Coriolanus
Written: c. 1608; Text: First Folio 1623 (Tragedy); no quarto editions
Sources: Holinshed, Raphael (c. 1528-c. 1580). The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland. (2nd ed., 1587): William Baldwin ed). The Mirror for Magistrates (1559 ed.); Anonymous. Frederyke of Jennen 3rd ed., (1560); Anonymous. The Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune (performed 158, printed 1589); Boccaccio, Giovanni (1313-75). Decameron 2nd Day, 9th story
Characters: Coriolanus (Caius Martius), Menenius Agrippa, Sicinius Velutus, Cominius, Volumnia, Tullus Aufidius, Junius Brutus, Firgilia
Setting: Rome, Corioles, Atrium
Time: 494-490 BC
Populism, Fascism and Machiavelli all appear as themes in this political drama. Even the “trickle-down” theory of economics gets its moment, but Shakespeare uses the digestive and cardiovascular systems as analogies for the distribution of wealth. The patricians are compared to the stomach that hordes the food while the plebeians are the body's extremities, which in time will get what they need. Coriolanus is perhaps Shakespeare's least subtle or internally conflicted tragic character.
Notes on Coriolanus
Politics and the People
Read the NoteShakespeare often wrote about politics but he usually dealt with political infighting at court. Two of his Roman plays, however, deal specifically with politicians’ relationship with the people, the fickle masses. Julius Caesar and Coriolanus offer observations about these fraught relationships, which are as true today as they were both in Elizabethan and Roman times.
Like many of Shakespeare’s plays,
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Banishment: Romeo and Coriolanus
Read the NoteFor two of Shakespeare’s most passionate male characters, banishment holds passionately different meanings. Romeo, banished from Verona, is grief-stricken and in fear of never seeing Juliet again. For him, banishment is the equivalent of death. Coriolanus, banished from Rome, is enraged and contemptuous of the plebeians who he hopes he will never have to see again. For him, banishment is an opportunity for a new life.
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Pandering, Contempt and the Masses
Read the NoteMany of Shakespeare’s plays deal with political intrigue at court between political leaders. However, in Julius Caesar and Coriolanus, more than in other plays, the themes address the relationships between political leaders and the masses. Since both plays are set in historic Rome and not in Shakespeare’s England, they can deal with the themes of democracy and the wisdom of the populace to govern themselves through a republican form of representation.
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Quotes from Coriolanus
We are accounted poor citizens
Read the QuoteWe are accounted poor citizens, the patricians
goodEllipsis. What authority surfeits on would relieve us.
the gods know I speak this in hunger
for bread, not in thirst for revenge
If they would yield us but the superfluity
while it were wholesome, we might guess they
reliev’d us humanely; but they think we are too
dear.
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There was a time when all the body’s members
Read the QuoteMenenius Agrippa
There was a time when all the body’s members
Rebell’d against the belly; thus accus’d it:
That only like a gulf it did remain
I’ th’ midst a’ th’ body, idle and unactive,
Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing
Like labor with the rest, where th’ other instruments
Did see and hear, devise, instruct,
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What’s the matter, you dissentious rogues
Read the QuoteWhat’s the matter, you dissentious rogues,
That rubbing the poor itch of your opinion
Make yourselves scabsMetaphor?…
He that will give good words to thee will flatter
Beneath abhorring. What would you have, you curs,
That like nor peace nor war? The one affrights you,
The other makes you proud. He that trusts to you,
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The Volsces are in arms
Read the QuoteFirst Roman Senator
The Volsces are in arms.
Caius Martius
They have a leader,
Tullus Aufidius, that will put you to’t.
I sin in envying his nobility;
And were I any thing but what I am,
I would wish me only he.
Cominius
You have fought together?
Caius Martius
Were half to half the world by th’ ears,
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All tongues speak of him
Read the QuoteAll tongues speak of him, and the bleared sights
Are spectacled to see himSynecdoche. Your prattling nurse
Into a rapture lets her baby cry
While she chats him; the kitchen malkin pins
Her richest lockram ’bout her reechy neck,
Clamb’ring the walls to eye him; stalls, bulks, windows
Are smother’d up, leads fill’d,
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You are sent for to the Capitol
Read the QuoteYou are sent for to the Capitol. ‘Tis thought
That Martius shall be consul.
I have seen the dumb men throng to see him, and
The blind to hear him speak. Matrons flung gloves,
Ladies and maids their scarfs and handkerchers,
Upon him as he pass’d; the nobles bended,
As to Jove’s statue, and the commons made
A shower and thunder with their caps and shouts.
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That’s a brave fellow; but he’s vengeance proud
Read the QuoteFirst Officer
That’s a brave fellow; but he’s vengeance proud, and loves not the common people.
Second Officer
Faith, there hath been many great men that have flatter’d the people, who ne’er lov’d them; and there be many that they have lov’d, they know not wherefore; so that, if they love they know not why, they hate upon no better a ground.
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Worthy Cominius, speak
Read the QuoteMenenius
Worthy Cominius, speak.
Coriolanus rises and offers to go away.
Nay, keep your place.
First Senator
Sit, Coriolanus. Never shame to hear
What you have nobly done.
I had rather have my wounds to heal again
Than hear say how I got them.
Coriolanus
Your Honors,
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Our spoils he kick’d at
Read the QuoteOur 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.
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And to make us no better thought of, a little help will serve
Read the QuoteFirst Roman Citizen
And to make us no better thought of, a little help will serve; for once we stood up about the corn, he himself stuck not to call us the many-headed multitude.
Third Roman Citizen
We have been call’d so of many, not that our heads are some brown, some black, some abram, some bald, but that our wits are so diversely color’d;
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