And what this fourteen years no razor touch'd,
To grace thy marriage-day, I'll beautify.

Thai. Lord Cerimon hath letters of good credit, Sir, that my father's dead.

Per. Heavens make a star of him! Yet there. my queen,

We'll celebrate their nuptials, and ourselves
Will in that kingdom spend our following days:
Our son and daughter shall in Tyrus reign.
Lord Cerimon, we do our longing stay,
To hear the rest untold. Sir, lead the way.

Enter GOWER.

[Exeunt.

Gower. In Antioch1 and his daughter, you
have heard

Of monstrous lust the due and just reward:
In Pericles, his queen and daughter, seen,
Although assail'd with fortune fierce and keen,
Virtue preserved from fell destruction's blast,
Led on by Heaven, and crown'd with joy at last :
In Helicanus may you well descry

A figure of truth, of faith, of loyalty:
In reverend Cerimon there well appears,
The worth that learned charity aye wears.
For wicked Cleon and his wife, when Fame
Had spread their cursed deed, and honor'd name

i. e. the king of Antioch.

Of Pericles, to rage the city turn;

That him and his they in his palace burn;
The gods for murder seemed so content
To punish them, although not done, but meant.
So, on your patience evermore attending,

New joy wait on you! Here our play has ending. [Exit Gower.

CORIOLANUS.

SHAK.

XI.

H

HISTORICAL NOTICE

OF

CORIOLANUS.

This play was neither entered in the books of the Stationers' Company, nor printed, till the year 1623, when it appeared in the folio edition of Heminge and Condell. From a slight resemblance between the language of the fable told by Menenius in the first scene, and that of the same apologue in Camden's Remains, published in 1605,-Malone supposes the passage to have been imitated from that volume. He assigns the production, however, to 1609 or 1610; partly because most of the other plays of Shakspeare have been reasonably referred to other years, and therefore the present might be most naturally ascribed to a time when he had not ceased to write, and was probably unemployed; and partly from the mention of the mulberry by Volumnia; the white species of which fruit was brought into England in great quantities in 1609, though possibly other sorts had been already planted here.

A rigid adherence to historical truth is preserved in the characters and events of this drama. Many of the principal speeches are copied from Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus, as translated by Sir Thomas North. The time of action comprehends a period of about four years, commencing with the secession to the Mons