st,
That sucks the nurse asleep?"

are among the most beautiful things ever written by man.

_Coriolanus._

_Written._ 1608 (?)

_Published._ 1623.

_Source of the Plot._ The life of Coriolanus in Sir Thomas North's
translation of Plutarch's _Lives_.

_The Fable._ Marcius, a noble Roman, of an excessive pride,
bitterly opposes the rabble.

In the war against the Volscians he bears himself so nobly that he
wins the title of Coriolanus. On his return from the wars he seeks
the Consulship, woos the voices of the multitude, is accepted, and
then cast by them. For his angry comment on their behaviour the
tribunes contrive his banishment from the city.

Being banished, he makes league with the Volscians. He takes
command in the Volscian army and invades Roman territory.

Coming as a conqueror to the walls of Rome, his mother and wife
persuade him to spare the city. He causes the Volscians to make
peace. The Volscians return home dissatisfied.

On his return to the Volscian territory Coriolanus is impeached as
a traitor, and stabbed to death by conspirators.

Shakespeare's tragical characters are all destroyed by the excess of
some trait in them, whether good or ill matters nothing. Nature cares
for type, not for the excessive. Sooner or later she checks the
excessive so that the type may be maintained. She is stronger than the
excessive, though she may be baser. To Nature, progress, though it be
infinitesimal, must be a progress of the whole mass, not a sudden
darting out of one quality or one member.

Timon of Athens is betrayed by an excessive generosity. Coriolanus is
betrayed by an excessive contempt for the multitude. He is one born into
a high tradition of life. He has the courage, the skill in arms, and the
talent for affairs that come with high birth in the manly races. He has
also the faith in tradition that makes an unlettered upper class narrow
and obstructionist. Like the rich in France before the Revolution, he
despises the poor. He denies them the right to complain of their hunger.
Rather than grant them that right, or the means of urging redress, he
would take a short way with them, as was practised here, at Manchester
and elsewhere.

"Would the nobility lay aside their ruth,
And let me use my sword, I'ld make a quarry
With thousands of these quarter'd slaves, as high
As I could p