A third of these surmises is even more gratuitous. Chalmers calls attention to the repeated references in the play to famine and dearth, and supposes they were suggested by the scarcity which prevailed in England during the years 1608 and 1609. But the lack of corn among the people is one of the presuppositions of the story, to which Plutarch also recurs.
There is only one allusion that has strength to stand by itself, though even it is doubtful; and it belongs to a different class, for, if authentic, it is suggested not to Shakespeare by contemporary events, but to a contemporary writer by Shakespeare. Malone noticed the coincidence between the line, “He lurch’d all swords of the garland” (ii. ii. 105), and a remark in Epicoene: “You have lurched your friends of the better half of the garland” (v. i.); and considered that here, as not infrequently, Ben Jonson was girding at Shakespeare. Afterwards he withdrew his conjecture because he found a similar expression in one of Nashe’s pamphlets, and concluded that it was proverbial; but it has been pointed out in answer to this[233] that Nashe has only the lurch and not the supplementary words, of the garland, while it is to the phrase as a whole, not to the component parts, that the individual character belongs. This, if not absolutely beyond challenge, is at least very cogent, and probably few will deny that Coriolanus must have been in existence before Epicoene was acted in January 1609, old style.
How long before? And did it succeed or precede Antony and Cleopatra?
Attempts have been made to find in that play immediate anticipations of the mental attitude and of particular thoughts that appear in Coriolanus. Thus Octavia’s dilemma in her petition has been quoted:
A more unhappy lady,
If this division chance, ne’er stood between,
Praying for both parts:
The good gods will mock me presently,
When I shall pray, “O, bless my lord and husband!”
Undo that prayer, by crying out as loud,