Source: https://shakespearebrasileiro.org/de/pecas/coriolanus/act-i-scene-i-2/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 02:45:34+00:00

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ACT I SCENE I. Rome. A street.
First Citizen Before we proceed any further, hear me speak.
First Citizen You are all resolved rather to die than to famish?
First Citizen First, you know Caius Marcius is chief enemy to the people.
All We know’t, we know’t.
First Citizen Let us kill him, and we’ll have corn at our own price.
All No more talking on’t; let it be done: away, away!
First Citizen We are accounted poor citizens, the patricians good.
Second Citizen Would you proceed especially against Caius Marcius?
All Against him first: he’s a very dog to the commonalty.
Second Citizen Consider you what services he has done for his country?
Second Citizen Nay, but speak not maliciously.
First Citizen Soft! who comes here?
First Citizen He’s one honest enough: would all the rest were so!
First Citizen We cannot, sir, we are undone already.
To stale ‘t a little more.
First Citizen Well, sir, what answer made the belly?
First Citizen Your belly’s answer? What!
Patience awhile, you’ll hear the belly’s answer.
First Citizen Ye’re long about it.
First Citizen Ay, sir; well, well.
First Citizen It was an answer: how apply you this?
First Citizen I the great toe! why the great toe?
First Citizen We have ever your good word.
MARCIUS They are dissolved: hang ’em!
MENENIUS What is granted them?
Sicinius Velutus, and I know not–‘Sdeath!
MARCIUS Go, get you home, you fragments!
MARCIUS Here: what’s the matter?
Messenger The news is, sir, the Volsces are in arms.
Tullus Aufidius, that will put you to ‘t.
COMINIUS You have fought together.
MARCIUS Were half to half the world by the ears and he.
COMINIUS It is your former promise.
What, art thou stiff? stand’st out?
TITUS [To COMINIUS] Lead you on.
First Senator [To the Citizens] Hence to your homes; be gone!
SICINIUS Was ever man so proud as is this Marcius?
BRUTUS He has no equal.
BRUTUS Mark’d you his lip and eyes?
SICINIUS Nay. but his taunts.
BRUTUS Being moved, he will not spare to gird the gods.
SICINIUS Be-mock the modest moon.
Half all Cominius’ honours are to Marcius.
From Coriolanus. Ed. K. Deighton. London: Macmillan.
1. proceed any further, take any further action in the matter.
3. to die … famish? to die a violent death in combat rather than slowly perish of famine?
5, 6. Caius Marcius … people, sc. in wishing that no consideration should be shown them in their distress; chief enemy, for the omission of the Article, see Abb. § 84.
8, 9. we’ll have … price, and, sure enough, we shall be able to buy com as cheaply as we could wish: Is’t a verdict? have you made up your minds on that point?
13. good, sc. in point of wealth; cp. M. V. i. 3. 16, “my meaning in saying he is a good man is to have you understand me that he is sufficient”: What authority … us, that which is to those in authority, the patricians, something over and above what they can profitably use for their wants, would relieve our distress.
14. but the superfluity, merely that which they can make no use of themselves: while it were wholesome, before it should become so musty as to be useless for food; for the subjunctive used indefinitely after a relative conjunction, see Abb. § 367.
15. we might … humanely, we might suppose that they were prompted by feelings of humanity in relieving us.
16, 7. the object of our misery, the spectacle of our suffering.
17, 8. is as … abundance, serves, by way of contrast, to make them mindful of their own well-fed condition: each particular of our want corresponding to some particular of their abundance.
18. our sufferance … them, our miseiy adds something in the way of zest to their prosperity: for sufferance, = suffering, cp. Lear, iii. 6. 113, “But then the mind much sufferance doth o’erskip.” Shakespeare also uses it for patience, pain, loss, and permission.
19, 20. for the gods … revenge, I say ere we become rakes, for, as heaven is my witness, it is the dread of starvation, not the desire for vengeance, which prompts my angry words.
21. proceed … against, take action against; not in the legal sense of the phrase, but by demanding that he should be given up to their vengeance.
23. he’s a very … commonalty, he worries us, the common people, with all the fierceness of a dog worrying sheep.
24. Consider you, do you bear in mind?
30. soft-conscienced men, men who allow their feelings to prevail over their judgement.
31. it, sc. his behaving so bravely.
31, 2. he did it … proud, his motives were partly to give pleasure to his mother by the reputation he thus gained, and partly to give pleasure to himself by being able to indulge his pride; for the transposition of partly, see Abb. § 420. Plutarch says, “As for the other, the only respect that made them valiant, was that they hoped to have honour; but touching Martius, the only thing that made him to love honour was the joy he saw his mother did take of him. For he thought, nothing made him so happy and honourable, as that his mother might hear everybody praise and commend him” (Skeat. Shakespeare’s Plutarch, p. 4).
32, 3. even … virtue, in no less degree than his valour; virtue, in the sense of the Lat. virtus, valour, manly excellence, from vir, a man.
35. You must … covetous, it is impossible, with any justice, to accuse him, as you may justly accuse the rest of the patricians, of avarice.
36, 7. I need … accusations, I still have plenty of other charges which I may justly bring against him.
38. The other side, “The people had by this time retired to the Mons Sacer, which was about three miles from the city along the Via Nomentana. The other side would therefore be the part beyond the Tiber. But in all probability Shakespeare had in his mmd the topography of London and not of Rome, and the Tower was to him the Capitol” (Wright).
39. is risen, is up in arms: prating, idly chattering: the Capitol, the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus at Rome, said to have derived its name from a human head (caput) being discovered in digging its foundation. Begun by Tarquinius Priscus and finished by Tarquinius Superbus, it was three times burnt down and as often rebuilt. Here the consuls upon entering upon their office offered sacrifice and took their vows: and hither the victorious general, who entered the city in triumph, was carried in his triumphal car to return thanks to the Father of the gods.
Stage Direction. Menenius Agrippa, consul, B.C. 503, conquered the Sabines. Plutarch speaks of him as among “the pleasantest old men, and the most acceptable to the people” sent as “chief man of the message from the Senate” to the plebeians on their retirement to Mons Sacer.
44. He’s … enough, though a patrician, he has plenty of honesty in him.
46. in hand? about to be undertaken?
47. bats, bludgeons, cudgels; The matter? what is the business you are engaged in?
49. inkling, hint, intimation; “a verbal substantive formed from the M. E. verb incle … a frequentative verb from a base ink-, to murmur, mutter”… (Skeat, Ety. Dict.): this fortnight, for the whole of the two last weeks.
50. which now, and what those intentions were, we will now, etc.
53. masters, a term of respect, though frequently as a mere courtesy without any idea of inferiority in the speaker.
56. most charitable care, most anxious consideration for your welfare.
58. Your suffering … dearth, the misery you have been put to by this scarcity of corn.
60. the Roman state, the governing powers of Rome.
63-5. For the dearth … help, as for the scarcity of which you complain, that is due to the will of the gods, not to the enmity of the Patricians, and for all help against it you must betake yourselves to your knees in prayer to the gods, not to your arms in defiance of the Patricians: Alack, alas; according to Skeat, probably from ah! lak! ah, a loss!
66, 7. You are … you, your misery is only hurrying you, in behaving in this manner, into worse misfortune.
68. The helms o’ the state, those who are guiding the vessel of state.
69. When you curse, in cursing.
70. True, indeed! that’s a pretty tale to tell us.
71, 2. suffer us … grain, they are content to see us starve while all the time their garners are bursting with superabundance; for and, used to give emphasis, cp. Haml, i. 3. 62, “Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel”; and see Abb. § 95.
72, 3. make edicts … usurers, they frame resolutions in favour of usury, whereby the exorbitant money-lenders are enabled to flourish. An edict was a rule promulgated by magistrates, more especially the praetors, upon their entry into office at the beginning of the year; and when the custom of succeeding magistrates adopting the rules of their predecessors became common, these rules, or edicts, gradually constituted a large body of law. The edicts here complained of are such as gave the usurers greater facility of recovering their debts and imposing stringent terms upon borrowers.
73, 4. repeal … rich, are day by day going further in repealing whatever acts serve as a protection against the rich; wholesome, salutary in curbing the power of the wealthier classes: more piercing statutes, statutes of a more rigorous and cruel character.
75. eat us not up, do not make an end of us, kill us all off.
76. and there’s … us, and that is about all the love they can boast of feeling for us.
77-9 Either … folly, when you have heard what I have to say, you will either have to confess that your words are words of the merest malice, or that you have laid yourself open to the charge of folly: shall tell, am about to tell, mean to tell; the first person with shall denoting the determination of the speaker.
83, 4. think … tale, fancy that by telling us a fable you will be able to cheat us out of a belief in the humiliations we have endured; fob, Ger. foppen, to jeer, banter, occurs in the form fub, in ii. H. IV. ii. 1. 37; Halliwell (Arch, and Prov. Dict.), gives to “fub, to put off, deceive. At marbles, an irregular mode of projecting the taw by an effort of the whole hand, instead of the thumb only.” For disgrace, cp. H. VIII. iii. 2. 240, “How eagerly you follow my disgraces“: for an, see Abb. § 101.
85. deliver, relate: as frequently in Shakespeare.
87. Rebell’d … it, it is usual, as in the text, to put a comma or a semicolon after belly; but it seems probable that Rebell’d is used for rebelling or being in rebellion, and that we should regard the whole line as a single clause.
88, 9. That only … body, that it did nothing but remain in the centre of the body like a whirlpool into which all nourishment was sucked; for the transposition of only, see Abb. § 420; for gulf, cp. Haml. iii. 3. 16, “but, like a gulf, doth draw what’s near it with it”: unactive, inactive; for the difference between un-, and in-, in composition, see Abb. § 442.
90. cupboarding, storing up as in a cupboard; a cupboard is properly a closet with shelves on which cups are ranged, then a closet in which anything is kept; viand, food; “the same as Ital. vivanda, victuals, food, eatables. – Lat. uiuenda, neuter plural, things to live on, provisions; considered as a feminine singular by a change common in Low Latin” (Skeat, Ety. Dict.): bearing, enduring, undergoing.
93. mutually participate, each sharing with the other in the common labour; the adjective participate is not elsewhere found in Shakespeare.
94. appetite, desires: affection common, inclinations shared by the whole body. For the transposition, see Abb. 419.
97. I shall tell you, I am about to tell you (and was about to tell you when you so rudely interrupted me).
99. 100. For … speak, for, let me tell you, in a fable, there is no greater impropriety in representing the belly as smiling than in representing it as speaking.
102. envied his receipt, were jealous of its receiving all the nourishment taken into the body: for receipt, = thing received, cp. Lucr 703, “Drunken desire must vomit his receipt”: his, its.
102-4. even so … you, with no greater reason for their malignity than that which you bear towards our senators for being something different from yourselves.
104. Your belly’s answer? come, don’t delay, let us have this answer given by the belly of which you talk so much; for this colloquial use of Your, cp. Haml. iv. 3. 24, “Your worm is your only emperor for diet: your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service”; and see Abb. § 221: here there is also the emphasis of scorn. What! are you going to be bold enough to tell us that the belly could possibly have any sufficient answer to give?
105. The kingly-crowned head, the head which is to the body what the crown is to the king, the emblem of supremacy.
106. The counsellor heart, the heart from which we receive the dictates of wisdom.
108. muniments, instruments with which the body is furnished and armed; Lat. munire, to fortify.
109. this our fabric, this frame-work of our body made up of all these several parts and organs: if that, for the conjunctional affile, see Abb. § 287.
110. ‘Fore me … speaks! my goodness! this is a fellow to talk! ‘Fore me, i.e. before me, in my presence, a petty adjuration, used in order to avoid the penalties of profane swearing, an attenuated form of “fore God!” which we have in M. A. ii. 3. 192.
111. cormorant, voracious: properly a voracious sea-bird, the corvus marinus, sea-crow.
112. the sink o’ the body, which serves the same purpose in the body that a sink serves in a kitchen, etc., the refuse water being allowed to drain off through it; originally a place into which filth sinks, or in which it collects.
115, 6. If you’ll … awhile, if for a moment or two you will show me a small amount of that quality of which your store is but slight, viz. patience. Though Shakespeare often uses small where we should use little, it is probable that but for the parenthesis he would not have written a small Patience.
117. Note me, for this dative, see Abb. § 220.
118. Your, colloquially, as in 1. 104.
119. Not rash like his accusers, inferentially the rashness is attributed to the accusers of the senators.
121. general, belonging equally to all parts of the body.
123. the store-house and the shop. Grant White points out that in modern English, as spoken in Great Britain, this expression sounds pleonastic, the two words being used in the same sense; whereas in America (as formerly in England) ‘shop’ means the place where a thing is made, ‘store’ or ‘storehouse,’ the place where a thing is kept for sale.
124. If you do remember, said with a sort of sarcastic politeness, if you will be so good as to bethink yourselves for a moment, you will recall what you seem to have forgotten.
126. Even … brain. Malone seems to be right when he says that the seat o’ the brain is in apposition with, and descriptive of, the heart. He quotes a similar apologue from Camden’s Remains, 1600, in which the bodily organs, having mutinied against the belly, at length find themselves unable to perform their functions, and “all with one accord desire the advice of the heart. There Reason laid open before them,” etc. That the heart was once believed to be the seat of the understanding, there can be no doubt; and just above we have it spoken of as the counsellor. Others take the heart and the seat o’ the brain as the two points to which the blood conveys the nourishment; in either case, seat will mean royal seat, throne, as frequently in Shakespeare, e.g. H. V. i. 1. 88, Cymbl. i. 1. 142.
130. though that, for the conjunctional affix, see Abb. § 287.
131. this says … me, – i.e. this is the important point for you to notice.
132. Ay, sir; well, well, said with impatience; get on with this answer that the belly made.
133. deliver out, distribute, apportioning to each its proper share.
135. the flour, the finer part of meal; identical with flower.
136. the bran, the husk after the flour has been extracted.
137. It was … this? it was a good answer, but how do you apply it to the circumstances?
140. Their … cares, their wise deliberations and the concern they show for the people.
143. But it … you, which does not either originate in them, or at all events is made yours by them.
144. no way, in no way; used adverbially; see Abb. § 202.
147, 8. For that, … foremost, because while you are one of the lowest, basest, poorest, among those who with such great wisdom have broken out into mutiny, you, like the great toe of the foot, thrust yourself most forward; foremost is a double superlative, the O. E. original superlative of fore being forma: cp. aftermost, furthermost, etc.
149, 50. Thou rascal … vantage, you worthless fellow, least fitted of all the herd to take the lead, put yourself at their head thinking to secure to yourself some personal advantage. Mason points out that rascal and in blood are terms of forestry, the former meaning a lean deer (and so one wanting in spirit), the latter full of animal vigour. Cp. i. H. VI. iv. 2. 48, 9, “If we be English deer, be then in blood; Not rascal-like, to fall down with a pinch,” i.e. as soon as bitten by a dog.
151. make you ready, make ready for yourselves, for your defence.
152. Rome … battle, Rome and the vermin, like you, that infest her will soon be engaged in deadly struggle.
153. The one … bale, one side or other must perish in the conflict; bale, A.S. bealu, evil, misfortune; not elsewhere used by Shakespeare, though baleful occurs in R. J. ii. 3. 8, and repeatedly in H. VI. and Timon.
155, 6. That … scabs? who in seeking to relieve the seditious irritation from which you are suffering, only make yourselves more loathsome objects than before? the poor … opinion, this contemptible desire to make your miserable opinions heard; in T. N. ii. 5. 82, ii. H. IV. iii. 2. 296, T. C. ii. 1. 31, scab is used for scabby fellow, loathsome creature.
156. We have … word, i.e. we might be sure beforehand of abuse from you.
158. Beneath abhorring, to a degree of baseness that no abhorrence could fitly express.
159, 60. That like … proud, whom neither peace nor war satisfies, the latter terrifying you, the former only puffing you up with arrogance.
161. Where, in matters in which: lions, brave as lions: hares, timid as hares.
162. foxes, cunning as foxes: geese, stupid as geese.
162-4. no surer … sun, of no more steadfastness, endurance, than a coal which quickly bums itself out if put upon ice, or than, etc.
164-6. Your virtue … it, that in which you excel consists in exalting as a hero him whose vile actions have brought him to ruin, and in cursing that justice which has meted out his deserts to him; cp. Lear, ii. 2. 128, “got praises of the king For him attempting who was self-subdued.” For the omission of the relative before did, see Abb. § 244.
170, 1. swims … rushes, finds those favours to be leaden weights to drag him down instead of fins to bear him up in troubled waters, finds them as powerless to aid him in hewing his way through difficulties as rushes woidd be to cut down oaks.
171. Hang ye! Trust ye? curses on you I do you fancy that any one in his senses would trust you?
173. your hate, the object of your hatred.
174. your garland, your emblem of all that is glorious; cp. A. C. XV. 15. 64, “O, wither’d is the garland of the war,” i.e. Antony is dead.
175. several, various; not here only, but all over the city.
177. Under the gods, next to the gods; as their vice-gerents on earth: keep you in awe, awe you into subjection: for which, less definite than who, see Abb. § 266.
178. What’s their seeking, what is it they desire? seeking, a verbal noun.
179. For corn … rates, their desire is to have corn supplied to them at such price as they may choose to fix: whereof, for with it; for of used of the instrument, see Abb. § 171.
180. They say! i.e. fancy paying any attention to what is said by creatures like them! with scornful emphasis on They.
181. 2. They’ll sit … Capitol, such fellows as they are sit at home by their own hearths and yet have the audacity to pretend a knowledge of the way in which state affairs are managed; fire, a dissyllable; like, likely.
183. declines, is falling from power: side factions, in their idle talk espouse one party or another; in iv. 2. 2, the verb is used intransitively: give out, proclaim as about to be made.
184. Conjectural, that have no other foundation than their own foolish guesses.
186. They say … enough! Fancy their taking upon themselves to say, etc. Who in the world would be foolish enough to pay any heed to what they say?
187. ruth, mercy, tenderness of heart; cp. to rue, to be sorry for.
191. Nay, these … persuaded, nay, there is no need to thunder at them any further, for they have already seen enough to be pretty well convinced of the folly of their outbreak.
192. 3. For though … cowardly, for though they are utterly destitute of that better part of valour, discretion, they have cowardice in abundance to teach them submission; for abundantly lack, cp. Haml. ii. 2. 202, “a plentiful lack of wisdom”; for passing, surpassingly, egregiously, cp. Oth. i. 3. 160, Haml. ii. 2. 427. In i. H. IV. v. 4. 121, Falstaff says, “The better part of valour is discretion”; a saying now proverbial.
193. I beseech you, be good enough to tell me; the phrase had not in Shakespeare’s time the sense of urgent entreaty which it now carries.
194. troop, band; used contemptuously, as we should now say, crew.
195. an-hungry, here an– is a corruption of the A.S. intensive of; see Abb. 24: sigh’d forth, uttered in dismal accents.
196. That hunger … walls, that nothing could restrain those who were starving: that dogs must eat, that even animals must have food, and will seize it if not given them.
200. a petition granted, a petition which they made being granted.
202. And make … pale, and strike terror into the hearts of those who hitherto have boldly used the power entrusted to them: threw their caps, threw up their caps in exultation.
203. As they would hang, in such a manner as they would have done if they were about to, etc. “As, like an, appears to be (though it is not) used by Shakespeare for as if … the if is implied in the subjunctive”… (Abb. § 107): the horns o’ the moon, cp. A. C. iv. 12. 45 “Let me lodge Lichas (by) God’s death, i.e. the crucifixion of Christ; so, ‘s blood, by God’s blood; ‘s life by God’s life; ‘s wounds, or zounds, by God’s wounds.
209. The rabble … me, I would have let them destroy the whole city rather than have yielded them this privilege; for the ellipsis of they should have after ere, cp. i. 1. 233, “I’ll lean upon one crutch and fight with t’other, Ere stay behind this business”; it, the rabble.
211. For … arguing, “for insurgents to debate upon” (Malone); the abstract for the concrete.
214. are in arms, have taken up arms.
216. our best elders, our noble senators; the patres, fathers of state.
217. ’tis true … us, that which you lately told us (sc. that the Volscians are preparing to attack us) turns out to be true.
220. I sin … nobility, if envy is a sin, then I am guilty of that sin, for I do envy his nobleness of character.
221. but what, except that which.
224. Upon my party, taking my side of the quarrel; belonging to my half of the world.
225. Only … him, was with him alone for my antagonist; for the transposition of Only, see Abb. § 420.
227. Attend upon, accompany as one of his subordinates.
229. constant, faithful to my promise.
232. I’ll lean … t’ other, stiff as I am with age that I have to go on crutches, I will, etc.
233. Ere stay … business, ere I will stay behind and not take my share in this business; see note on 1. 209, above.
234. true-bred, nobly bred; a true Roman.
235. Your company, give us your company, go with us to, etc.
236. attend, are already waiting for.
237. Right … priority, you being well worthy of precedence; the accusative after worthy, and without the preposition of, is frequent in Shakespeare.
235. let them follow, said sarcastically, as though they were displaying great eagerness to show their valour in the war.
240. mutiners, a form similar to pioner, muleter, enginer, all of which Shakespeare uses. In K. J. ii. 1. 378, Haml. v. 2. 6, we have the substantive mutine, and the verb in Haml. iii. 4. 83; in Temp. iii. 2. 40, the form is mutineer.
243. no equal, sc. in pride.
245. his lip, the contempt with which his lip curled when speaking of us: Nay, but his taunts, you speak of his lip and eyes, but scornful as they were, they were nothing to his taunts.
246. Being moved … gods, when provoked, he will not hesitate to gibe even at the gods; for gird, cp. ii. H. IV. i. 2. 7, “men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me”; and the substantive, T. S. V. 2. 48. The word is the same as to gride, to strike, pierce; used in its literal sense by Chaucer, Milton, and Spenser.
247. Be-mock, one of the forces of be– in composition is that of intensifying, as here; modest, because representing the chaste goddess Diana.
248, 9. he is grown … valiant, he is puffed up beyond all endurance by the consciousness of his own valour; for the infinitive in this indefinite sense, see Abb. § 356.
249, 51. Such … noon, a man of his nature, when flattered by success, disdains even his own shadow as he treads upon it; success, meaning literally what follows, was in Shakespeare’s day frequently used with such epithets as good, bad, best, and we still speak of ill, fair, success; at noon, the sun then being vertical, a man necessarily treads on his own shadow.
252, 3. His insolence … Cominius, a man so arrogant as he is can endure to be a subordinate of Cominius; Schmidt and Wright take to be commanded Under, as to hold a command under; brook, endure; the original sense of the word was to use, to enjoy.
253. the which, “generally used either … where the antecedent, or some word like the antecedent, is repeated, or else where such a repetition could be made if desired. In almost all cases there are two or more possible antecedents from which selection could be made” (Abb. § 270).
254. In whom … graced, with whose favours he has already been plentifully decked; for who personifying irrational antecedents, see Abb. § 264.
254-6. can not … first, cannot be more securely held, nor acquired in fuller measure, than by one who occupies a position subordinate to the chief command.
257. Shall be, is certain to be accounted as.
257, 8. though he … man, though his performances be as complete as are possible to a man: giddy censure, the fickle opinion of the multitude; censure, originally meaning nothing more than opinion, later on came to mean blame, in consequence of the greater readiness of men to form an unfavourable than a favourable opinion of the actions of others; but in Shakespeare it is more frequently used in a neutral sense, implying neither a good nor a bad estimate.
259, 60. ‘O, if … business!’ how different would the result have been, if he had had the management of the war!

References: § 84
 V. 
 § 367
 § 420
 § 95
 § 101
 § 420
 § 442
 § 221
 § 287
 § 220
 V. 
 § 287
 § 202
 § 244
 § 266
 § 171
 v. 
 § 107
 § 420
 v. 
 V. 
 § 356
 § 270
 § 264