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I suspect that Shakespeare wrote it transposed!

“Trust ye? Hang ye!”

Ib. sc. 10. Speech of Aufidius:—

... “Mine emulation

Hath not that honour in't, it had; for where

I thought to crush him in an equal force,

True sword to sword; I'll potch at him some way

Or wrath, or craft may get him.—

... My valour (poison'd

With only suffering stain by him) for him

Shall fly out of itself: nor sleep, nor sanctuary,

Being naked, sick, nor fane, nor capitol,

The prayers of priests, nor times of sacrifices,

Embankments all of fury, shall lift up

Their rotten privilege and custom 'gainst

My hate to Marcius.”

I have such deep faith in Shakespeare's heart-lore, that I take for granted that this is in nature, and not as a mere anomaly; although I cannot in myself discover any germ of possible feeling, which could wax and unfold itself into such sentiment as this. However, I perceive that in this speech is meant to be contained a prevention of shock at the after-change in Aufidius's character.

Act ii. sc. 1. Speech of Menenius:—

“The most sovereign prescription in Galen,” &c.

Was it without, or in contempt of, historical information that Shakespeare made the contemporaries of Coriolanus quote Cato and Galen? I cannot decide to my own satisfaction.

Ib. sc. 3. Speech of Coriolanus:—

“Why in this wolvish toge should I stand hero”

That the gown of the candidate was of whitened wool, we know. Does “wolvish” or “woolvish” mean “made of wool?” If it means “wolfish,” what is the sense?

Act iv. sc. 7. Speech of Aufidius:—

“All places yield to him ere he sits down,” &c.

I have always thought this, in itself so beautiful speech, the least explicable from the mood and full intention of the speaker of any in the whole works of Shakespeare. I cherish the hope that I am mistaken, and that, becoming wiser, I shall discover some profound excellence in that, in which I now appear to detect an imperfection.

“Julius Cæsar.”

Act i. sc. 1.—

“Mar. What meanest thou by that? Mend me, thou saucy

fellow!”

The speeches of Flavius and Marullus are in blank verse. Wherever regular metre can be rendered truly imitative of character, passion, or personal rank, Shakespeare seldom, if ever, neglects it. Hence this line should be read:—

“What mean'st by that? mend me, thou saucy fellow!”

I say regular metre: for even the prose has in the highest and lowest dramatic personage, a Cobbler or a Hamlet, a rhythm so felicitous and so severally appropriate, as to be a virtual metre.

Ib. sc. 2.—

“Bru. A soothsayer bids you beware the Ides of March.”

If my ear does not deceive me, the metre of this line was meant to express that sort of mild philosophic contempt, characterising Brutus even in his first casual speech. The line is a trimeter,—each dipodia containing two accented and two unaccented syllables, but variously arranged, as thus:—

u - - u | - u u - | u - u -

A soothsayer | bids you beware | the Ides of March.

Ib. Speech of Brutus:—

“Set honour in one eye, and death i' the other,

And I will look on both indifferently.”

Warburton would read “death” for “both;” but I prefer the old text. There are here three things, the public good, the individual Brutus' honour, and his death. The latter two so balanced each other, that he could decide for the first by equipoise; nay—the thought growing—that honour had more weight than death. That Cassius understood it as Warburton, is the beauty of Cassius as contrasted with Brutus.

Ib. Cæsar's speech:—

... “He loves no plays

As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music,” &c.

“This is not a trivial observation, nor does our poet mean barely by it, that Cassius was not a merry, sprightly man; but that he had not a due temperament of harmony in his disposition.”—Theobald's note.

O Theobald! what a commentator wast thou, when thou would'st affect to understand Shakespeare, instead of contenting thyself with collating the text! The meaning here is too deep for a line ten-fold the length of thine to fathom.

Ib. sc. 3. Cæsar's speech:—

“Be factious for redress