6. Coriolanus, by William Shakespeare, pp. 276-311

Act V

Scene I

Cominius has returned from pleading with Coriolanus to spare Rome, only to report that it did not go at all well: "He would not seem to know me." So Menenius is refusing to go: "Nay, if he coy'd / To hear Cominius speak, I'll keep at home." Cominius reports that he would not even respond to the name Coriolanus, that in fact he "forbad all names: / He was a kind of nothing, titleless, / Till he had forg'd himself a name o'th'fire / Of burning Rome."


So, Menenius taunts the tribunes, Sicinius and Brutus, this is all their fault. Cominius says he tried to plead on behalf of his friends in Rome, but Coriolanus said that "He could not stay to pick them / In a pile of noisy chaff. He said 'twas folly, / For one poor grain or two, to leave unburnt / And still to nose th'offence." It upsets Menenius to hear that he's one of the poor grains that have to be burnt with chaff like the tribunes and their followers, but Sicinius pleads with him to try to persuade Coriolanus, and reminds him of the praise he'll get from Rome if he succeeds.


This appeal to his vanity works on Menenius, so he decides he'll give it a try. Perhaps, he says, Coriolanus hadn't had his dinner when he saw Cominius. Maybe he'll be more amenable on a full stomach. (Menenius harkens back to his fable of the belly here.) So he says he'll wait until Coriolanus has eaten and then "set upon him." But when Menenius leaves, Cominius says, "He'll never hear him," perhaps a little miffed that Menenius thinks he'll succeed where he failed. He is certain "that all hope is vain, / Unless his noble mother and his wife, / Who, as I hear, mean to solicit him / For mercy to his country."


Scene II


Menenius is already having a tough time with the guards in Coriolanus's camp, who tell him, "You'll see your Rome embrac'd with fire before / You'll speak with Coriolanus." Menenius is certain, however, that when he hears it's his old friend Menenius who has come to see him, Coriolanus will welcome him. But the guards tell him, "the virtue of your name / Is not here passable." They argue on, with Menenius asking if Coriolanus has dined yet, and one of the guards asking if he really thinks that "the palsied intercession of such a decayed dotant as you seem to be" will carry any weight with a man who was kicked out of Rome after having defended it.


Finally Coriolanus enters, accompanied by Aufidius. Menenius tells the guards they'll see what a mistake they made by not letting him enter, and says to Coriolanus, "The glorious gods sit in hourly synod about thy particular prosperity, and love thee no worse than thy old father Menenius does! O my son, my son, thou art preparing fire for us: look thee, here's water to quench it."

But the "water," i.e., Menenius's tears, has no apparent effect on Coriolanus, who commands, "Away!" and when Menenius expresses surprise, says, "Wife, mother, child, I know not. My affairs / Are servanted to others." Their old friendship has been poisoned by the forgetfulness of the Roman ingrates who banished him. He gives Menenius a letter, but he won't listen to him. And then, to prove his loyalty to the Volscians, he asks Aufidius to observe his harsh treatment of someone who "Was my belov'd in Rome." Aufidius approvingly says, "You keep a constant temper." (Which of course has never been true of the volatile Coriolanus.)


After Coriolanus and Aufidius have left, the guards mock Menenius's earlier claims of closeness to Coriolanus. Menenius leaves, scorning their mockery, which causes one of the guards to observe, "A noble fellow, I warrant him." But the other says, "The worthy fellow is our general: he's the rock, the oak not to be wind-shaken."


Scene III


Coriolanus and Aufidius are discussing tomorrow's attack on Rome, and Coriolanus once again wants to impress on Aufidius that he really is on his side: "You must report to th'Volscian lords how plainly / I have borne this business." Aufidius says, yes, he certainly seems to have held up well, even against the pleas of "such friends / That thought them sure of you." (The ironic undertone of this is: If you can turn against old friends so easily, how can your new ones, like me, trust in your support?) Coriolanus continues to praise his resistance to their pleas: "This last old man, / Whom with a crack'd heart I have sent to Rome, / Lov'd me above the measure of a father,  / Nay, godded me indeed." But notice the ambiguity: Whose heart has been "crack'd"?  Menenius's or Coriolanus's? He now vows that he won't hear any more "embassies and suits" from Rome.


And immediately he is forced to eat his words, with the arrival of his wife, his mother, his young son, and their friend Valeria. He steels himself: "But out, affection! / All bond and privilege of nature break! / Let it be virtuous to be obstinate." Yet it's clear that he's affected by their arrival, that Volumnia's bow is "As if Olympus to a molehill should / In supplication nod," which makes him the molehill. He pulls himself together one last time:

                                                Let the Volsces 
Plough Rome and harrow Italy; I'll never 
Be such a gosling to obey instince, but stand 
As if a man were author of himself 
And knew no other kin.

Virgilia addresses him, however, and he begins to forget the part he is trying to play: "Like a dull actor now / I have forgot my part and I am out, / Even to a full disgrace." He chides himself for prating when he hasn't even acknowledged "the most noble mother of the world." And he kneels before her. "Sink, my knee, i'th'earth: /  Of thy deep duty more impression show / Than that of common sons." But where the earth he kneels upon is soft enough to show the "impression" of his knee, Volumnia responds by kneeling on harder ground, "with no softer cushion than the flint." (Volumnia has real mastery of the art of guilting her son.)


He next acknowledges Valeria and then, when Volumnia tells him to kneel, his son. But he pulls himself together for a moment and remembers the role he's playing:

                                      Do not bid me
Dismiss my soldiers, or capitulate 
Again with Rome's mechanics. Tell me not 
Wherein I seem unnatural. Desire not 
T'allay my rages and revenges with 
Your colder reasons. 

That echoing alliteration -- "rages," "revenges," "reasons" -- has a kind of falsely rhetorical quality, as if he has been rehearsing the speech for just such an occasion. But his mother is having none of it: "Oh, no more, no more!" She says they know that they're here to ask for something he's already denied to Cominius and Menenius, but she also reminds him that if they fail in their petition, the blame will fall on him for his "hardness," and not on them.


Coriolanus figures this is as good a time as any to tell the Volscians that he's not doing anything behind their backs: "we'll / Hear nought from Rome in private." And then Volumnia begins her great plea, playing on his sympathies by pointing out to him that she and Virgilia are "more unfortunate than all living women" in having to make such a request to their own son and husband. They should be happy to see him, but instead he is

Making the mother, wife and child to see 
The son, the husband and the father, tearing 
His country's bowels out. And to poor we 
Thine enmity's most capital. Thou barr'st us 
Our prayers to the gods, which is a comfort 
That all but we enjoy; for how can we, 
Alas! how can we for our country pray, 
Whereto we are bound, together with they victory, 
Whereto we are bound?

He has put them in an impossible dilemma, forcing them to choose between loyalty to country and loyalty to family. If he loses, they'll have to see him led in chains through the streets of Rome, but if he wins, he'll "Triumphantly tread on they country's ruin, / And bear the palm for having bravely shed / Thy wife and children's blood." In that case, he'll be treading on the womb that bore him, and, Virgilia notes, the womb that bore his son. As for the son, he pipes up to say, "A shall not tread on me. / I'll run away till I am bigger, but then I'll fight."


Coriolanus tries to leave, knowing that any more of this will be his undoing. But Volumnia tries a different tack: She knows he'll betray his sense of honor if he deserts the Volscians at this point, so she suggests that instead he bring about a reconciliation:

                                                     the Volsces 
May say, "This mercy we have show'd," the Romans, 
"This we receiv'd"; and each in either side 
Give the all-hail to thee, and cry, "Be bless'd 
For making up this peace!"

After all, she says, if he conquers Rome, he'll be cursed as the man who betrayed his own homeland. Instead, she's presenting a win-win situation. She asks him to speak, and tell her whether it is really "honourable for a noble man / Still to remember wrongs?" And in her usual mother-in-lawish way, she tells Virgilia to stop crying and say something: "Daughter, speak you: / He cares not for your weeping." And she urges her grandson to speak up, too, not to leave her to do all the talking: "There's no man in the world / More bound to's mother, yet here he lets me prate / Like one i'th'stocks." Not that she stops talking, of course. And when she sees him turn away, she urges the other two women to kneel and "shame him with our knees." And in a final artful stroke of guilt-tripping, she says, "Come, let us go: / This fellow had a Volscian to his mother; / His wife is in Corioles, and his child / Like him by chance." She says she'll say no more until Rome is burning.


She has won. He takes her hand and tells her so. But he also warns her of what he knows is coming: "O, believe it, / Most dangerously you have with him prevail'd, / If not most mortal to him. But let it come." He accepts the death he foresees at this moment, but turns to Aufidius and asks him if he were in his place, would he have resisted his mother's appeal. Aufidius grants him only, "I was mov'd withal." Coriolanus points out that "it is no little thing to make / Mine eyes to sweat compassion," to move him to tears. He won't return to Rome, however. He'll stay in Actium and take whatever is coming. And in an aside, Aufidius vows that he is glad Coriolanus capitulated, because this allows him to accomplish "a former fortune" -- become the victor in his old conflict with Coriolanus.


Coriolanus then bids farewell to his family, acknowledging that "All the swords / In Italy and her confederate arms / Could not have made this peace."


Scene IV


Menenius, wrong as he so often is, tells Sicinius that there's no hope that "the ladies of Rome, especially his mother, may prevail with" Coriolanus, and that they should prepare to be executed. Coriolanus is totally changed, "from man to dragon." Sicinius points out hopefully that Coriolanus loved his mother, but Menenius, abashed by Coriolanus's rejection of him, says, "So did he me; and he no more remembers his mother now than an eight-year-old horse.... There is no more mercy in him than there is milk in a male tiger." And, he says, it's all Sicinius's (and Brutus's) fault. And speaking of Brutus, a messenger hurries in to tell Sicinius to hide: "The plebeians have got your fellow-tribune, / And hale him up and down, all swearing, if / The Roman ladies bring not comfort home, / They'll give him death by inches."


But then another messenger arrives with the good news: "The ladies have prevail'd." And there is a great noise of celebration as everyone goes off to welcome Volumnia and the others.


Scene V


Rome turns out to celebrate the peace.


Scene VI


It's a very different scene in the Volscian city where Aufidius is plotting his endgame with Coriolanus, who, he says, "Intends t'appear before the people, hoping / To purge himself with words." The irony of Coriolanus making an appeal to the people is obvious. But in Aufidius's eyes Coriolanus is "a man by his own alms empoison'd, / And with his charity slain," and he has summoned several "Conspirators," as the stage directions and speech headings identify them. Aufidius claims that Coriolanus has seduced his friends "and to this end / He bow'd his nature, never known before / But to be rough, unswayable and free." One of the conspirators points out the irony that Coriolanus lost his consulship "By lack of stooping."


Aufidius says that he deliberately took a back seat in his dealings with Coriolanus, "gave him way / In all his own desires," so that "at the last / I seem'd his follower, not partner," and that Coriolanus condescended to him "as if / I had been mercenary." The result is that Coriolanus will get the blame from the army for not taking Rome, on which, one of the conspirators said, "we look'd / For no less spoil than glory--." Exactly, Aufidius agrees, "At a few drops of women's rheum, which are / As cheap as lies, he sold the blood and labour / Of our great action. Therefore shale he die, / And I'll renew me in his fall."


There is a sound of trumpets and shouts that signal Coriolanus's arrival. And the Volscian lords enter, having been briefed by Aufidius on what took place. Coriolanus enters, followed by a crowd of commoners, to tell the lords that he has "made peace / With no less honour to the Antiates / Than shame to th'Romans," and that the spoils he has brought cover a third of the cost of the campaign.

But Aufidius steps forward and charges Coriolanus with treason, referring to him as Martius. "Dost thou think / I'll grace thee with that robbery, thy stol'n name / Coriolanus, in Corioles?" He turns to address the lords and to mock Coriolanus's capitulation to his wife and mother, claiming that "at his nurse's tears / He whin'd and roar'd away your victory." And when Coriolanus calls on Mars to witness this accusation, Aufidius says, "Name not the god, thou boy of tears!"

Coriolanus bristles at the word "Boy!" and calls on the lords of the city to "give this cur the lie," using the epithet he once applied to the plebeians of Rome. And then he turns on the Volscians, reminding them of his victory: "If you have writ your annals true, 'tis there, / That like an eagle in a dove-cote, I / Flutter'd your Volscians in Corioles. Alone I did it. Boy!" This is the moment that Aufidius has been waiting for, asking if they want to be reminded of "your shame, by this unholy braggart." The conspirators raise the cry of "Let him die for it," and the crowd, in various voices, calls out, "Tear him to pieces! Do it presently! He killed my son! My daughter! He killed my cousin Marcus! He killed my father!"

A lord calls out for peace, but Aufidius carries the day and Coriolanus is killed by the conspirators. The lords restore order, but express their displeasure with Aufidius: "Thou has done a deed whereat valour will weep." But Aufidius assures them that when they learn how dangerous Coriolanus was, "you'll rejoice / That he is thus cut off." And he submits to the judgment of the senate, promising to "deliver / Myself your loyal servant or endure / Your heaviest censure."

The First Lord orders Coriolanus's body taken away and says, "Let him be regarded / As the most noble corse that ever herald / Did follow to his urn." But the Second Lord signals what the judgment of the senate is likely to be: "His own impatience / Takes from Aufidius a great part of the blame, / Let's make the best of it."

Aufidius claims, "My rage is gone, / And I am struck with sorrow." And in his concluding lines, he manages to maintain a fine balance of condemnation and praise for Coriolanus.

                        Though in this city he 
Hath widow'd and unchilded many a one, 
Which to this hour bewail the injury, 
Yet he shall have a noble memory.

Is there a more ambivalent tragedy?
__________

From the 1984 BBC production: Mike Gwilym as Aufidius; Valentine Dyall as Adrian; Patrick Godfrey as Cominius; Joss Ackland as Menenius; John Burgess as Sicinius; Anthony Pedley as Junius Brutus; Alan Howard as Coriolanus; Irene Worth as Volumnia; Joanna McCallum as Virgilia; Damien Franklin as Coriolanus's son; Heather Canning as Valeria; Teddy Kempner as Nicanor; Paul Jesson as First Citizen; Ray Roberts as Second Citizen; Leon Lissek as Third Citizen; Jon Rumney as Fourth Citizen; Russell Kilmister as Fifth Citizen; Peter Sands as Titus Lartius; John Rowe as First Roman Senator.

5. Coriolanus, by William Shakespeare, pp. 237-275

Act IV

Scene I

Coriolanus bids farewell to his family and friends, summoning all the stoic fortitude he can muster. Virgilia, on the other hand, can only lament, "O heavens! O heavens!" as her mother-in-law curses "all trades in Rome, / And occupations." But it's clear that Coriolanus isn't going to rest in exile when he compares himself "to a lonely dragon that his fen / Makes fear'd and talk'd of more than seen." Volumnia urges him to take Cominius along as a companion until he gets settled somewhere. Cominius says he'll come along with him for a month so that they know where to find him when they achieve restitution. But Coriolanus says he'll go it alone, and that he'll keep in touch.

Scene II

In the city, Sicinius and Brutus are deciding what to do now that they've won, and they figure that it's best to show some humility. But then they see Volumnia, Virgilia, and Menenius approaching and decide to beat a retreat before they have a nasty encounter. Unfortunately, Volumnia spots them and denounces them for banishing "him that struck more blows for Rome / Than thou has spoken words." Menenius as usual finds himself trying to calm things down, telling her, "Come, come, peace!" Finally, they manage to slip away from her tongue-lashing, though Sicinius gets in a little dig with his exit line, suggesting that Volumnia is insane: "Why stay we to be baited / With one that wants her wits?"

Before Volumnia leaves, she says, rather imperiously, to Virgilia, "Leave this faint puling, and lament as I do, / In anger, Juno-like. Come, come, come!"

Scene III

Nicanor, a Roman who is a Volscian sympathizer, and Adrian, a Volscian, meet somewhere outside of Rome. When asked for the news from Rome, Nicanor says there have been "strange insurrections: the people against the senators, patrician and nobles." Adrian says that the Volscians are aware of this, and have been making "most warlike preparation," hoping to take advantage of the unrest in Rome. Nicanor says that although things have calmed down, it wouldn't take much to make them flare up again: "For the nobles receive so to heart the banishment of that worthy Coriolanus, that they are in a ripe aptness to take all power from the people, and to pluck from them their tribunes for ever."

Adrian invites Nicanor home for supper, and Nicanor promises to tell him all sorts of news that the Volscians will be glad to hear. He asks if they have an army ready to move, and Adrian says, "A most royal one" that is prepared "to be on foot at an hour's warning."

Scene IV

Coriolanus arrives in Antium "in mean apparel, disguised and muffled," because he's afraid that if he's recognized in a city many of whose men he has killed, he might be killed himself by "wives with spits, and boys with stones / In puny battle." He approaches a man on the street and asks his way to Aufidius's home. The man tells him he's standing in front of it. When the man leaves, Coriolanus reflects,"O world, thy slippery turns!" Longtime friends can break up in a quarrel over some insignificant trifle, and on the other hand, "fellest foes, / Whose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep" can turn into allies. That's what he hopes will happen between him and Aufidius:

My birthplace hate I, and my love's upon 
This enemy town. I'll enter: if he slay me 
He does fair justice; if he give me way, 
I'll do his country service.

So he goes into Aufidius's house.

Scene V

As you might imagine, the servants, who are busy with the feast Aufidius is holding, are not happy to see a stranger "in mean apparel" show up in the house, and try to get rid of him. Coriolanus is aware that he "Appear[s] not like a guest" and that he doesn't deserve "better entertainment / In being Coriolanus," but he stands his ground until finally he comes to blows with one of the servants.

Aufidius, alerted to the presence of this troublesome stranger, comes out to see what's happening and asks Coriolanus, "Whence com'st thou? What wouldst thou? thy name? Why speak'st not? Speak, man: what's thy name?" Coriolanus reveals his face, but Aufidius doesn't immediately recognize him and asks his name again, observing that he has "a grim appearance" and that his "face / Bears a command in't." Finally, Coriolanus identifies himself:

My name is Caius Martius, who hath done 
To thee particularly, and to all the Volsces, 
Great hurt and mischief: thereto witness may 
My surname, Coriolanus. 

He explains that he has been "Whoop'd out of Rome" by "The cruelty and envy of the people, / Permitted by our dastard nobles." He has arrived at Aufidius's house "in mere spite / To be full quit of those my banishers." He would like for Aufidius to "make my misery serve thy turn," but if he wants to kill him,

                     then, in a word, I also am 
Longer to live most weary, and present 
My throat to thee and to thy ancient malice; 
Which not to cut would show thee but a fool, 
Since I have ever follow'd thee with hate, 
Drawn tuns of blood out of thy country's breast, 
And cannot live but to thy shame, unless
It be to do thee service.

Aufidius assures him that "Each word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heart / A root of ancient envy." He hugs Coriolanus, and then proclaims a new bromance:

I lov'd the maid I married; never man 
Sigh'd truer breath; but that I see thee here, 
Thou noble thing, more dances my rapt heart 
Then when I first my wedded mistress saw
Bestride my threshold.

In fact, there's a strong homoerotic current to Aufidius's account of his feelings about Coriolanus:

                                     Thou hast beat me out 
Twelve several times, and I have nightly since 
Dreamt of encounters 'twixt thyself and me -- 
We have been down together in my sleep, 
Unbuckling helms, fisting each other's throat -- 
And wak'd half dead with nothing.

(Granted, "fisting" has a somewhat different meaning in this context, but still....)

So Aufidius invites Coriolanus in to the feast to meet the Volscian senators and plan a course of action against Rome. After they go in, the servants gather to discuss this strange encounter, and to talk about the prior conflicts between Coriolanus and Aufidius, and the sudden change in their relationship. The Third Servant reports that Coriolanus "is so made on here within as if he were son and heir to Mars." He's been given a seat at the "upper end o'th'table" and Aufidius "makes a mistress of him, sanctifies himself with's hand, and turns up the white o'th'eye to his discourse."

They decide that it will be war again, and the First Servant is fine with that: "Let me have war, say I. It exceeds peace as far as day does night: it's sprighly walking, audible, and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy, mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more bastard children than war's a destroyer of men." Then they notice that the feast is ending and they hurry back inside.

Scene VI

Shakespeare's deft use of dramatic irony is evident here, because while the Volscian servants are celebrating the delights of war, back in Rome, Sicinius and Brutus are relishing peace, and gloating that they make Coriolanus's "friends / Blush that the world goes well." Menenius enters, and they try to taunt him with how well the world is going, but Menenius says it "might have been much better if / He could have temporized." But he doesn't know where Coriolanus is now, and "His mother and his wife / Hear nothing from him." Several citizens enter and exchange greetings, then exit, and Sicinius remarks, "This is a happier and more comely time / Than when those fellows ran about the streets / Crying confusion."

But then an aedile enters to say that they have arrested a slave who reports that the Volscians are on the move in Roman territory and are destroying "what lies before 'em." Menenius observes that it must be Aufidius, and that he has heard of Coriolanus's banishment and is taking advantage of it. Sicinius and Brutus are a little uneasy at this news, and Brutus wants "this rumourer whipp'd." Menenius cautions that whipping the informant is unwise, just in case his information is true, but Sicinius asserts, "I know this cannot be," and Brutus, "Not possible."

Then a messenger enters to say that the patricians are going "to the senate-house. Some news is coming / That turns their countenances." Sicinius blames it on the slave again, and wants him whipped "'fore the people's eyes." But the messenger says that not only has the slave's report been confirmed, but that Coriolanus has joined with Aufidius "And vows revenge." This time, Menenius is the skeptic: "This is unlikely: / He and Aufidius can no more atone / Than violent'st contrariety." Menenius is, as usual, reasonable, but his weakness is that he is unimaginative when it comes to human behavior.

Another messenger summons Menenius to the senate: "A fearful army, led by Caius Martius, / Associated with Aufidius, rages / Upon our territories." He is followed by Cominius, who attacks the tribunes: "You have holp to ravish your own daughters, and / To met the city leads upon your pates." Menenius interrupts with several anxious requests, "What news? What news?" But Cominius is so angry with the tribunes that he ignores the requests until Menenius says, "If Martius should be join'd wi'th'Volscians--" Cominius turns to him in exasperation:

                                                                    If!
He is their god. He leads them like a thing 
Made by some other deity than nature, 
That shapes man better; and they follow him 
Against us brats, with no less confidence 
Than boys pursuing summer butterflies, 
Or butchers killing flies.

(The echo of Valeria's account of Coriolanus's son killing the butterfly is a nice touch here.)

Menenius turns on the tribunes now because of their manipulations of the people with their "breath of garlic-eaters." "He'll shake your Rome about your ears," Cominius says of Coriolanus. "We are all undone unless / The noble man have mercy," Menenius observes. But who can beg for Coriolanus's mercy, Cominius asks. "The tribunes cannot do't for shame; the people / Deserve such pity of him as the wolf / Does of the shepherds." Even his friends such as Cominius and Menenius confess that they feel unworthy of asking leniency from Coriolanus. "We lov'd him, but, like beasts / And cowardly nobles, gave way unto your clusters, / Who did hoot him out o'th'city."

The citizens enter, and Menenius says, "Here come the clusters." He denounces them, but the citizens all say that they thought it was a shame to banish him, and that "it was against our will." Cominius scoffs at this, and he and Menenius go off to the Capitol. Sicinius tells the citizens to go home and not to worry about it, and they leave, sill claiming that they "ever said we were i'th'wrong when we banished him." The tribunes head for the Capitol to see what is happening.

Scene VII

Aufidius is getting a little ticked off with Coriolanus, who has more charisma with the soldiers than he does. He admits, "He bears himself more proudlier / Even to my person than I thought he would / When first I did embrace him." Aufidius's lieutenant says he wishes, for Aufidius's sake, that he hadn't joined forces with Coriolanus. Aufidius admits that Coriolanus "shows good husbandry for the Volscian state, / Fights dragon-like, and does achieve as soon / As draw his sword." The lieutenant asks if Coriolanus will take Rome, and Aufidius says he does: The nobility loves him and the "people / Will be as rash in the repeal as hasty / To expel him thence. I think he'll be to Rome / As is the osprey to the fish."

But Aufidius also thinks that the same defects, such as "pride" or "defect of judgement," will undermine Coriolanus if he succeeds.

                                    So our virtues 
Lie in th'interpretation of the time, 
And power, until itself most commendable, 
Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair 
T'extol what it hath done. 
One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail; 
Rights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail. 
Come, let's away. When, Caius, Rome is thine, 
Thou art poor'st of all: then shortly art thou mine.

__________

From the 1984 BBC production: John Burgess as Sicinius; Anthony Pedley as Junius Brutus; Alan Howard as Coriolanus; Joss Ackland as Menenius; Patrick Godfrey as Cominius; Irene Worth as Volumnia; Joanna McCallum as Virgilia; Valentine Dyall as Adrian; Teddy Kempner as Nicanor; Mike Gwilym as Aufidius; Paul Jesson as First Citizen; Ray Roberts as Second Citizen; Leon Lissek as Third Citizen; Jon Rumney as Fourth Citizen; Russell Kilmister as Fifth Citizen; Peter Sands as Titus Lartius; John Rowe as First Roman Senator; Heather Canning as Valeria.

2. Coriolanus, by William Shakespeare, pp. 95-150

Act I


Scene I

Citizens armed with various blunt instruments gather on a street in Rome to protest the food shortage, and particularly to take out their anger on the aristocrats whose abundance leads to their deprivation. Their particular target is Caius Martius, whom the First Citizen calls "chief enemy to the people." They're all riled up and ready to go kill Martius when the Second Citizen speaks up to question why him? "Consider you what services he has done for his country?

It turns out that the First Citizen is particularly offended by Martius's pride: "though soft-conscienced men can be content to say it was for his country, he did it to please his mother, and to be partly proud, which he is, even to the altitude of his virtue." At least he's not "covetous," the Second Citizen maintains. But their argument is interrupted by the arrival of Menenius Agrippa, "one that hath always loved the people," the Second Citizen observes.

Menenius asks where they're going with their "bats and clubs," and the First Citizen retorts that their protest is well known to the Senate. Menenius wants to warn them that their protest will only result in their undoing:

I tell you, friends, most charitable care 
Have the patricians of you. For your wants, 
Your suffering in this dearth, you may as well 
Strike at the heaven with your staves, as lift them
Against the Roman state, whose course will on 
The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs 
Of more strong link asunder than can ever 
Appear in your impediment.

It's the gods who are to blame, not the leadership of Rome, "who care for you like fathers, / When you curse them like enemies."

But the First Citizen is having none of it. The patricians don't really care for them. They "Suffer us to famish, and their storehouses crammed with grain." So Menenius tells them "A pretty tale":  Once upon a time the rest of the body's parts "rebell'd against the belly," accusing it of being "idle and inactive," of sitting around doing nothings while the rest of them "Did see, and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel, / And ... did minister / Unto the appetite and affection common / Of the whole body."

So the belly replied to "the mutinous parts" that were rebelling against it "As you malign our senators, for that / They are not such as you." It admitted that it is the first to "receive the general food ... / Which you do live upon." It is "the store-house and the shop / Of the whole body." But they seem to have forgotten that it sends the nourishment "through the rivers of your blood / Even to the court, the heart, to th'seat o'th'brain." And "that all / From me do back receive the flour of all, / And leave me but the bran."

The senators of Rome are this good belly, 
And you the mutinous members: for examine 
Their counsels and their cares, digest things rightly 
Touching the weal o'th'common, you shall find 
No public benefit which you receive 
But it proceeds or comes from them to you, 
And no way from yourselves.

And Menenius asks the First Citizen, "the great toe of this assembly," what he thinks of this parable.

Before he can answer, however, Caius Martius enters and asks what these "dissentious rogues" are complaining about. "What would you have, you curs, / That like nor peace nor war? The one affrights you, / The other makes you proud." He calls them untrustworthy. "With every minute you do change a mind, / And call him noble that was now your hate, / Him vile that was your garland."

Menenius says they are protesting the high cost of grain, and Martius denounces them as ignorant. He has just come from another protest at which the plebeians were allotted "Five tribunes to defend their vulgar wisdoms, / Of their own choice. One's Junius Brutus, / Sicinius Velutus, and I know not." If it had been up to Martius he wouldn't have given them any. "The rabble should have first unroof'd the city / Ere so prevail'd with me; it will in time / Win upon power, and throw forth greater themes / For insurrection's arguing."

A messenger enters with news that the Volscians have taken up arms, and Sicinius Velutus, Junius Brutus, Cominius, Titus Lartius, and several other Senators enter to confirm the report. Martius notes that their leader is Tullus Aufidius, whose nobility he envies, "And were I anything but what I am, / I would wish me only he." He's a worthy enemy, "a lion / That I am proud to hunt." So he agrees to follow Cominius in fighting against Aufidius, along with Titus Lartius. A Senator tells the mob, which has been standing around listening to this, to go home, but Martius observes that "The Volsces have much corn: take these rats thither, / To gnaw their garners."

Sicinius and Brutus, the newly named tribunes for the people, remain to comment on Martius's hauteur. Brutus hopes that "The present wars devour him! He is grown / Too proud to be so valiant." And Sicinius marvels that "His insolence can brook to be commanded / Under Cominius!" But Brutus thinks that even if things go wrong, Cominius will get the blame, "and giddy censure / Will then cry out of Martius, 'Oh, if he / Had borne the business!'" And the contrary will be true if things go well, Sicinius says: Martius will get all the credit.

Scene II

In the Volscian city of Corioli, Aufidius is meeting the city's Senators to tell them that the Romans are on the move, led by Cominius, Martius, and Titus Lartius. The assumption is that they're headed for Corioli. So the Senators commission Aufidius to defend the city. He's eager to do so: "If we and Caius Martius chance to meet, / 'Tis sworn between us, we shall ever strike / Till one can do no more."

Scene III

Back in Rome Martius's mother, Volumnia, and wife, Virgilia, are sewing. Volumnia is holding forth on Martius's valor, asserting that Virgilia should prize him for his military accomplishments more than for "the embracements of his bed." She remembers when he first went off to war and came back "his brows bound with oak," and claims, "I sprang not more in joy at first hearing he was a man-child, than now in first seeing he had proved himself a man." Virgilia asks how she would have felt if he had died. Volumnia asserts that his reputation would have been her son instead: "I had rather had eleven die nobly for their country, than one voluptuously surfeit out of action."

Valeria then arrives for a visit, and Virgilia, perhaps fearing more of this Roman virtue talk, asks to be excused. Volumnia denies the request, and imagines how Martius will wipe "His bloody brow / With his mail'd hand" after killing Aufidius and then go off to kill some more. Virgilia hears only "His bloody brow? O Jupiter, no blood!" Which prompts Volumnia to call her a fool, because blood "more becomes a man than gilt his trophy."

Valeria makes her entrance and after a cursory look at Virgilia's embroidery asks about her son. Virgilia says he's doing well, but Volumnia takes over in praising the boy: "He had rather see the swords and hear a drum, than look upon his schoolmaster." Valeria joins in praise of the boy's bloodthirstiness:

I saw him run after a gilded butterfly, and when he caught it, he let it go again, and after it again, and over and over he comes, and up again, catched it again; or whether his fall enraged him, or how 'twas, he did so set his teeth and tear it. Oh, I warrant how he mammocked it!

Just like his father, Volumnia agrees.

Valeria then asks Virgilia to go with her to see a woman who's having a baby, but Virgilia doesn't want to go. "I'll not over the threshold till my lord return from the wars." Volumnia scolds her, and Valeria insists, mocking her for being so domestic: "You would be another Penelope; yet they say, all the yarn she spun in Ulysses' absence did but fill Ithaca full of moths." Virgilia continues to resist them, and Valeria promises to tell her the news she's heard about Martius. Virgilia doesn't think it possible that there could be any yet, but Valeria tells her that she heard it from a senator: Cominius is leading a force against the Volscian army, while Martius and Titus Lartius are besieging Corioli.

This isn't much consolation to Virgilia, who continues to resist the pressure to make her leave the house, so Volumnia and Valeria go off without her.

Scene IV

A messenger arrives for Martius and Titus Lartius outside the gates of Corioli. They have bet each other a horse on the news, Martius apparently wagering that there's already been a battle. But he loses: The armies are arrayed against each other but haven't started fighting. They're about a mile and a half away, so Martius asks a trumpeter to sound the call for a parley with the city, knowing that the armies can hear his trumpets and he can hear theirs.

Two senators appear on the walls of the city, and Martius asks if Aufidius is inside the walls. They tell him no, and that no one inside is afraid of him. Then they hear drums at a distance followed by a trumpet call: "There is Aufidius. List what work he makes / Amongst your cloven army." Lartius calls for ladders to scale the walls of the city.

The Volscian army arrives, and Martius calls on his men to fight. But after a skirmish, the stage direction indicates, "The Romans are beat back to their trenches." Martius re-enters, "cursing," as the stage direction put it. The curses are directed at his own army, whom he tells, somewhat prophetically, "Mend and charge home, / Or, by the fires of heaven, I'll leave the foe / And make my wars on you."

The gates of the city open, and Martius charges forward. But his troops aren't with him, and the gates close, shutting Martius in. Titus Lartius returns and asks where Martius is. The soldiers tell him, and Lartius is in the midst of a speech praising Martius's valor when the gates open again and Martius re-enters, "bleeding, assaulted by the enemy." Lartius urges the troops to rescue Martius or to make a stand with him, and they all charge into the city.

Scene V

The city has been taken, and the Roman soldiers are carrying off the spoils. Martius and Titus Lartius appear, but Martius is irritated by the looting: "these base slaves, / Ere yet the fight be done, pack up. Down with them!" He tells Titus to take enough soldiers to secure the city while he goes off to fight Aufidius and help Cominius. Titus wants him to rest, pointing out that he's bleeding, but Martius insists, "The blood I drop is rather physical [i.e., therapeutic] / Than dangerous to me." So off he goes.

Scene VI

Cominius and his soldiers are resting between battles when a messenger arrives who has seen only the first part of the action at Corioli, when the Romans were driven back to their trenches. Then Martius appears, looking as if he has been flayed, and asks if he's too late to help. He tells them that Lartius is busy "Holding Corioles in the name of Rome." Cominius wants to punish the messenger who had told him they were losing the battle, but Martius, somewhat uncharacteristically, tells Cominius to leave him alone. He curses the soldiers who retreated the trenches: "The common file -- a plague! tribunes for them!" (He can't get the idea of having tribunes appointed for the common people out of his head.)

When Cominius asks Martius how he prevailed, he's too impatient to tell the story, and asks why they aren't fighting. Cominius tells them they are at a disadvantage, and that the Volscians' best soldiers are with Aufidius, so Martius begs to be sent to face Aufidius. Cominius would rather Martius take it easy and have his wounds seen to, but he agrees. So Martius delivers a stirring challenge to the soldiers, exhorting those "that love this painting / Wherein you see me smear'd" -- i.e., blood -- to follow him. They cheer and throw their caps in the air, and he picks a force to go with him.

Scene VII

Lartius leaves a guard at the gates of Corioli and sets off with the rest of his men to join Cominius and Martius.
 
Scene VIII

Martius and Aufidius face off and proclaim their hate for each other. "Here they fight, and certain Volsces come in the aid of Aufidius. Martius fights till they be driven in breathless."

Scene IX

The Romans have won. Martius has been wounded -- the stage direction says he enters "with his arm in a scarf" -- but is otherwise sound. Cominius praises his heroic deeds, and when Titus Lartius starts to add his praise, Martius demurs:

                                Pray now, no more. My mother, 

Who has a charter to extol her blood, 

When she does praise me, grieves me. I have done 

As you have done, that's what I can; induc'd 

As you have been, that's for my country. 

He that has but effected his good will 

Hath overta'en mine act.

But Cominius insists, "Rome must know / The value of her own." He says Martius must take a tenth of the horses and the treasure they have captured. But Martius says he "cannot make my heart consent to take / A bribe to pay my sword: I do refuse it, / And stand upon my common part with those / That have beheld the doing." The crowd cheers and Cominius and Lartius bare their heads in his honor. Cominius says, "Too modest are you, / More cruel to your good report than grateful / To us that give you truly." And he proclaims that henceforth he should be known as "Martius Caius Coriolanus." (There's a long explanation here and in the introduction about how the name seems to have been switched around -- it should be Caius Martius Coriolanus -- but the point it that in the play from now on he's known as Coriolanus rather than Martius.)

So he accepts the new name and says, "I will go wash; / And when my face is fair, you shall perceive / Whether I blush or no." Cominius says he'll go write to Rome about the victory and that Titus Lartius must stay to look after things in Corioli, but then Coriolanus remembers something: "I sometime lay here in Corioles, / At a poor man's house: he us'd me kindly," but he was taken prisoner and now Coriolanus wants him to have his freedom. Unfortunately, he can't remember the man's name.

Scene X

Aufidius is covered in blood and really ticked off at Coriolanus: "By th'elements, / If e'er again I meet him beard to beard, / He's mine, or I am his." He vows,

                                  Where I find him, were it 
At home, upon my brother's guard, even there, 
Against the hospitable canon, would I 
Wash my fierce hand in's heart.

He tells a soldier to find out how Corioli is being held and who are going to be sent as hostages to Rome.
____________
Brockbank observes in his introduction that Coriolanus is one of the few Shakespeare plays not represented on film, but that's about to change with the opening of Ralph Fiennes's production of the play:



It has, however, been presented on television by the BBC in 1984.  Paul Jesson as First Citizen; Joss Ackland as Menenius; Alan Howard as Coriolanus; Patrick Godfrey as Cominius; John Rowe as First Roman Senator; Peter Sands as Titus Lartius; John Burgess as Sicinius; Anthony Pedley as Junius Brutus; Mike Gwilym as Aufidius; Valentine Dyall as Adrian; Irene Worth as Volumnia; Joanna McCallum as Virgilia; Heather Canning as Valeria.