A Note on the Lottery of Queen Elizabeth I and Coriolanus, 5.2

Abstract

subject of some dispute among editors of play. The sense seems, at first, obvious enough: Menenius proposes assuringly, you have heard your general talk of Rome / And of his friends there, it is to / My name hath touch'd your (5.2.9-11).1 Menenius hopes to parlay his once-intimate standing into a sort of backstage pass. Frank Kermode asserts that phrase to implies an absolutely certain likelihood of Menenius's fame having reached even Volscian guards.2 (Menenius's claim echoes an earlier one by Aufidius: O, doubt not that. / I speak from certainties [1.2.30].) On a second look, exactly how Shakespeare conveys this sense appears far less clear. Many editors, following SamuelJohnson, gloss to as tickets to non-winning since are in lottery.3 (As corroboration, it is often mentioned that French lot maintains this sense; gros lot signifies grand prize.) The main opposition to this reading came first from Edmond Malone, who argues that Dr.Johnson here mistakes ... Lots were term in our author's time for total number of tickets in a lottery. .. .The were of course more numerous than blanks. If lot signified prize, as Dr. Johnson supposed,... Menenius must be supposed to say, that chance of his name having reached their ears was very small.4 Menenius cannot wish to scuttle himself that quickly. According to Malone, then, lots must be taken to mean entire set of possibilities, both winning and losing tickets, with being much greater in number (the traditional ratio). Thus difference between lots and blanks is negligible; there is a nearly one-toone ratio, a sure bet, that Menenius's reputation precedes him.5 Additional objection to theJohnsonian reading derives from notion of a high ratio of winning tickets to blanks-not particularly striking odds. Does Menenius mean to imply only that chance of his being known is fairly good? E. K. Chambers, in first Arden edition of play, also holds lots to mean prizes but escapes logical incoherence by proposing a somewhat ingenious solution: the point of metaphor lies not in number of lots, which is of course less than that of blanks, but in their relative