An exception is made when the second speaker actively interrupts or completes the first speaker’s sentence.
Spelling is modernized, but older forms are very occasionally maintained where necessary for rhythm or aural effect.
Punctuation in Shakespeare’s time was as much rhetorical as grammatical. “Colon” was originally a term for a unit of thought in an argument. The semicolon was a new unit of punctuation (some of the Quartos lack them altogether). We have modernized punctuation throughout, but have given more weight to Folio punctuation than many editors, since, though not Shakespearean, it reflects the usage of his period. In particular, we have used the colon far more than many editors: it is exceptionally useful as a way of indicating how many Shakespearean speeches unfold clause by clause in a developing argument that gives the illusion of enacting the process of thinking in the moment. We have also kept in mind the origin of punctuation in classical times as a way of assisting the actor and orator: the comma suggests the briefest of pauses for breath, the colon a middling one, and a full stop or period a longer pause. Semicolons, by contrast, belong to an era of punctuation that was only just coming in during Shakespeare’s time and that is coming to an end now: we have accordingly only used them where they occur in our copy texts (and not always then). Dashes are sometimes used for parenthetical interjections where the Folio has brackets. They are also used for interruptions and changes in train of thought. Where a change of addressee occurs within a speech, we have used a dash preceded by a period (or occasionally another form of punctuation). Often the identity of the respective addressees is obvious from the context. When it is not, this has been indicated in a marginal stage direction.
Entrances and Exits are fairly thorough in Folio, which has accordingly been followed as faithfully as possible. Where characters are omitted or corrections are necessary, this is indicated by square brackets (e.g. “[and Attendants]”). Exit is sometimes silently normalized to Exeunt and Manet anglicized to “remains.” We trust Folio positioning of entrances and exits to a greater degree than most editors.
Editorial Stage Directions such as stage business, asides, indications of addressee and of characters’ position on the gallery stage are only used sparingly in Folio. Other editions mingle directions of this kind with original Folio and Quarto directions, sometimes marking them by means of square brackets. We have sought to distinguish what could be described as directorial interventions of this kind from Folio-style directions (either original or supplied) by placing them in the right margin in a smaller typeface. There is a degree of subjectivity about which directions are of which kind, but the procedure is intended as a reminder to the reader and the actor that Shakespearean stage directions are often dependent upon editorial inference alone and are not set in stone. We also depart from editorial tradition in sometimes admitting uncertainty and thus printing permissive stage directions, such as an Aside? (often a line may be equally effective as an aside or as a direct address—it is for each production or reading to make its own decision) or a may exit or a piece of business placed between arrows to indicate that it may occur at various different moments within a scene.
Line Numbers are editorial, for reference and to key the explanatory and textual notes.
Explanatory Notes explain allusions and gloss obsolete and difficult words, confusing phraseology, occasional major textual cruces, and so on. Particular attention is given to non-standard usage, bawdy innuendo, and technical terms (e.g. legal and military language). Where more than one sense is given, commas indicate shades of related meaning, slashes alternative or double meanings.
Textual Notes at the end of the play indicate major departures from the Folio. They take the following form: the reading of our text is given in bold and its source given after an equals sign, “F2” indicates a correction that derives from the Second Folio of 1632, “F3” a correction introduced in the Third Folio of 1664, “F4” from the Fourth Folio of 1685, and “Ed” one that derives from the subsequent editorial tradition. The rejected Folio (“F”) reading is then given. Thus, for example, “5.6.131 Fluttered = F3.F = Flatter’d” indicates that at Act 5 Scene 6 line 131, we have accepted the Third Folio’s correction “Fluttered” which makes sense of Coriolanus’ imagery in the lines, “That, like an eagle in a dovecote, I / Fluttered your Volscians in Corioles.”
KEY FACTS
MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Caius Martius/Coriolanus (23%/189/18), Menenius Agrippa (15%/162/13), Volumnia (8%/57/6), Sicinius Velutus (8%/117/10), Cominius (8%/67/11), Tullus Aufidius (7%/45/8), Junius Brutus (7%/91/9), Titus Lartius (2%/23/6), First Citizen (2%/33/4), Third Servingman (1%/20/1), Third Citizen (1%/18/3), Valeria (1%/14/2).
LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 80% verse, 20% prose.
DATE: 1608? Probably uses Camden’s Remaines (1605); a phrase is parodied in Ben Jonson’s Epicoene (late 1609). Allusion to “coal of fire upon the ice” in Act 1 Scene 1 sometimes taken to refer to the great frost of winter 1607/08, when the Thames was frozen and people with “pans of coals to warm your fingers” were stationed on the middle of the river; the issue of grain shortage and hoarding with which the action begins has been related to an insurrection in the English midlands in 1607–08. Theaters were closed because of the plague for the majority of the time in these years, so the play may belong to the open period of April–July 1608.
SOURCES: Closely based on “The Life of Caius Martius Coriolanus” in Sir Thomas North’s English translation of Plutarch’s Lives of the Most Noble Grecians and Romanes (Shakespeare probably used the 1595 edition). Menenius’ fable of the belly in the first scene is the only occasion on which an additional source seems to have been used: the wording suggests the influence of both Livy’s Romane Historie (trans. Philemon Holland, 1600) and William Camden’s Remaines of a greater worke concerning Britaine (1605).
TEXT: 1623 Folio, apparently set from Shakespeare’s manuscript or a scribal transcript of it, is the only early edition; irregular lineation is the main problem in the printing.
LIST OF PARTS
Caius MARTIUS, later CORIOLANUS
VOLUMNIA, Coriolanus’ mother
VIRGILIA, his wife
YOUNG MARTIUS, his son
VALERIA, friend of Virgilia
GENTLEWOMAN, attending on Virgilia
MENENIUS Agrippa, Coriolanus’ elderly friend
Roman generals
Titus LARTIUS
COMINIUS
Roman tribunes
SICINIUS Velutus
JUNIUS BRUTUS
NICANOR, a Roman traitor
Two MESSENGERS LIEUTENANT
Two SOLDIERS
Two OFFICERS
Five CITIZENS
Three ROMANS
A HERALD
An AEDILE
A PATRICIAN
Two SENATORS
Tullus AUFIDIUS, Volscian general
LIEUTENANT to Aufidius
ADRIAN, a Volscian
Three SERVINGMEN
Three CONSPIRATORS
Two WATCHMEN
Three LORDS
Usher, Valeria’s Gentlewoman, Captains, Soldiers, Drummer, Trumpeter, Scout, Nobles, Attendants
running scene 1
Enter a company of mutinous Citizens, with staves, clubs and other weapons
FIRST CITIZEN Before we proceed any further, hear me speak.
ALL Speak, speak.
FIRST CITIZEN You are all resolved rather to die than to famish3?
ALL Resolved, resolved.
FIRST CITIZEN First, you know Caius Martius is chief enemy to
the people.
ALL We know’t, we know’t.
FIRST CITIZEN Let us kill him, and we’ll have corn at our own
price. Is’t a verdict9?
ALL No more talking on’t10: let it be done: away, away.
SECOND CITIZEN One word, good citizens.
FIRST CITIZEN We are accounted poor citizens, the patricians12
good: what authority surfeits on13 would relieve us.
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