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Coriolanus’s Name
When we first meet him, the play’s protagonist goes by the name Caius Martius. By the end of the first act, he earns the surname “Coriolanus” as an honorific for his feats of heroism in the victory against the Volscians in the city of Corioles. Of this new honorific, Cominius declares: “Bear / Th’ addition nobly ever!” (1.9.71–72). In the language of Shakespeare’s time, addition meant “title.” However, it could also refer to a mark of honor added to a family’s coat of arms. Coriolanus himself suggests this second meaning when he responds, “I mean to stride your steed and at all times / To undercrest your good addition / To th’ fairness of my power” (1.9.77–79). The image here likens a steed supporting a rider to a decorative figure that supports a crest on a coat of arms. In other words, the name “Coriolanus” becomes a symbol of honor. Ironically, however, the very honor that wins him his addition shortly leads to his banishment, when his refusal to perform the nobility enshrined in the name “Coriolanus” earns him the commoners’ ire. By the play’s end, Caius Martius’s honorific is all but stripped away when Aufidius deems him a traitor and calls him “thou boy of tears” (5.6.120).
Coriolanus’s Wounds
When Coriolanus emerges from the fray of battle at the conclusion of act 1, his body is covered with the wounds of war. For his admirers among the patricians, these wounds powerfully symbolize his heroism. Even before the battle at Corioles has taken place, Coriolanus’s mother Volumnia fantasizes about her son’s “bloody brow” (1.3.37) and waxes poetic about the nobility of gore: “It 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” (42–46). In act 2, Coriolanus’s wounds become a key fetish object in the push to elect him consul of Rome. As the senators urge him to go before the common people to solicit their favor, they insist that he show them his wounds and thereby demonstrate his honorable service to the republic. Yet Coriolanus resists such a theatrical show of his body: “I cannot / Put on the gown, stand naked, and entreat them / For my wounds’ sake to give their suffrage” (2.2.158–61). His wounds are a matter for private honor rather than public ceremony—an attitude that ultimately offends the commoners and leads to his banishment.
Toga
In act 2, the patricians nominate Coriolanus to the position of consul and instruct him to go before the plebeians 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. The key symbol of this humility is a simple white toga. This garment, which is also referred to here as a “gown of humility” (2.3.42) as well as “the humble weed” (246), 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?” (2.3.125–27). 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.
