Heart-hard'ning spectacles; tell these sad women, 'Tis fond1 to wail inevitable strokes, As 'tis to laugh at them. My mother, you wot well, My hazards still have been your solace: and Believe't not lightly, (though I go alone, Like to a lonely dragon, that his fen Makes fear'd, and talk'd of more than seen,) your son Will, or exceed the common, or be caught My first son, VOL. Whither wilt thou go? Take good Cominius With thee a while: Determine on some course, More than a wild exposture to each chance That starts i' the way before thee. 2 'Tis fond-] i. e. 'tis foolish. See our author, passim. STEEVENS. - cautelous baits and practice.] By artful and false tricks, and treason. JOHNSON. Cautelous, in the present instance, signifies insidious. In the sense of cautious it occurs in Julius Cæsar : " Swear priests and cowards, and men cautelous.” STEEVENS. 3 My first son,] First, i. e. noblest, and most eminent of men. Mr. Heath would read : My fierce son. STEEVENS. * More than a wild exposture to each chance WARBURTON. That starts i' the way before thee.] I know not whether the word exposture be found in any other author. If not, I should incline to read exposure. MALONE. We should certainly read-exposure. So, in Macbeth: Again, in Troilus and Cressida: " To weaken and discredit our exposure-." Exposture is, I believe, no more than a typographical error. STEEVENS. COR. O the gods! CoM. I'll follow thee a month, devise with thee Where thou shalt rest, that thou may'st hear of us, And we of thee: so, if the time thrust forth A cause for thy repeal, we shall not send O'er the vast world, to seek a single man; And lose advantage, which doth ever cool I' the absence of the needer. COR. That's yet unbruis'd: bring me but out at gate.- MEN. That's worthily As any ear can hear.-Come, let's not weep.If I could shake off but one seven years From these old arms and legs, by the good gods, I'd with thee every foot. COR. Come. Give me thy hand : [Exeunt. * My friends of noble touch,] i. e. of true metal unallayed. Metaphor from trying gold on the touchstone. WARBURTON. SCENE II. The same. A Street near the Gate. Enter SICINIUS, BRUTUS, and an Ædile. SIC. Bid them all home; he's gone, and we'll no further. The nobility are vex'd, who, we see, have sided In his behalf. BRU. Now we have shown our power, Let us seem humbler after it is done, Than when it was a doing. SIC. Bid them home: Say, their great enemy is gone, and they VOL. O, you're well met: The hoarded plague o'the gods Requite your love! MEN. Peace, peace; be not so loud. VOL. If that I could for weeping, you should hear, Nay, and you shall hear some. - Will you be gone? [TO BRUTUS. VIR. You shall stay too: [To SICIN.] I would, I had the power To say so to my husband. SIC. Are you mankind? VOL. Ay, fool; Is that a shame? -Note but this fool. Was not a man my father? Hadst thou foxship" To banish him that struck more blows for Rome, Than thou hast spoken words? SIC. O blessed heavens! VOL. More noble blows, than ever thou wise words • Sic. Are you mankind? Vol. Ay, fool; Is that a shame ?-Note but this fool. Was not a man my father?] The word mankind is used maliciously by the first speaker, and taken perversely by the second. A mankind woman is a woman with the roughness of a man, and, in an aggravated sense, a woman ferocious, violent, and eager to shed blood. In this sense Sicinius asks Volumnia, if she be mankind. She takes mankind for a human creature, and accordingly cries out : -Note but this fool. Was not a man my father? Johnson. So, Jonson, in The Silent Woman: “O mankind generation!" Shakspeare himself, in The Winter's Tale : 66 - a mankind witch." Fairfax, in his translation of Tasso: " See, see this mankind strumpet; see, she cry'd, See Vol. IX. p. 275, n. 1. STEEVENS. Hadst thou foxship] Hadst thou, fool as thou art, mean cunning enough to banish Coriolanus? JOHNSON. And for Rome's good. I'll tell thee what ;-Yet go: Nay, but thou shalt stay too :-I would my son Were in Arabia, and thy tribe before him, His good sword in his hand. SIC. VIR. What then? What then? He'd make an end of thy posterity. VOL. Bastards, and all. Good man, the wounds that he does bear for Rome! MEN. Come, come, peace. SIC. I would he had continu'd to his country, As he began; and not unknit himself The noble knot he made. 8 BRU. I would he had. VOL. I would he had? 'Twas you incens'd the rabble: Cats, that can judge as fitly of his worth, As I can of those mysteries which heaven Will not have earth to know. BRU. Pray, let us go, Ere you go, hear VOL. Now, pray, sir, get you gone : You have done a brave deed. this: As far as doth the Capitol exceed The meanest house in Rome; so far, my son, (This lady's husband here, this, do you see,) Whom you have banish'd, does exceed you all. BRU. Well, well, we'll leave you. • unknit himself The noble knot he made.] So, in King Henry IV. P. I: 66 will you again unknit "This churlish knot" &c. STEEVENS. |