cracy as nobly worthy of dominance as in Henry V., and yet as inexorably doomed as in Antony.' But the man who pictured Henry before Agincourt among the common soldiers hardly thought that the insolent hauteur of Coriolanus was sufficiently explained and excused by his having to lead a 'musty superfluity' of 'dissentious rogues.' The tribunes themselves are permitted to utter a palpable hometruth, when they tell him :

-

You speak o' the people,
As if you were a god to punish, not
A man of their infirmity.

(iii. 1. 80.)

Even Coriolanus' valour is described with a fire chiefly of the imagination. The magnificent battlepoetry of this play betrays no martial enthusiasm, like that which glows so transparently in the choruses of Henry V. The career of Coriolanus, with his fabulous yet, in the sequel, futile valour, is a satire upon militarism; and the sublime images in which his feats are told, -he 'struck Corioli like a planet,'—' as weeds before a vessel under sail, so men obey'd and fell below his stem,'-only make the undertone of irony more explicit. Shakespeare had dared to laugh at Achilles and Ajax; but the Homeric grandeur of Coriolanus (communicated through an utterly unHomeric style) conceals a not less bitter sense of the futilities of heroism.

CORIOLANUS

ACT I.

SCENE I. Rome. A street.

Enter a company of mutinous Citizens, with
staves, clubs, and other weapons.

First Cit. Before we proceed any further, hear me speak.

All. Speak, speak.

First Cit. You are all resolved rather to die than to famish?

All. Resolved, resolved.

First Cit. First, you know Caius Marcius is chief enemy to the people.

All. We know 't, we know 't.

First Cit. Let us kill him, and we'll have 10

corn at our own price. Is 't a verdict?

All. No more talking on't; let it be done: away, away!

Sec. Cit. One word, good citizens.

First Cit. We are accounted poor citizens, the patricians, good. What authority surfeits on would relieve us if they would yield us but the superfluity while it were wholesome, we might guess 18. guess, consider.

they relieved us humanely; but they think we are too dear: the leanness that afflicts us, the 20 object of our misery, is as an inventory to particularize their abundance; our sufferance is a gain to them. Let us revenge this with our pikes, ere we become rakes: for the gods know I speak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge.

Sec. Cit. Would you proceed especially against Caius Marcius?

All. Against him first: he's a very dog to the commonalty.

Sec. Cit. Consider you what services he has done for his country?

First Cit. Very well; and could be content to give him good report for 't, but that he pays himself with being proud.

Sec. Cit. Nay, but speak not maliciously.

First Cit. I say unto you, what he hath done famously, he did it to that end: though soft-conscienced men can be content to say it was for his country, he did it to please his mother, and to be partly proud; which he is, even to the altitude of his virtue.

Sec. Cit. What he cannot you account a vice in him. say he is covetous.

help in his nature, You must in no way

First Cit. If I must not, I need not be barren of accusations; he hath faults, with surplus, to tire in repetition. [Shouts within.] What shouts are these? The other side o' the city is risen: why stay we prating here? to the Capitol!

All. Come, come.

First Cit. Soft! who comes here?

21. object, spectacle.

ib. as an inventory, i.e. our

30

40

50

want only serves, like an inventory of their goods, to make their wealth more manifest.

Enter MENENIUS AGRIPPA.

Sec. Cit. Worthy Menenius Agrippa; one that hath always loved the people.

First Cit. He's one honest enough: would all the rest were so !

Men. What work's, my countrymen, in hand? where go you

With bats and clubs?

you.

The matter? speak, I pray

First Cit. Our business is not unknown to the senate; they have had inkling, this fortnight, what we intend to do, which now we'll show 'em in 60 deeds. They say poor suitors have strong breaths: they shall know we have strong arms too.

Men. Why, masters, my good friends, mine honest neighbours,

Will you undo yourselves?

First Cit. We cannot, sir, we are undone already.

Men. I tell you, friends, most charitable care
Have the patricians of you. For your wants,
Your suffering in this dearth, you may as well
Strike at the heaven with your staves as lift them
Against the Roman state; whose course will on
The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs
Of more strong link asunder than can ever
Appear in your impediment. For the dearth,
The gods, not the patricians, make it, and
Your knees to them, not arms, must help. Alack,
You are transported by calamity

Thither where more attends you, and you slander
The helms o' the state, who care for you like

fathers,

When you curse them as enemies.

First Cit. Care for us! True, indeed! They

70

80

ne'er cared for us yet suffer us to famish, and their store-houses crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act established against the rich, and provide more piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and there's all the love they bear us.

Men. Either you must

Confess yourselves wondrous malicious,

Or be accused of folly. I shall tell you

A pretty tale: it may be you have heard it;
But, since it serves my purpose, I will venture
To stale 't a little more.

First Cit. Well, I'll hear it, sir: yet you must not think to fob off our disgrace with a tale: but, an 't please you, deliver.

Men. There was a time when all the body's members

Rebell'd against the belly; thus accused it:
That only like a gulf it did remain

I' the midst o' the body, idle and unactive,

Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing

Like labour with the rest, where the other instru

ments

Did see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel,
And, mutually participate, did minister

Unto the appetite and affection common
Of the whole body. The belly answer'd—

First Cit. Well, sir, what answer made the belly?

Men. Sir, I shall tell you. With a kind of smile,

Which ne'er came from the lungs, but even thus

97. fob off, jest away.

lungs. The lungs were regarded 112. Which ne'er came from the as the seat of joyous laughter.