Page:Coriolanus (1924) Yale.djvu/156

144 Your virtue is, To make him worthy whose offence subdues him, And curse that justice did it. Your kindness shows itself only in espousing the cause of the punished delinquent and in cursing the justice which made him suffer.

disdains the shadow Which he treads on at noon. 'The sun being vertical at noon, a man treads on his own shadow then.' (Arden ed.)

Corioli. The name had been gallicized by Amyot into 'Corioles.' It is retained in this form by North and usually in the Shakespeare Folio. (In the stage direction at the opening of this scene the Folio spells it 'Coriolus.')

his brows bound with oak. Crowned with a wreath of oak leaves. Plutarch (North) records that in an early battle the young Martius saved the life of a Roman soldier. 'Hereupon, after the battle was won, the Dictator did not forget so noble an act, and therefore first of all he crowned Martius with a garland of oaken boughs. For whosoever saveth the life of a Roman, it is a manner among them to honour him with such a garland.'

No, nor a man that fears you less than he. Logical syntax requires 'more' instead of 'less.' Shakespeare frequently makes slips of this sort.

Against the wind a mile. Let the infection be so great as to carry a mile against the wind.

As they us to our trenches follows. As they are now following us to our trenches. Instances of the old northern English plural in -s abound in Shakespeare.

Thou wast a soldier Even to Cato's wish. This passage, to line 61, is a close adaptation of North's words: 'For he was even such another as Cato would have a soldier and a captain to be, not only terrible and fierce to lay about him, but to make the enemy afeared with the sound of his voice and