My noble steed,[256] known to the camp, I give him
With all his trim belonging.
(i. ix. 59.)
But the same episode furnishes Titus Lartius with his imagery as he points to the wounded and victorious hero:
O general,
Here is the steed, we the caparison!
(i. ix. 11.)
This illustrates the sort of sea-change that always takes place in the language of North under the hands of the magician, though it may not always be equally perceptible. But it is never entirely lacking, even where we are at first more struck by the amount that Shakespeare has retained without alteration. The Life, for instance, describes what takes place after Marcius has joined Cominius, before they hurry off to the second fight.
Martius asked him howe the order of their enemies battell was, and on which side they had placed their best fighting men. The Consul made him aunswer, that he thought the bandes which were in the voward of their battell, were those of the Antiates, whom they esteemed to be the war-likest men, and which for valliant corage would give no place, to any of the hoste of their enemies. Then prayed Martius to be set directly against them.
Here is what Shakespeare makes of this: