ADDITIONAL PASSAGES
Q gives this more expansive version of Marina’s Epitaph (18.34
’The fairest, sweetest, best lies here,
Who withered in her spring of year.
She was of Tyrus the King’s daughter,
On whom foul death hath made this slaughter.
Marina was she called, and at her birth
Thetis, being proud, swallowed some part o‘th’ earth;
Therefore the earth, fearing to be o’erflowed,
Hath Thetis’ birth-child on the heav‘ns bestowed,
Wherefore she does, and swears she’ll never stint,
Make raging batt’ry upon shores of flint.’
CORIOLANUS
FOR Coriolanus, Shakespeare turned once more to Roman history as told by Plutarch and translated by Sir Thomas North in the Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans published in 1579. This time he dramatized early events, not much subsequent to those he had written about many years previously in The Rape of Lucrece. Plutarch gave him most of his material, but he also drew on other writings, including William Camden’s Remains of a Greater Work Concerning Britain, published in 1605, for Menenius’ fable of the belly (I.I) Though he needed no source other than Plutarch for the insurrections and corn riots of ancient Rome, similar happenings in England during 1607 and 1608 may have stimulated his interest in the story. The cumulative evidence suggests that Coriolanus, first printed in the 1623 Folio, is Shakespeare’s last Roman play, written around 1608.
In the fifth century BC, following the expulsion of the Tarquins, Rome was an aristocratically controlled republic in which power was invested primarily in two annually elected magistrates, or consuls. For many years the main issues confronting the republic were the internal class struggle between patricians and plebeians, and the external struggle for domination over neighbouring peoples. Among the republic’s early enemies were the Volsci (or Volscians), who inhabited an area to the south and south-east of Rome; their towns included Antium and Corioli. According to ancient historians, Rome’s greatest leader in campaigns against the Volsci was the patrician Gnaeus (or Caius) Marcius, who, at a time of famine which caused the plebeians to rebel against the patricians, led an army against the Volsci and captured Corioli; as a reward he was granted the cognomen, or surname, of Coriolanus. After this he is said to have been charged with behaving tyrannically in opposing the distribution of corn to starving plebeians, and as a result to have abandoned Rome, joined the Volsci, and led a Volscian army against his native city.
This is the story of conflict between public and private issues that Shakespeare dramatizes, concentrating on the later part of Plutarch’s Life and speeding up its time-scheme, while also alluding retrospectively to earlier incidents. He increases the responsibility of the Tribunes, Sicinius Velutus and Junius Brutus, for Coriolanus’ banishment, and greatly develops certain characters, such as the Volscian leader Tullus Aufidius and the patrician Menenius Agrippa. The roles of the womenfolk are almost entirely of Shakespeare’s devising up to the scene (5.3) of their embassy; here, as in certain other set speeches, Shakespeare draws heavily on the language of North’s translation.
Coriolanus is an austere play, gritty in style, deeply serious in its concern with the relationship between personal characteristics and national destiny, but relieved by flashes of comedy (especially in the scenes in which Coriolanus begs for the plebeians’ votes in his election campaign for the consulship) which are more apparent on the stage than on the page. Though Coriolanus is arrogant, choleric, and self-centered, he is also a blazingly successful warrior, conspicuous for integrity, who ultimately yields to a tenderness which, he knows, will destroy him. Coriolanus is a deeply human as well as a profoundly political play.
THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY
VOLUMNIA, Coriolanus’ mother
VIRGILIA, his wife
YOUNG MARTIUS, his son
VALERIA, a chaste lady of Rome
CITIZENS of Rome
SOLDIERS in the Roman army
Tullus AUFIDIUS, general of the Volscian army
His LIEUTENANT
His SERVINGMEN
CONSPIRATORS with Aufidius
Volscian LORDS
Volscian CITIZENS
SOLDIERS in the Volscian army
ADRIAN, a Volscian
NICANOR, a Roman
A Roman HERALD
MESSENGERS
AEDILES
A gentlewoman, an usher, Roman and Volscian senators and nobles, captains in the Roman army, officers, lictors
The Tragedy of Coriolanus
1.1 Enter a company of mutinous Citizens with staves, clubs, and other weapons
FIRST CITIZEN Before we proceed any further, hear me speak.
ALL Speak, speak.
FIRST CITIZEN You are all resolved rather to die than to famish? ALL Resolved, resolved.
FIRST CITIZEN First, you know Caius Martius is chief enemy to the people.
ALL We know’t, we know’t.
FIRST CITIZEN Let us kill him, and we’ll have corn at our own price. Is’t a verdict?
ALL No more talking on’t, let it be done. Away, away. SECOND CITIZEN One word, good citizens.
FIRST CITIZEN We are accounted poor citizens, the patricians good. What authority surfeits on would relieve us. 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. The leanness that afflicts us, the object of our misery, is as an inventory to particularize their abundance; our sufferance is a gain to them. Let us revenge this with our pikes ere we become rakes; for the gods know I speak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge.
SECOND CITIZEN Would you proceed especially against Caius Martius?
⌈THIRD CITIZEN⌉ Against him first.
⌈FOURTH CITIZEN⌉ He’s a very dog to the commonalty.
SECOND CITIZEN Consider you what services he has done for his country?
FIRST CITIZEN Very well, and could be content to give him good report for’t, but that he pays himself with being proud.
⌈FIFTH CITIZEN⌉ Nay, but speak not maliciously.
FIRST CITIZEN I say unto you, what he hath done famously, he did it to that end—though soft-conscienced men can be content to say ‘it was for his country’, ‘he did it to please his mother, and to be partly proud’—which he is even to the altitude of his virtue.
SECOND CITIZEN What he cannot help in his nature you account a vice in him. You must in no way say he is covetous.
FIRST CITIZEN If I must not, I need not be barren of accusations. He hath faults, with surplus, to tire in repetition.
Shouts within
What shouts are these? The other side o’th’ city is
risen. Why stay we prating here? To th’ Capitol!
ALL Come, come.
Enter Menenius
FIRST CITIZEN Soft, who comes here?
SECOND CITIZEN Worthy Menenius Agrippa, one that hath always loved the people.
FIRST CITIZEN He’s one honest enough. Would all the rest were so!