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[Blood] more becomes a man
Than gilt his trophy. The breasts of Hecuba,
When she did suckle Hector, looked not lovelier
Than Hector’s forehead when it spit forth blood
At Grecian sword, contemning. (1.3.42–46)
In Volumnia’s first scene, she sits sewing and talking with her son’s wife, Virgilia. She explains how she raised her son to be a warrior, and she makes the startling claim that if he were her husband, she would take more pleasure in the honor he won in battle than the physical attention he gave her in bed. With the lines quoted here, she offers another image that conflates an erotic mother–son relation with violence. She tells Virgilia that it’s more fitting for a man to be covered in blood than it is for a trophy to be covered in gold. She then compares the beauty of the legendary Hecuba’s breasts to that of the wounded skull of her son Hector. Volumnia clearly sees herself in Hecuba’s position.
At thy choice, then.
To beg of thee, it is my more dishonor
Than thou of them. Come all to ruin. Let
Thy mother rather feel thy pride than fear
Thy dangerous stoutness, for I mock at death
With as big heart as thou. Do as thou list.
Thy valiantness was mine; thou suck’st it from me,
But owe thy pride thyself. (3.2.151–58)
Volumnia addresses these words to Coriolanus, manipulating his sense of guilt to get him to go before the plebeians one more time and attempt to assuage their ire. Significantly, she leverages her maternal sacrifice to get Coriolanus to comply with her will. She indicates that, as his mother, she enabled him to reach such honorable heights: “Thy valiantness was mine; thou suck’st it from me.” This gift now makes it all the more dishonorable for her to have to beg her son to avoid his own ruin. Ultimately, Volumnia emphasizes Coriolanus’s pride as his main flaw. Whereas she has built him up to be a valorous warrior, he has compromised her efforts by cultivating arrogance.
Think with thyself
How more unfortunate than all living women
Are we come hither; since that thy sight, which should
Make our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance with comforts,
Constrains them weep and shake with fear and sorrow,
Making the mother, wife, and child to see
The son, the husband, and the father tearing
His country’s bowels out.
. . . If I cannot persuade thee
Rather to show a noble grace to both parts
Than seek the end of one, thou shalt no sooner
March to assault thy country than to tread—
Trust to ’t, thou shalt not—on thy mother’s womb
That brought thee to this world. (5.3.109–111, 138–43)
With these lines, Volumnia lays down the mother of all maternal guilt trips as she attempts to convince Coriolanus to break off his military campaign against Rome. She begins by explaining the horrific pain the members of his family will experience if they are forced to witness “the son, the husband, and the father tearing / His country’s bowels out.” This gruesome image of disembowelment thematically relates back to Menenius’s allegory of the body politic in act 1, where each part of society is said to be organized like a functioning human body. Volumnia is proposing that Coriolanus’s war on Rome is tantamount to murdering the political “body” he once risked his life to keep alive. As she comes to the end of her speech, Volumnia makes a more personal appeal, offering up the image of Coriolanus treading on the very womb that gave birth to him. Needless to say, Coriolanus soon abandons his campaign.
