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?
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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.

3. Coriolanus, by William Shakespeare, pp. 151-193

Act II

Scene I

While waiting for news from Corioli, Menenius encounters the people's tribunes, Sicinius and Brutus, and asks them why the people favor them over Martius (whom they don't yet know as Coriolanus). They say he has all sorts of faults, but especially pride. Menenius retorts that they shouldn't talk, that if they took a good look at themselves, "Why, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting, proud, violent, testy magistrates (alias fools) as any in Rome."

Brutus says that Menenius is a better talker than he is a judge, but Menenius continues to excoriate them for "saying Martius is proud: who, in a cheap estimation, is worth all your predecessors since Deucalion." He takes his leave of them and encounters Volumnia, Virgilia, and Valeria. Volumnia tells him that Martius is on his way home, which delights him. She says he has won his third "oaken garland," but that although he fought Aufidius, his enemy escaped. "The senate has letters from the general," she tells him, "wherein he gives my son the whole name of the war: he hath in this action outdone his former deeds doubly."

Together, Volumnia and Menenius count up Martius's wounds, including the latest "I'th shoulder, and i'th'left arm," and conclude that the total is "twenty-seven: every gash was an enemy's grave." But they are interrupted by the sound of trumpets and the entrance of Martius-now-Coriolanus flanked by Cominius and Titus Lartius and a troop of soldiers. A herald proclaims that because he fought alone inside the gates of Corioli, Martius is now called Coriolanus.

Embarrassed by the hoopla, Coriolanus says, "Pray now, no more," and seeing his mother, kneels before her. Volumnia brings Virgilia forth, and Coriolanus hails her as "My gracious silence" -- Virgilia isn't much given to speech -- and comments about her tears, "Would'st thou have laugh'd had I come coffin'd home, / That weep'st to see me triumph?  Ah, my dear, / Such eyes the widdows in Corioles wear, / And mothers that lack sons." Which is maybe not the most effective way to cheer her up.

Menenius welcomes Coriolanus, Cominius, and Titus, though, having recently spoken with Sicinius and Brutus, he warns them that "We have some old crabtrees here at home that will not / Be grafted to your relish."

Coriolanus tells his wife and his mother that before he can go home he has to meet with the patricians, who have more honors in store for him. Volumnia says she has seen her wishes come true already, "only / There's one thing wanting, which I doubt not but / Our Rome will cast upon thee" -- a consulship. Coriolanus is reluctant: "Know, good mother, / I had rather be their servant in my way / Than sway with them in theirs." But he is marched off to the Capitol as Volumnia and Virgilia head home.

This leaves Brutus and Sicinius to complain about all the fuss being made over Coriolanus, and to fret that if he is made consul, their power is in jeopardy. But Sicinius comforts Brutus with the expectation that Coriolanus's temperament will make people forget about his heroism. Brutus knows that Coriolanus won't submit to the custom of showing "his wounds / To th'people" and "beg their stinking breaths" in support of his new office. Of course, they mean to help things along by reminding "the people in what hatred / He still hath held them." Sicinius agrees:

                                         This (as you say) suggested 
At some time when his soaring insolence 
Shall touch the people -- which time shall not want, 
If he be put upon't, and that's as easy 
As to set dogs upon sheep -- will be his fire 
To kindle their dry stubble; and their blaze 
Shall darken him for ever.

A messenger arrives with word that they are wanted in the Capitol: "'Tis thought / That Martius shall be consul." So Sicinius and Brutus hurry off to see it happen.


Scene II


Even the officers laying out the cushions for the magistrates to sit on are speculating on whether Coriolanus is too proud for the job of consul, the First Officer opining that he's "a brave fellow; but he's vengeance proud, and loves not the common people" and that he even seems to encourage the people to hate him.


The patricians and tribunes enter, followed by Coriolanus, Menenius, and Cominius. Brutus and Sicinius are there, too, and when Menenius starts to present the case for Coriolanus as consul, they interject their main concern, that Coriolanus "remember / A kinder value of the people than / He hath hereto priz'd them at." Menenius chides them for being out of order, and says, "He loves your people, / But tie him not to be their bedfellow." And then Coriolanus starts to leave, saying, "I had rather have my wounds to heal again / Than hear say how I got them." Menenius tries to get him to stay, but he exits. When he does, Menenius points to it as evidence of Coriolanus's modesty: "He had rather venture all his limbs for honour / Than one on's ears to hear it."


Cominius delivers the account of Coriolanus's deeds, starting with his fight against Tarquin when Coriolanus was only sixteen. When Cominius pauses, Menenius says, "Worthy man," and the First Senator concurs that he deserves the honor. Cominius concludes,

                                     Our spoils he kick'd at, 
And look'd upon things precious as they were 
The common muck of the world. He covets less 
Than misery itself would give, rewards 
His deeds with doing them, and is content 
To spend the time to end it.

Menenius repeats his praise, and asks that Coriolanus be called back in. When he returns, Menenius tells him that the senate wants to make him consul, and all he has to do now is meet with the people. But this is the one thing Coriolanus doesn't want to do: "I cannot / Put on the gown, stand naked, and entreat them / For my wounds' sake to give their suffrage." Sicinius insists that he has to do it anyway: "Sir, the people / Must have their voices; neither will they bate / One jot of ceremony." But Menenius advises Coriolanus not to make a big deal of it, and the senators acclaim him. Everyone leaves but Sicinius and Brutus, who then go off to plot ways to use Coriolanus's reluctance against him.

Scene III

A group of citizens gather to discuss the situation, and the Third Citizen decides, "I say, if he would incline to the people, there never was a worthier man." They observe as Coriolanus enters, "in a gown of humility," with Menenius still trying to persuade him that "The worthiest men have done't." Coriolanus is still arguing that he can't show them his wounds and tell them "I got them in my country's service, when / Some certain of your brethren roar'd and ran / From the noise of our own drums." Menenius begs him to speak to the citizens "In wholesome manner," and leaves, no doubt uneasily, as Coriolanus tells him "Bid them wash their faces, / And keep their teeth clean."

A trio of citizens approach Coriolanus and say that the price of the consulship is that he ask for it "kindly." So Coriolanus tells them, "I have wounds to show you, which shall be yours in private." They agree to that, though the Third Citizen thinks there's something odd about the business. Two more enter, and one of them tells Coriolanus that he has served the country well, but he hasn't "loved the common people." Coriolanus argues that "You should account me the more virtuous, that I have not been common in my love." And he asks them to grant him the consulship, which satisfies them, even though he still doesn't show his wounds.

Coriolanus grumbles to himself about having to go through with this ritual, and thinks that if we slavishly held to all old traditions, "The dust on antique time would lie unswept / And mountainous error be too highly heap'd / For truth to o'erpeer." But he decides to stick to it, and when three more citizens appear he launches into an appeal for more of their approval:

Your voices! For your voices I have fought, 
Watch'd for your voices; for your voices, bear 
Of wounds two dozen odd; battles thrice six 
I have seen and heard of; for your voices have 
Done many things, some less, some more: your voices! Indeed I would be consul.

It's a speech that has to be delivered with a certain amount of sarcasm, but as it wins over the three citizens it can't be too heavily ironic. But as they exit, his parting shot of "Worthy voices!" can certainly drip with contempt.

Menenius enters with Brutus and Sicinius, and tells Coriolanus that he has won the approval of the citizens and now all he has to do is meet with the senate. Coriolanus asks if he can change clothes, and goes off with Menenius to do so. Sicinius and Brutus remain behind to ponder his success in persuading the citizens and what they can do about it. The citizens enter, in some disagreement about whether Coriolanus was mocking him in his appeal for their voices. The First Citizen thinks it was only Coriolanus's usual way of speaking, but the others insist "He us'd us scornfully." The Third Citizen thinks all he wanted from them was their "voices," and when he got them was done with them.

Brutus asks why they didn't confront him with his arrogance, and Sicinius says they were "fore-advis'd" to provoke him by reminding him of his past contempt for the people. If they had done that, they would either have elicited a promise from him that they could have held him to, or they would have stirred his anger, which they could have used to prevent his election. The Third Citizen says, "He's not confirm'd: we may deny him yet." And the other citizens say they can gather "five hundred voices" and "twice five hundred" plus their friends to speak up against Coriolanus.

So Brutus urges them to do so. And Sicinius says, "Let them assemble; / And, on a safer judgement, all revoke / Your ignorant election. Enforce his pride / And his old hate unto you." Sicinius says they should say that he and Brutus ordered them to support Coriolanus and to go against "your own true affections." Brutus says they can "Say we read lectures to you, / How youngly he began to serve his country," and so on. Sicinius tells them to say that they've considered "his present bearing" and have realized "That he's your fixed enemy, and revoke / Your sudden approbation."

The citizens exit, and as in every scene in this act, Sicinius and Brutus are left on stage, this time to congratulate themselves on what they "have goaded onward," and then to go off to the Capitol to see what happens next.
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From the 1984 BBC production: Joss Ackland as Menenius; Alan Howard as Coriolanus; Patrick Godfrey as Cominius; Peter Sands as Titus Lartius; Mike Gwilym as Aufidius; Irene Worth as Volumnia; Joanna McCallum as Virgilia; Heather Canning as Valeria; John Burgess as Sicinius; Anthony Pedley as Junius Brutus; John Rowe as First Roman Senator; 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.

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.