumpet in the market-place; 2 Than dangerous to me: To Aufidius thus I will appear, and fight. [Exeunt. Lart. Now the fair goddess, Fortune,] The metre being here violated, I think we might fafely read with Sir T. Hanmer (omitting the words to me): Than dangerous: To Aufidius thus will I Appear, and fight. Now the fair goddess, Fortune,-. STEEVENS SCENE VI. Near the Camp of Cominius. Enter COMINIUS and forces, retreating. CoM. Breathe you, my friends; well fought: we are come off Like Romans, neither foolish in our stands, That both our powers, with smiling fronts encount'ring, Enter a Meffenger. May give you thankful facrifice!-Thy news? Сом. Though thou speak'st truth, Methinks, thou speak'it not well. How long is't fince? MES. Above an hour, my lord. COM. 'Tis not a mile; briefly we heard their drums: 3 The Roman gods, Lead their fucceffes as we wish our own ;] i, e. May the Roman gods, &c. MALONE. How could'ft thou in a mile confound an hour, MES. Сом. Enter MARCIUS. Who's yonder, That does appear as he were flay'd? O gods! MAR. Come I too late? COм. The fhepherd knows not thunder from a tabor, More than I know the found of Marcius' tongue From every meaner man's.' MAR. Come I too late? ✦ confound an hour,] Confound is here ufed not in its common acceptation, but in the fenfe of-to expend. Conterere tempus. MALONE. So, in King Henry IV. P. I. A&t I. fc. iii: "He did confound the best part of an hour," &c. STEEVENS. 5 From every meaner man's.] [Old copy-meaner man.] That is, from that of every meaner man. This kind of phrafeology is found in many places in these plays; and as the peculiarities of our author, or rather the language of his age, ought to be fcrupulously attended to, Hanmer and the fubfequent editors who read hereevery meaner man's, ought not in my apprehenfion to be followed, though we should now write fo. MALONE. When I am certified that this, and many correfponding offences against grammar, were common to the writers of our author's age, I fhall not perfevere in correcting them. But while I fufpect (as in the prefent inftance) that fuch irregularities were the gibberish of a theatre, or the blunders of a tranfcriber, I fhall forbear to fet nonfenfe before my readers; efpecially when it can be avoided by the infertion of a fingle letter, which indeed might have dropped out at the prefs. STEEVENS. COм. Ay, if you come not in the blood of others, But mantled in your own. MAR. O! let me clip you In arms as found, as when I woo'd; in heart Сом. How is't with Titus Lartius? Flower of warriors, MAR. As with a man bufied about decrees: Condemning fome to death, and fome to exile; Ranfoming him, or pitying, threat'ning the other; Holding Corioli in the name of Rome, Even like a fawning greyhound in the leash, Сом. Where is that slave, Which told me they had beat you to your trenches? Where is he? Call him hither. MAR. Let him alone, He did inform the truth: But for our gentlemen, The common file, (A plague!-Tribunes for them!) The mouse ne'er fhunn'd the cat, as they did budge From rafcals worse than they. Сом. But how prevail'd you? MAR. Will the time ferve to tell? I do not think to bedward.] So, in Albumazar, 1615: "Sweats hourly for a dry brown cruft to bedward." STEEVENS. Again, in Peacham's Complete Gentleman, 1627: "Leaping, upon a full ftomach, or to bedward, is very dangerous." MALONE. Again, in The Legend of Cardinal Lorraine, 1577, fign. G 1: They donfed alfo, left so soon as their backs were turned to the courtward, and that they had given over the dealings in the affairs, there would come in infinite complaints." REED. 7 Ranfoming him, or pitying,] i. e. remitting his ransom. JOHNSON. Where is the enemy? Are you lords o' the field? If not, why ceafe you till you are so? Сом. Marcius, We have at difadvantage fought, and did Retire, to win our purpose. MAR. How lies their battle? Know you on which 8 fide & They have plac'd their men of trust? Сом. As I guefs, Marcius, Their bands i' the vaward are the Antiates," Of their best truft: o'er them Aufidius, Their very heart of hope.* MAR. I do befeech you, By all the battles wherein we have fought, By the blood we have fhed together, by the vows We have made to endure friends, that you directly 8 on which fide &c.] So, in the old tranflation of Plutarch: "Martius afked him howe the order of the enemics battell was, and on which fide they had placed their best fighting men. The conful made him aunfwer that he thought the bandes which were in the vaward of their battell, were thofe of the Antiates, whom they cfteemed to be the warlikeft men, and which for valiant corage would geve no place to any of the hofte of their enemies. Then prayed Martius to be fet directly against them. The conful graunted him, greatly prayfing his corage.' STEEVENS. 9 Antiates,] The old copy reads-Antients, which might mean veterans; but a following line, as well as the previous quotation, feems to prove Antiates to be the proper reading: "Set me against Aufidius and his Antiates." Our author employs-Antiates as a trifyllable, as if it had been written Antiats. STEEVENS. Mr. Pope made the correction. MALONE. 2 Their very heart of hope.] The fame expreffion is found in Marlowe's Luft's Dominion: 66 thy defperate arm "Hath almost thruft quite through the heart of hope." In King Henry IV. P. I. we have MALONE, "The very bottom and the foul of hope." STEEVENS, |