Chapter CLII: Act IV

SC. 1. "You were used
To say extremities was the trier of spirits."

The 2nd folio reads 'extremity,' and it is usually followed, and is perhaps right; yet the text is not wrong. See Introd. p. 72.

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"_That_ Fortune's blows,
When most struck home, being gentle wounded, craves
A noble cunning."

Though this may seem devoid of sense, it is, I think, what the poet wrote. If so, we must take 'wounded' actively, like "Under my burden _groan'd_" (Temp. i. 2). "It is twice _blessed_" (M. of Ven. v. 1) etc.; and then 'gentle' will denote that the blows were open and honourable ones. (See the parallel passage in Tr. and Cress, i. 3.) If this should not satisfy, we might perhaps read _in the gentle-minded_. Pope read 'gentle-_warded_.' 'Cunning' here is skill taken in a good sense, as in "May my right-hand forget her _cunning_" (Ps. cxxxvii).

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"Like to a lonely dragon that his fen
Makes feared."

Perhaps the right reading would be _den_.

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"Will or _not_ exceed the common, or be caught."

The negative seems required to make sense.

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"My first son,
Whither wilt thou go?"

She had, according to herself, no other son (see i. 3); and again she says of herself (v. 3), "While she, poor hen, fond of no second brood." I have never met with 'first' in the sense of noblest, that given it here by the critics. I would therefore read _fairest_. In Tr. and Cr. we have "_fair_ Lord Æneas"(i. 3); "_fair_ Prince" (iii. 1, v. 1); "_fair_ Diomed" (iv. 1); _fair_ beholders (Prol.).

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"More than a wild exposture to each chance."

Southern read _exposure_, which probably the poet wrote.

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_Cor._ "Oh, the gods!"

I give this speech to _Vir._, to whom it is better suited. Her only other speech in this scene is "O Heavens! O Heavens!"

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SC. 3. "But your favour is well appeared by your tongue."

Steevens read _approved_, Singer _appayed_. The poet probably wrote _has_, pronounced _as_, of which the printer made 'is.'

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SC. 4. "My birth-place have I, and my love's upon."

With Steevens, I read _hate_ for 'have.' This change of adjacent letters is a common error with printers.

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SC. 5. "All-noble Marcius. Let me _en_twine
Mine arms about that body."

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"Unbuckling helms, fisting each other's throat,
And waked half-dead with nothing."

A line is apparently lost here; or there is an aposiopesis.

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"Like a bold flood o'erbear _her_. O! come, go in."

* * * * *

"To fright 'em ere destroy _'em_. But come in."

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"This peace is _good for_ nothing but to rust iron."

Steevens, without being aware of the metric requirement, made the same addition.

* * * * *

"than War's a destroyer of men.--'Tis so, and as
War[s] in some sort may be said to be a ravisher," etc.

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SC. 6. "If he had gone forth Consul, _have_ found it so."

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"And who resist
Are mocked for _their_ valiant ignorance."

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SC. 7. "Which he was lord of; or whether nature _in him_."

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"And Power, unto itself most commendable,
Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair
To extol what it hath done."

I agree with Steevens in regarding this passage and the comments on it as being equally unintelligible. The meaning seems to be one which Shakespeare frequently expresses (see Tr. and Cr. i. 3, ii. 3, iii. 3)--self-praise is no praise. 'Unto itself commendable' is, then, standing high in the possessor's estimation. The sense yielded by 'tomb' and 'chair' is most trivial, and I would therefore venture to propose

"Hath not a tongue so evident as a charmer's."

Charms and spells, we know, were murmured or muttered in a low tone ("wizards that peep and that mutter" Is. viii. 19); and if the final letters of _charmer's_ had been effaced--like _in him_ a few lines higher--and only _char_ left, the printer might easily have taken it for 'chair,' and so have made 'tomb' to correspond. For 'chair' Singer reads _hair_; Collier's folio _cheer_. _Charmer_ occurs in Oth. iii. 4, and the poet had met with it in his Bible. I have introduced it again in Ant. and Cl. iv. 8.

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"One fire drives out one fire; one nail one nail;
Rights by rights fouler, strengths by strengths do fail."

For 'fouler' Dyce reads _faulter_, Singer _foil'd are_. We might also conjecture _fall, and_; the final _d_ in this last not being sounded. _Fall_ and _fail_ come thus together in "Fall Greeks, fail fame; honour or go or stay" (Tr. and Cr. v. 1). It seems, however, safest to read, with Malone, as I have done, _founder_. We have "All his tricks _founder_" (H. VIII. iii. 2). What is said of fire in the first line is a favourite idea with our poet. We have it again in Two Gent. ii. 4, K. John, iii. 1. It is an allusion to the homoeopathic mode of curing a burn by holding it to the fire. By the fires, etc., he means Coriolanus and himself.