Com. You have holp to ravish your own daughters, and To melt the city-leads upon your pates,

To fee your wives difhonour'd to your nofes.

Men. What's the news? what's the news?

Com. Your temples burned in their cement, and
Your franchises, whereon you food, confin'd
Into an augre's bore.

Men. Pray now, the news?

You've made fair work, I fear me : pray, your news? If Marcius fhould be joined with the Volfcians,

Com. If he is their god; he leads them like a thing Made by fome other deity than nature,

That shapes man better; and they follow him,
Against us brats, with no less confidence,
Than boys purfuing fummer butter-flies,
Or butchers killing flies.

Men. You've made good work,

You and your apron-men; that flood fo much
Upon the voice of occupation, and

The breath of garlick-eaters.

Com. He'll fhake your Rome about your ears.
Men. As Hercules did shake down mellow fruit:

You have made fair work!

Bru. But is this true, Sir?

Com. Ay, and you'll look pale

Before you find it other. All the regions

8

Do fmilingly revolt; and, who refifts,

Are mock'd for valiant ignorance,

And perifh conftant fools: who is't can blame him?
Your enemies and his find fomething in him.

Men. We're all undone, unless

The noble man have mercy.

Com. Who fhall afk it ?

The tribunes cannot do't for fhame; the people
Deferve fuch pity of him, as the wolf

Does of the fhepherds: his best friends, if they
Shou'd fay, Be good to Rome,' they charge him even
As thofe thould do that had deferv'd his hate,
And therein fhew'd like enemies.

Men.

Men. "Tis true.

If he were putting to my houfe the brand

That would confume it, I have not the face

To fay,Befeech you, ceafe.' You've made fair hands, You and your crafts! you've crafted fair!

Com. You've brought

A trembling upon Rome, fuch as was never
So incapable of help.

Tri. Say not, we brought it.

Men. How? was it we? we lov'd him; but, like beafts, And coward nobles, gave way to your clusters,

Who did hoot him out o' th' city.

Com. But I fear,

They'll roar him in again. Tullus Aufidius,
The fecond name of men, obeys his points
As if he were his officer: Defperation
Is all the policy, ftrength, and defence,
That Rome can make against them.

Enter a Troop of Citizens..

Men. Here come the clufters.

And is Aufidius with him ?-You are they,
That made the air unwholsome, when you cast
Your flinking, greafy caps, in hooting at
Coriolanus' exile. Now he's coming,

And not a hair upon a foldier's head,

Which will not prove a whip: as many coxcombs,
As you threw caps up, will he tumble down,
And
pay you for your voices. "Tis no matter,
If he should burn us all into one coal,
We have deferv'd it.

Omnes. Faith, we hear fearful news.
1 Cit. For mine own part,

When I faid, Banish him; I faid, 'twas pity.
2 Cit. And fo did I.

3 Cit. And fo did I; and to fay the truth, fo did very many of us; that we did, we did for the beft: and tho' we willingly confented to his banishment, yet it was against our will..

U 4

Com

Com. Y'are goodly things; you, voices!
Men. You have made good work,

You and your cry. Shall's to the capitol ?
Con. Oh, ay, what else?

[Exeunt.

Sic. Go, mafters, get you home, be not dismay'd.
Thefe are a fide, that would be glad to have

This true, which they fo seem to fear. Go home,
And fhew no fign of fear.

1 Cit. The gods be good to us: come, mafters, Jet's home. I ever faid, we were i' th' wrong, when we banish'd him.

2 Cit. So did we all; but come, let's home.

Bru. I do not like this news.

Sic. Nor I.

[Exit Citizens.

Bru. Let's to the capitol; would, half my wealth

Would buy this for a lie!

Sic. Pray, let us go.

[Exeunt Tribunes.

SCENE, a Camp; at a fmall Distance from

Auf.

D

Rome.

Enter Aufidius, with his Lieutenant.

O they ftill fly to th' Roman?

Lieu. I do not know what witchcraft's in
him ; but

Your foldiers ufe him as the grace 'fore meat,
Their talk at table, and their thanks at end :
And you are darken'd in this action, Sir,
Even by your own.

Auf. I cannot help it now,

Unless, by ufing means, I lame the foot

Of our defign. He bears himself more proudly
Even to my perfon, than, I thought, he would
When firft I did embrace him. Yet his nature
In that's no changling, and I must excufe
What cannot be amended.

Lieu. Yet I wish, Sir,

(I mean for your particular) you had not

Join'd' in commiffion with him; but had borne
The action of yourself, or else to him

Had left it folely.

Auf. I understand thee well; and be thou fure,
When he fhall come to his account, he knows not,,
What I can urge against him; though it feems
And fo he thinks, and is no less apparent
To th' vulgar eye, that he bears all things fairly;
And fhews good husbandry for the Volfcian state,
Fights dragon-like, and does atchieve as foon'
As draw his fword: yet he hath left undone
That which shall break his neck, or hazard mine,
When e'er we come to our account.

Lieu. Sir, I befeech, think you he'll carry Rome?
Auf. All places yield to him ere he fits down,
And the nobility of Rome are his :

The fenators and patricians love him too:
The tribunes are no foldiers; and their people
Will be as rafh in the repeal, as hafty

To expel him thence. I think, he'll be to Rome (35)

(35)

-I think, he'll be to Rome,
As is the Afpray to the fish, who takes it

By fou'reignty of nature.]

Though one's fearch might have been very vain to find any fuch word as Afpray, yet I easily imagined, fomething must be couch'd,. under the corruption, in its nature deftructive to fish, and that made a prey of them. And this fufpicion led me to the difcovery. The prey is a fpecies of the eagle, of a strong make, that haunts the fea and lakes for its food, and altogether preys on fish. It is called the diall, or Aquila Marina, as alfo Avis offifraga thence contrafted first, perhaps, into Ofphrey, and then, with regard to the ease of pronunciation, Ofprey. Pliny gives us this defcription of its acutefight, and eagerness after its prey. Haliæetus, clariffima oculorum acie, librans ex alto fefe, vifo in mari pifce, præceps in mare ruens, et difcuffis pectore aquis, rapiens. It may not be disagreeable to go a little farther to explain the propriety of the poet's allufion. Why will Coriolanus be to Rome, as the Ofprey to the fish,

-be'll take it

By fou'reignty of nature? Shakespeare, tis well known, has a peculiarity in thinking; and wherever he is acquainted with nature, is fure to allade to her molt

U. 5.

uncommon,

As is the Ofprey to the fish, who takes it
By fovereignty of nature. First, he was
A noble fervant to them, but he could not
Carry his honours even; whether pride,
(Which out of daily fortune ever taints
The happy man) whether defect of judgment,
(To fail in the difpofing of thofe chances,
Whereof he was the Lord) or whether nature,
(Not to be other than one thing; not moving
From th' cafk to th' cufhion; but commanding peace
Even with the fame aufterity and garb,
As he controll'd the war;) But one of these,
(As he hath spices of them all) not all,
For I dare fo far free him, made him fear'd,
So hated, and fo banish'd: but he has merit
To choak it in the utt'rance: fo our virtues
Lie in th' interpretation of the time;

uncommon effects and operations. I am very apt to imagine, therefore, that the poet meant, Coriolanus would take Rome by the very opinion and terror of his name, as fish are taken by the Ofprey, thro' an inftinctive fear they have of him. "The fishermen, (fays our "old naturalift William Turner,) are used to anoint their baits with "Ofprey's fat, thinking thereby to make them the more efficacious: "becaufe, when that bird is hovering in the air, all the fish, that "are beneath him, (the nature of the eagle, as it is believed, com"pelling them to it ;) turn up their bellies, and as it were, give him "his choice which he will take of them." Gefner goes a little farther in fupport of this odd inftinét, telling us, that while this bird flutters in the air, and fometimes, as it were, feems fufpended "there, he drops a certain quantity of his fat, by the influence "whereof the fish are fo affrighted and confounded, that they im."mediately turn themfelves belly upwards; upon which he fowfes "down perpendicularly like a ftone, and feizes them in his talons."

To this, I dare fay, Shakespeare alludes in this expreffion of the fou'reignty of nature. This very thought is again touched by Beaumont and Fletcher, in their Tavo Noble Kinfmen; a play in which there is a tradition of our author having been jointly concerned.

-But, oh, Jove! your actions,

Soon as they move, as Afprays do the fish,

Subdue before they touch."

For here again we must read, Ofpreys.

And