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There was a time when all the body’s members
Rebelled against the belly, thus accused it:
That only like a gulf it did remain
I’ th’ midst o’ 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, walk, feel,
And, mutually participate, did minister
Unto the appetite and affection common
Of the whole body. (1.1.98–108)
As Coriolanus opens, plebeians are frustrated with how the ruling class has handled the distribution of grain in the recent time of famine. As one citizen puts it, “If they would yield us but the superfluity while it were wholesome, we might guess they relieved us humanely. But they think we are too dear” (1.1.16–19). When the patrician Menenius enters the scene, the citizens approach him and, knowing him to be sympathetic to the common people, they voice their grievance to him. He responds to their complaints with the words quoted above, which represent the first part of his famous fable of the belly. According to this fable, the various parts of the body grew upset about the laziness and greed of the belly. Whereas the other parts contributed variously to the functioning of the body, the belly seemed only to hoard food and drink, so they rebelled. As Menenius goes on to explain, the belly must first gather all the nourishment before distributing it throughout the body. The belly therefore plays a fundamental role in the body—perhaps the most fundamental. In this fable, he then clarifies, “The senators of Rome are this good belly, / And you the mutinous members” (1.1.157–58).
As a fable meant to illustrate the function of government, Menenius’s speech doubles as an allegory of the body politic. The phrase “body politic” has a long history in political theory, stretching back to the Greek philosopher Plato, and to later Athenian orators who first used the phrase, “the body of the state.” This notion of the state as a metaphorical body was revived during the Renaissance, when the concept became a central component of political theory. The basic idea is that any kingdom or nation can be figuratively conceived as a body. The parts of this body are constituted by various individuals and institutions, the most important being the “head” (e.g., a monarch) and the “arms” (e.g., a military). The metaphor the body politic remains part of our political language today, as we continue to refer to presidents and prime ministers as “heads of state.” This metaphorical notion of Rome as a body gets repeated throughout Coriolanus, which features numerous references to body parts. For instance, the tribunes are referred to as “the people’s mouths,” and the citizens themselves are “[the people’s] hands” (3.1.347–48). Likewise, Coriolanus is likened to a diseased “limb” that must be cut off to save the rest of the “body” of Rome (3.1.379).
If my son were my husband, I should freelier rejoice in that absence wherein he won honor than in the embracements of his bed where he would show most love. When yet he was but tender-bodied and the only son of my womb, when youth with comeliness plucked all gaze his way, when for a day of kings’ entreaties a mother should not sell him an hour from her beholding, I, considering how honor would become such a person[,] . . . was pleased to let him seek danger where he was like to find fame. (1.3.2–11, 13–14)
When we first meet Coriolanus’s overbearing mother, Volumnia, she is sitting with her daughter-in-law, Virgilia. As they each attend to their own sewing, Volumnia addresses these words to Virgilia, explaining how she raised her son as a warrior. She indicates that her choice was perhaps unconventional, in that she began to instill the virtues of heroism at a very early age. When other mothers would have shielded their sons from “kings’ entreaties,” she was “pleased to let him seek danger where he was like to find fame.” Volumnia’s eagerness for her son to seek his fame in battle reflects her own fascination with war—a fascination that marks her as more martial (and therefore masculine) than would have been conventional for a woman of her time. In effect, she seeks to live through Coriolanus, nurturing his heroism so that she, too, can find fame in her son’s valor. As we learn later in the scene, Coriolanus’s son has inherited his father’s aptitude for violence. The noblewoman Valeria reports how she witnessed Young Martius play with “a gilded butterfly” (1.3.63–64), only to fall into a rage and “set his teeth and tear it” (67–68). With evident pride, Volumnia responds, “One on ’s fathers’ moods” (1.3.69).
Perhaps most noteworthy about Volumnia’s speech is the opening sentence, which contains more than a hint of incestuous eroticism. She says that if Coriolanus were her husband, then she would delight more in the honor he earned from battle than in the pleasure he might give her in bed. In context, it’s clear that she’s rhetorically putting herself in Virgilia’s place, attempting to instill in her daughter-in-law a taste for heroic battle. Virgilia shies away from the sight of blood, and Volumnia thinks it best to toughen her up. However, the very fact that she speculates about having her “tender-bodied” son for a husband suggests a disturbing, erotic charge in the relationship between mother and son. Shakespeare will continue to suggest this charge throughout the play, and particularly in the way Volumnia frequently implores her son to strip down and make a public show of the many wounds that cover his body. She seems to take a more-than-motherly pleasure in the sight of her son’s wounded flesh.
Most sweet voices!
Better it is to die, better to starve,
Than crave the hire which first we do deserve.
Why in this woolvish toge should I stand here
To beg of Hob and Dick that does appear
Their needless vouches? Custom calls me to ’t.
What custom wills, in all things should we do ’t?
The dust on antique time would lie unswept
And mountainous error be too highly heaped
For truth to o’erpeer. Rather than fool it so,
Let the high office and the honor go
To one that would do thus. I am half through;
The one part suffered, the other will I do. (2.3.122–34)
Following his extraordinary display of heroism during the battle against the Volscians in Corioles, the protagonist receives the honorific that’s enshrined in the play’s title: “Coriolanus.” This name reflects the high esteem in which his fellow patricians hold him. In fact, they find his conduct in war so honorable that they nominate him for the highest political office in Rome: the consul. However, as the consulship is an elected office, he must present himself to the common people and ask them for their votes. Before a man can rise to the apex of power, he must first humble himself before the people he proposes to rule. But while Coriolanus is an eloquent and unselfconscious speaker when addressing his fellow warriors, he despises the thought of having to play the part of a politician. He finds political niceties inauthentic, and he strenuously resists when his fellow patricians coerce him to dress in the traditional “gown of humility” (2.3.42)—that is, a toga—and address the plebeians. Eventually, they convince him to swallow his pride. But even as he performs the ritual, he can’t help but internally resist, as the lines quoted here indicate.
Coriolanus speaks these words to himself as one group of citizens leaves and another approaches. His disdain for this ceremony is plain, as is his sense of superiority to the plebeians, whom he resents having to court. But perhaps most emblematic here is Coriolanus’s irrepressible pride. When he appears before the commoners, he does so wearing a simple white toga, which is meant to signify an attitude of humility. This garment would have been woven from wool, a material that, coming from sheep, further symbolizes humility as well as innocence. This symbolism clearly grates against Coriolanus, whose intense pride leads him to feel humiliated while dressed so humbly: “Why in this woolvish toge should I stand here / To beg of Hob and Dick that does appear / Their needless vouches?” Coriolanus’s use of the word woolvish (i.e., wolfish) is striking for its double meaning. On the one hand, it refers to the woolen material, which symbolically links the toga to the common people, whom he later calls “woolen vassals” (3.2.10). On the other hand, he’s referring to himself as a sheep in wolf’s clothing—that is, a proud and superior man who’s been forced to pretend to be an unassuming politician.
You common cry of curs, whose breath I hate
As reek o’ th’ rotten fens, whose loves I prize
As the dead carcasses of unburied men
That do corrupt my air, I banish you!
And here remain with your uncertainty;
Let every feeble rumor shake your hearts;
Your enemies, with nodding of their plumes,
Fan you into despair! Have the power still
To banish your defenders, till at length
Your ignorance—which finds not till it feels,
Making but reservation of yourselves,
Still your own foes—deliver you
As most abated captives to some nation
That won you without blows! Despising
For you the city, thus I turn my back.
There is a world elsewhere. (3.3.150–65)
When his fellow patricians instruct him to go before the plebeians in the toga of humility and ask for their votes, Coriolanus does so grudgingly, and he can’t help but express his disdain and resentment even as supplicates. The citizens do give him their votes, but they are also disturbed by his lack of graciousness, and they say as much to Brutus and Sicinius—the tribunes who represent them in the senate. Brutus and Sicinius are both politically canny men, and they leverage this situation to put pressure on Coriolanus, whom they believe to be a dangerous and tyrannical figure. Thus, the tribunes convince the citizens to revoke their votes. Then, when they bring news of this change of heart to the senate, they further accuse Coriolanus of treason and call for his execution. The wise patrician Menenius intervenes, calming the tensions and arranging for Coriolanus to make a public appearance in the market to hear the commoners’ grievances against him. Coriolanus begrudgingly agrees to make this appearance, but when Sicinius calls him “a traitor to the people” (3.3.86), Coriolanus takes the bait and loses his temper. The tribunes call for him to be banished, at which point Coriolanus delivers the bitter lines quoted here.
No longer held back by the constraints of decorum, Coriolanus unleashes a stream of invective. He begins by calling the citizens a “common cry of curs,” implicitly comparing them to aggressive, mangy-looking dogs. This comparison links to a series of similar animal images used throughout the play to refer derogatorily to the plebeian class, who are likened to wily foxes, cowardly geese, and ravenous crows. But even more rhetorically compelling in this speech is the way Coriolanus reverses the sentence he’s just received by declaring that he’s doing the banishing: “I banish you!” Of course, he’s the one who will physically leave Rome, and he concludes his speech by turning his back on the city of his birth. But his language emphasizes that it’s the Romans who are in fact exiled and thus forced to live without the protection of one of their greatest “defenders”; they are now left to fend for themselves. There’s a certain irony in the forceful eloquence of this speech, which demonstrates a high-level capacity for rhetorical manipulation typically associated with accomplished politicians. But Coriolanus has clearly failed as a politician and must therefore go his own way to find “a world elsewhere.”
Ay, Martius, Caius Martius. Dost thou think
I’ll grace thee with that robbery, thy stol’n name
Coriolanus, in Corioles?
You lords and heads o’ th’ state, perfidiously
He has betrayed your business and given up
For certain drops of salt your city Rome—
I say your city—to his wife and mother,
Breaking his oath and resolution like
A twist of rotten silk, never admitting
Counsel o’ th’ war, but at his nurse’s tears
He whined and roared away your victory,
That pages blushed at him and men of heart
Looked wond’ring each at other. (5.6.106–118)
When Coriolanus first tracks him down in Antium and suggests they collaborate in attacking Rome, Aufidius is delighted to embrace his former rival as a friend. However, as their collaboration develops and Coriolanus’s charisma captures the hearts of the Volscian army, Aufidius grows increasingly sour. The apparent preference for the Roman revives Aufidius’s longstanding feelings of envy. In the many times they had met on the battlefield prior to their collaboration, Aufidius, though an excellent warrior, had never gotten the upper hand. Indeed, Coriolanus always had the edge—a fact that made Aufidius obsess about one day besting his opponent. Now Aufidius feels the burn of his own inferiority once again, and he resents feeling like the Roman’s follower when he was meant to be his partner. For this reason, he begins to plot against Coriolanus. His opportunity to strike comes soon after Coriolanus unilaterally decides to break off their attack on Rome. Now feeling justified his betrayal, Aufidius conspires with some of his men to assassinate Coriolanus in Corioles—the site of Aufidius’s latest defeat and the city after which Coriolanus is named. As they enter Corioles, Aufidius announces his treachery to Coriolanus with the lines quoted here.
Central to Aufidius’s confrontation is the way he invokes the language of naming. He begins by hailing his rival by his birth name: “Martius, Caius Martius.” By stripping him of the honorific enshrined in the play’s title, Aufidius issues an implicit challenge to his sense of identity as a warrior. Evidently, Coriolanus is surprised to be addressed in this way, and Aufidius quickly adds that he will not address Coriolanus by his “stol’n name.” At this point, Aufidius turns to his fellow Volscians and declares that Coriolanus is to blame for depriving them of their chance to take Rome for themselves. Not only that, but he broke off their planned military campaign “for certain drops of salt”—that is, because of the tears shed by his wife and mother. Far from being a cold-hearted warrior, Coriolanus is little more than a soft-hearted child who, “at his nurse’s tears / . . . whined and roared away your victory.” These lines anticipate Aufidius’s next charge. After Coriolanus remarks, “Hear’st thou, Mars?” Aufidius retorts: “Name not the god thou boy of tears” (5.6.119–20). With these words, Aufidius rhetorically reduces the brave warrior to a weeping “boy,” radically stripping away his identity and foreshadowing his death.
