Act III Sc. 1
Com. “You are like to do such business.”
With Malone I read Cor., to whom it is better suited. The names are often given wrong in this play.
“Which we disdain’d should tetter us.”
“O good, but most unwise Patricians!”
The folio reads ‘O God!’ the judicious alteration is Theobald’s, as usual. See on Ham. ii. 2.
“They know the corn
Was not our recompense, resting well assured
They ne’er did service for ’t.”
For ‘our’ Southern read their, which seems to have been the poet’s word.
“Could never be the native
Of our so frank donation.”
As I have never met with ‘native’ in the sense of origin, source, I think, and so did Mason, that the right word is motive.
“How shall this bosom multiplied digest
The senate’s courtesy.”
I do not think that the text is, in any place in these plays, more certainly correct than it is here; yet some late editors adopt without hesitation bisson multitude, the reading of Collier’s folio. By ‘bosom multiplied’ the poet means the union or complex of the bosoms, i.e. hearts, affections, of the people. In his next speech Cor. uses in a similar manner “multitudinous tongue;” and in ii. 2 we meet “multiplying spawn.” In Lear (v. 3) we have “the common bosom;” and in our poet’s Lover’s Complaint “That he did in the general bosom reign.”
“To jump a body with a dangerous physic.”
For ‘Jump’ Pope read vamp, Singer imp. ‘Jump’ is risk, hazard, and the verb seems, like so many others, to be here causative.
“Go call the people; in whose name I myself.”
2. Sen. “Weapons, weapons,” etc.
So the speech is given in the folio. In the Globe Shakespeare it is given Senators, etc., and what follows as the discordant cries of the various parties, which certainly seems to be more effective.
“Come, try upon yourselves what you have seen me do.”
“Lay hands upon him.—Help Marcius, help, help!”
Com. “Stand fast
We have as many friends as enemies.”
I think this should be Cor., and I have so given it.
Cor. “Come, sir, along with us.”
This speech evidently belongs to Com.
“Leave us to cure this cause.—For ’tis a sore upon us,
You cannot tent yourself.”
I think we should either omit ‘upon us,’ or for ‘us’ read you.
Cor. “I would they were barbarians, as they are,
Though in Rome litter’d, not Romans, as they are not,
Though calv’d in the porch o’ the Capitol!...
Men. Begone,
Put not your worthy rage into your tongue.”
So, I think judiciously, Tyrwhitt arranges, and he has been generally and properly followed. The folio gives the whole to Menenius, to whom it is not at all suited.
“Or Jove for ’s power to thunder. His heart ’s his mouth.”
I would read ‘in his mouth.’ “My voice is in my sword” (Macb. v. 7). “He wears his tongue in his arms” (Tr. and Cress. iii. 3).
“To eject him hence
Were but one danger, and to keep him here
Our certain death.”
I read our for ‘one,’ as Theobald also proposed. In Ant. and Cleop. (i. 4) we have “One great competitor,” where the sense demands our; and in Son. xcix. “Our blushing shame,” where editors read, as sense requires, One.
“Form [in peace] to his utmost peril.”
I omit ‘in peace,’ as it had just occurred, is needless, and disturbs the metre.
Sc. 2
“I talk of you.”
Here Collier’s folio places the entrance of Volumnia, and I think rightly.
“O sir, sir, sir!”
The son, son, son! of Collier’s folio is much better. She never elsewhere says Sir to him. See on Meas. for Meas. iii. 1.
“The thwartings of your dispositions.”
‘Thwartings’ is the emendation of Theobald for things of the folio.
“I have a heart as little apt as yours,
But yet a brain,” etc.
There is, I think, either an aposiopesis at the end of the first line; or a line is lost, as Volumnia is speaking quite calmly; or, to stoop, to yield, or something of that sort is omitted.
“Before he should thus stoop to the heart.”
Here again Theobald emended, herd for ‘heart.’
“You are too absolute;
Though therein you can never be too noble.
But when extremities speak... I have heard you say.”
So I think we should point to make sense.
“Nor by the matter which your heart prompts you with.”
The metre requires a syllable; the 2nd folio reads to.
“But with such words that are but roated in.”
‘Roated’ is probably roted; but no such verb occurs elsewhere as rote. Boswell proposed rooted.
“Not only what is dangerous present but
The loss of what is past.”
There can be little doubt that only was the word omitted.
“Often thus; which correcting thy stout heart,
Now humble as the ripest mulberry,
That will not hold the handling, [or] say to them.”
By these slight corrections this place gains sense—a thing it never had before. All through the speech, it may be observed, Volumnia acts the part she would have her son perform. The transposition he had made in the first line—where the folio has ‘Which often thus’—having perplexed the printer, he took ‘humble’ for a verb, and so introduced ‘or’ to try to make sense. (Introd. p. 67.) Mr. Dyce says “the passage now stands as Shakespeare wrote it.” Why, then, has he not given us the sense of it?
“Even as she speaks, why all their hearts were yours.”
“Must I with my base tongue give to my noble heart.”
It might be better to omit the first ‘my’ and ‘to.’
“Well, mildly be it then; mildly be it then.”
For an exactly similar effacement at the end of a scene see on Temp. iii. 1.
Sc. 3
“He has been used
Ever to conquer and to have his worth
Of contradiction.”
I do not well understand ‘worth’ here. Rowe read word; but I cannot approve of it; wreak would seem better. We have “a heart of wreak” (iv. 5); also Tit. And. iv. 3, 4. See on M. for M. ii. 1.
“Rather than envy to you.—Well, well, no more.”
“Given hostile strokes, and that not only in the present.”
“I have been consul, and can show from Rome
Her enemies’ marks upon me.”
The preposition should be ’fore, for, or to.
“That won you without blows! Despising for you
The City, thus I turn my back upon it.
There is a world elsewhere.”