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For the dearth,
The gods, not the patricians, make it, and
Your knees to them, not arms, must help. Alack,
You are transported by calamity
Thither where more attends you, and you slander
The helms o’ th’ state, who care for you like fathers,
When you curse them as enemies. (1.1.74–80)
Menenius addresses these lines to the plebeians of Rome, who are furious that, in a time of famine, the patricians are hoarding grain and refusing to share it. Menenius insists that the patricians are not responsible for the “dearth” of resources, which the gods are responsible for providing. It therefore isn’t appropriate for the plebeians to “slander / The helms of the state,” whom Menenius goes on to say, “care for you like fathers.” With these words, the older patrician invokes the language of paternity to describe the relationship between the ruling class and everyday citizens. This quasi-familial bond isn’t just secured through the Roman state—it’s what constitutes the state. As such, for the republic to survive, it’s crucial not to weaken this paternal bond with curses.
Hear me profess sincerely: had I a dozen sons, each in my love alike and none less dear than thine and my good Martius, I had rather had eleven die nobly for their country than one voluptuously surfeit out of action. (1.3.22–27)
Volumnia speaks these words while in conversation with her daughter-in-law, Virgilia. She has been describing how she raised her son to be a warrior, possibly in an attempt to convince Virgilia that she should do the same for her son. When Virgilia wonders aloud how Volumnia would have felt had her son died in battle, her mother-in-law responds with these words. She says that if she had twelve equally beloved sons, she would prefer for eleven of them to “die nobly for their country” than to have a single one merely indulge himself in combat. With these words, she clarifies that her zeal for a warlike son is closely tied to her desire for a strong republic.
[To First Watch] You shall know now that I am in estimation; you shall perceive that Jack guardant cannot office me from my son Coriolanus. . . . [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! [He weeps.] (5.2.66–69; 73–76)
When Cominius fails to convince Coriolanus to break off his military campaign against Rome, Menenius is next in line to try. The patrician therefore travels to the enemy camp, where the First Watch tries to keep him from speaking with Coriolanus. But when Coriolanus shows up, Menenius speaks these lines. Initially addressing the First Watch, he insists that he is a person of influence and that no one can keep him from speaking to his “son.” Of course, Coriolanus is not Menenius’s son, but the patrician has long seen himself as a father figure to the younger warrior. Menenius then attempts to leverage this language of paternity to draw Coriolanus back into a relation of filial piety that would heal the Roman republic. But this parental bond is already broken, as indicated when Coriolanus later dismisses Menenius without further thought. The patrician seems already to anticipate this break, as suggested in the way his language echoes the heartrending words David speaks in the Bible upon learning of the death of his son: “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom” (2 Samuel 18:33).
