Search
Close
Search
Advanced Search
Search Menu
AI Discovery Assistant

Extract

IN Shakespeare's Coriolanus V.iii.44–8 (TLN 3393–7) with Stage Direction before 44 or after 45:

Coriolanus. Like a dull actor now, 40 [to Virgilia

I have forgot my part, and I am out,

Even to a full disgrace. Best of my flesh,

Forgive my tyranny, but do not say

For that, ‘Forgive our Romans’.

[Virgilia kisses him] Norton, Oxford, Parker; They kiss Bliss]

             Oh, a kiss

Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge! 45

[They kiss Bevington]

Now, by the jealous queen of heaven, that kiss

I carried from thee, dear, and my true lip

Hath virgined it e’er since.1

[no SD] Folio 1623; Alexander, Hibbard, Evans, Brockbank

Who kisses whom and when is not the kind of question that much detains the swashbuckling criticism—theoretical, ideologically committed, judgemental—that this play characteristically attracts. But it matters to persons of the theatre and those interested in what the play says and means at a primary level. Although ‘My wife comes foremost’ (V.iii.22), the social decorum and personal self-assertion of ‘Virgilia kisses him’ is dubious, and the stage direction gratuitous in that way alone. As noted above, Alexander, Brockbank, Evans, and Hibbard followed the Folio in having no stage direction, but the stage business of kissing is implied, and an editor may well feel bound to supply the necessary or appropriate stage direction and sense that assist both reading and performance. Better to maintain silence than supply an erroneous direction, of course, but no one supplies the latter deliberately. Bevington certainly has it in the right place, in any case, after line 45. The action implied is Coriolanus's kissing Virgilia after passionately wishing for, affectionately demanding, ‘Oh, a kiss / Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge!’ It might be noted in passing that if such a kiss is not said to be sweeter than revenge in this perhaps surprising comparison, it is not less sweet, and revenge has become a cause dear indeed.2

Issue Section:
Notes
You do not currently have access to this article.
Download all slides