A noble cunning:9 you were us❜d to load me VIR. O heavens! O heavens! COR. Nay, I pr'ythee, woman, VOL. Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome, And occupations perish! COR. What, what, what! Six of his labours you'd have done, and sav’d Droop not; adieu:-Farewell, my wife! my mo ther! I'll do well yet.-Thou old and true Menenius, I have seen thee stern, and thou hast oft beheld -fortune's blows, When most struck home, being gentle wounded, craves A noble cunning] This is the ancient and authentick reading. The modern editors have, for gentle wounded, silently substituted gently warded, and Dr. Warburton has explained gently by nobly. "It is good to be sure of our author's words before we go to explain their meaning. The sense is, When Fortune strikes her hardest blows, to be wounded, and yet continue calm, requires a generous policy. He calls this calmness cunning, because it is the effect of reflection and philosophy. Perhaps the first emotions of nature are nearly uniform, and one man differs from another in the power of endurance, as he is better regulated by precept and instruction. "They bore as heroes, but they felt as men." JOHNSON. Heart-hard'ning spectacles; tell these sad women, 'Tis fond' to wail inevitable strokes, As 'tis to laugh at them.-My mother, you wot well, My hazards still have been your solace: and Makes fear'd, and talk'd of more than seen,) your son Will, or exceed the common, or be caught VOL. My first son,3 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.* 4 'Tis fond-] i. e. 'tis foolish. See our author, passim. STEEVENS. 2- 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: 3 "Swear priests and cowards, and men cautelous.” STEEVENS. 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 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: "And when we have our naked frailties hid "That suffer in exposure, 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. Fare ye well COR. Thou hast years upon thee; and thou art too full Of the wars' surfeits, to go rove with one That's yet unbruis'd: bring me but out at gate.Come, my sweet wife, my dearest mother, and My friends of noble touch,5 when I am forth, Bid me farewell, and smile. I pray you, come. While I remain above the ground, you shall Hear from me still; and never of me aught But what is like me formerly. 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. 5 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 Edile. 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, SIC. Bid them home: Say, their great enemy is gone, and they VoL. O, you're well met: The hoarded plague Requite your love! MEN. o'the gods 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 SIC. husband. 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 : 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. |