Page:The tragedy of Coriolanus.djvu/16

x the belly appears to be indebted to the version given by Camden in his Remaines of a Greater Worke, Concerning Britaine, etc., 1605, as well as to that of North's Plutarch. Other circumstances that have been put forward as evidence of date are: (1) that there was a great frost in the winter of 1607-1608, when the Thames was frozen over and fires actually lit upon it, which, being present or fresh in remembrance, might suggest more readily sooner than later "the coal of fire upon the ice," in I. i. 172 (Hales); (2) that there was a dearth in England in 1608 and 1609, as in the play (Chalmers); (3) that James I. encouraged the planting of mulberry trees in order to raise silk-worms in 1609, whence perhaps the simile, "Now humble as the ripest mulberry That will not hold the handling," in III. ii. 79 (Malone). The two last, which would indicate 1609 or 1610 as earliest date for the play, are especially weak, for mulberrys were not (as Malone himself points out) an absolute novelty either in England or in Shakespeare's work, and the dearth in Coriolanus is part of the original story. Malone's comparison of II. ii. 101: "He lurch'd all swords o' th' garland" with Jonson's Epicene, v. ad fin., "Well, Dauphine, you have lurch'd your friends of the better halfe of the garland," has more point. Unless the combination of lurch and garland was a commonplace, in which case the saying would surely have turned up elsewhere, it creates a strong probability of reminiscence on one side or the other; and this would be most likely in the character of a comedy, who playfully accuses his friend, and finds a striking phrase from a serious play very pat to his purpose. Epicene was acted towards the end of 1609, old style, that is, between January 4th (when a patent was granted for the Children of Her Majesty's Revels, who played it) and March 25th, 1610, which would point to 1609 for Coriolanus at latest.

Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps and Mr. A. B. Paton thought they had proved Coriolanus to be later than the edition of North's Plutarch published in 1612, because the word "unfortunate" is used by Shakespeare in v. iii. 97, and in the corresponding passage in North in that edition, whereas in the earlier editions of North it is " unfortunately." The obvious answer has been made that Shakespeare—who had already used North long before 1612, according to dates generally accepted—had metrical inducements to shorten the word here, and was probably the first to substitute adjective for adverb in this passage. More-