SOURCE: Waith, Eugene M. “The Herculean Hero.” In William Shakespeare's Coriolanus, edited by Harold Bloom, pp. 9-31. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1988.

[In the following essay, originally published in 1962, Waith dissects Coriolanus's character, finding him to be a praiseworthy, though flawed, hero. Waith maintains that Coriolanus's greatness may be observed in his valor, generosity, and his faithfulness to his personal honor.]

As Coriolanus marches on Rome at the head of a Volscian army, the Roman general, Cominius, describes him thus to his old enemies, the tribunes:

He is their god. He leads them like a thing
Made by some other deity than Nature,
That shapes man better; and they follow him
Against us brats with no less confidence
Than boys pursuing summer butterflies
Or butchers killing flies. …
.....                                                                                He will shake
Your Rome about your ears

(4.6,90-94, 98-99)

To which Menenius adds: “As Hercules / Did shake down mellow fruit.” In these words Coriolanus is not only presented as a god and compared to Hercules; he is “like a thing / Made by some other deity than Nature.” So extraordinary is he that even his troops, inspired by him, feel themselves to be as much superior to the Romans as boys to butterflies or butchers to flies. Like Menaphon's description of Tamburlaine (“Such breadth of shoulders as might mainly bear / Old Atlas' burthen”) and Cleopatra's of Antony (“His legs bestrid the ocean”), this description of Coriolanus is central to Shakespeare's depiction of his hero. His superhuman bearing and his opposition to Rome are the two most important facts about him.

The godlike qualities of Shakespeare's Coriolanus need to be emphasized in an era which has tended to belittle him. He has been treated recently as a delayed adolescent who has never come to maturity, a “splendid oaf [John Palmer],” a mother's boy, a figure so lacking in dignity that he cannot be considered a tragic hero. The catastrophe has been said to awaken amusement seasoned with contempt. In spite of some impressive protests against this denigration, the heroic stature of one of Shakespeare's largest figures remains somewhat obscured.

That he often cuts an unsympathetic figure (especially in the eyes of the twentieth century) is not surprising. His very superiority repels sympathy, while his aristocratic contempt of the plebeians shocks the egalitarian. His pride and anger provide a convenient and conventional basis of disapproval for those who share the tribunes' view that:

                                                                                          Caius Marcius was
A worthy officer i' th' war, but insolent,
O'ercome with pride, ambitious past all thinking,
Self-loving—

(4.6.29-32)

Pride and anger, as we have seen [elsewhere], are among the distinguishing characteristics of the Herculean hero; without them he would not be what he is.

In one major respect the story of Coriolanus departs from that of his heroic prototype: Coriolanus submits to the entreaties of Volumnia and spares Rome. At this moment he is more human and more humane than at any other in the play, and it is the decision of this moment which leads directly to his destruction. Ironically, the one action of which most of his critics approve is “most mortal” to him. He is murdered not so much because he is proud as because of an intermission in his pride.

The portrait of Coriolanus is built up by means of contrasts. Some of them are absolute, such as those with the people and the tribunes. Others are modified by resemblances: the contrasts with his fellow-patricians, his enemy Aufidius, and his mother Volumnia. Such a dialectical method of presentation is reminiscent of Seneca and recalls even more precisely the technique of Marlowe in Tamburlaine. Something closely akin to it is used in Bussy D'Ambois and Antony and Cleopatra. In all of these plays sharply divergent views of the hero call attention to an essential paradox in his nature. The technique is brilliantly suited to the dramatization of such heroes, but, as the critical response to these plays has shown, it has the disadvantage of stirring serious doubts about the genuineness of the heroism. Readers, as opposed to spectators, have been especially susceptible to these misgivings, since they had before them no actor to counter by the very nobility of his bearing the devastating effect of hostile views. Readers of Coriolanus seem to have adopted some or all of the opposition views of the hero's character.

The contrast between Coriolanus and the citizens of Rome is antipodal. Whatever he most basically is they are not, and this contrast is used as the introduction to his character. The “mutinous citizens” who occupy the stage as the play begins are not entirely a despicable lot. It is clear enough that they represent a dangerous threat to the established order, but some of them speak with wisdom and tolerance. For one citizen who opposes Coriolanus because “he's a very dog to the commonalty” (ll. 28-29) there is another who recalls the warrior's services to Rome, and resentment of his pride is balanced against recognition of his lack of covetousness. These citizens, in their opening words and later in their conversation with Menenius, are neither remarkably bright nor stupid, neither models of good nature nor of malice. They are average people, and this may be the most important point about them. Their failings are as common as their virtues: in both we see the limitations of their horizons. Incapable of heroic action themselves, they are equally incapable of understanding a heroic nature. The more tolerant citizen in the first scene excuses the pride of Coriolanus by saying he cannot help it (l. 42), and hence should not be judged too harshly. In a later scene the citizens complain to Coriolanus that he doesn't love them. One of them tells him that the price of the consulship is “to ask it kindly” (2.3.81), a demand which has received enthusiastic approval from several modern critics. The citizens want the great warrior to be jolly and friendly with them, so that they may indulge in the luxury of treating him as a lovable eccentric. From the moment of his first entrance it is obvious that he will never allow them this luxury.

The first impression we are given of him is of his intemperance and his scorn of the people. Menenius Agrippa, one that, in the words of the Second Citizen, “hath always loved the people,” has just cajoled them with his fable of the belly into a less rebellious mood when the warrior enters and delivers himself of a blistering tirade. The citizens are “dissentious rogues,” “scabs,” “curs,” “hares,” “geese,” finally “fragments.” He reminds them of their cowardice and inconstancy. But the most devastating part of his speech is the accusation that the citizens prefer to give their allegiance to a man humbled by a punishment which they will call unjust:

                                                                      Your virtue is
To make him worthy whose offense subdues him
And curse that justice did it.

(1.1.178-80)

What they cannot tolerate except in the crises of war is a greatness which lifts a man far beyond their reach.

In making his accusations Caius Marcius, as he is then called, reveals his reverence for valour, constancy and a great spirit, as well as his utter contempt for those who will never attain such virtues. We may suspect immediately what the rest of the play makes clear, that these are his own virtues. However, since they are displayed by a speech whose tone is so angry and contemptuous—so politically outrageous, when compared to the clever performance of Menenius—they are less apt to win liking than respect. We are confronted by the extraordinary in the midst of the average, a whole man amidst “fragments.”

In succeeding scenes with the citizenry the indications of the first scene are developed. The battle at Corioles, where he wins his cognomen Coriolanus, is of course the key scene for the demonstration of valour, “the chiefest virtue,” as Cominius later reminds the senators in describing the exploits of Coriolanus (2.2.87-88). Before the sally of the Volscians the Roman soldiers flee in miserable confusion, providing a pat example of their cowardice and bringing on themselves another volley of curses from their leader. Everything in the scene heightens the contrast between him and them. “I'll leave the foe / And make my wars on you!” he threatens; “Follow me!” (1.4.39-42). When his courageous pursuit of the Volscians into their city is followed by the closing of their gate we are presented with the ultimate contrast and an emblem of the hero's situation: he is one against the many, whether the many are enemies or fellow countrymen. As Shakespeare presents this astounding feat it borders on the supernatural. Coriolanus is given Herculean strength. The simple statement of a soldier sums it up: “He is himself alone, / To answer all the city (ll.51-52). Titus Lartius, supposing him dead, adds an encomium in which the qualities he has just demonstrated are converted into an icon:

A carbuncle entire, as big as thou art,
Were not so rich a jewel. Thou wast a soldier
Even to Cato's wish, not fierce and terrible
Only in strokes, but with thy grim looks and
The thunder-like percussion of thy sounds
Thou mad'st thine enemies shake, as if the world
Were feverous and did tremble.

(1.4.55-61)

When the battle is won, the soldiers set about plundering the city; Caius Marcius, matching his valour with generosity, refuses any reward but the name of Coriolanus which he has earned. No doubt there is a touch of pride in such conspicuous self-denial, but the magnificence of the gesture is what counts. It is not contrasted with true humility but with pusillanimity and covetousness.

Coriolanus is not indifferent to the opinion of others, but he insists upon being valued for his accomplishments, and not for “asking kindly”:

Better it is to die, better to starve,
Than crave the hire which first we do deserve.

(2.3.120-21)

The question of his absolute worth—the central question of the play—is posed in an uncompromising form in the scenes where Coriolanus is made to seek the approval of the citizens. Though his reluctance to boast of his exploits, to show his wounds, or to speak to the people with any genuine warmth does not immediately lose him their votes, it has cost him the approval of many critics. In itself, however, this reluctance stems from a virtue and a major one. He refuses to seem other than he is and refuses to change his principles to suit the situation. The citizens, meanwhile, unsure what to think, first give him their “voices,” and then are easily persuaded by the tribunes to change their minds. Again the contrast is pat, and however unlovely the rigidity of Coriolanus may be, its merit is plain when seen next to such paltry shifting. That it is a terrible and in some ways inhuman merit is suggested in the ironical words of the tribune Brutus: “You speak o' th' people / As if you were a god to punish, not / A man of their infirmity” (3.1.80-82). Later Menenius says without irony: “His nature is too noble for the world. / He would not flatter Neptune for his trident / Or Jove for's power to thunder” (3.1.255-57).

The greatness of Coriolanus is seen not only in his extraordinary valour and generosity but in his absolute rejection of anything in which he does not believe. In this scene he is urged to beg for something which he deserves, to flatter people whom he despises, and to conceal or modify his true beliefs. His refusal to do any of these things is manifested in a crescendo of wrath, defending his heroic integrity. The culmination is a violent denunciation of the plebeians for their ignorance, cowardice, disloyalty and inconsistency. Both friends and enemies attempt to stop the flow of this tirade, but Coriolanus rushes on with the force of an avalanche. The quality of the speech can be seen only in an extensive quotation:

                                                                                No, take more!
What may be sworn by, both divine and human,
Seal what I end withal! This double worship—
Where one part does disdain with cause, the other
Insult without all reason; where gentry, title, wisdom
Cannot conclude but by the yea and no
Of general ignorance—it must omit
Real necessities, and give way the while
To unstable slightness. Purpose so barr'd, it follows
Nothing is done to purpose. Therefore, beseech you—
You that will be less fearful than discreet;
That love the fundamental part of state
More than you doubt the change on't; that prefer
A noble life before a long, and wish
To jump a body with a dangerous physic
That's sure of death without it—at once pluck out
The multitudinous tongue; let them not lick
The sweet which is their poison. Your dishonour
Mangles true judgment, and bereaves the state
Of that integrity which should become't,
Not having the power to do the good it would
For th'ill which doth control't.

(3.1.140-61)

It seems almost impertinent to object to the lack of moderation in this speech. In the great tumble of words, whose forward movement is constantly altered and augmented by parenthetical developments, excess is as characteristic of the presentation as of the emotions expressed, yet one hardly feels that such excess is a matter of degree. What is conveyed here could not be brought within the range of a normally acceptable political statement by modifying here and there an overforceful phrase. It is of another order entirely, and excess is its mode of being. The words of Coriolanus's denunciation of the plebeians are the exact analogue of the sword-strokes with which he fights his way alone into Corioles. Rapid, violent and unbelievably numerous, they express the wrath which accompanies heroic valour. However horrifying they may be, they are also magnificent. Both approval and disapproval give way to awe, as they do in the terrible scenes of Hercules' wrath.

In the scenes which bring to a culmination the quarrel of Coriolanus and the Roman people the great voice of the hero is constantly surrounded by lesser voices which oppose it—the friends, who urge moderation, the tribunes, who foment discord, and the people, who respond to each new suggestion. The words “tongue,” “mouth” and “voice” are reiterated, “voice” often having the meaning of “vote.” We hear the scorn of Coriolanus for the voices of the many in his words: “The tongues o' th' common mouth,” “Have I had children's voices?” “Must these have voices, that can yield them now / And straight disclaim their tongues? … You being their mouths, why rule you not their teeth?” “at once pluck out / The multitudinous tongue” (3.1.22, 30, 34-36, 155-56). As for the hero, we are told by Menenius, “His heart's his mouth; / What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent” (3.1.257-58), and when, shortly after, the “multitudinous tongue” accuses him of being a traitor to the people, he makes the speech which leads directly to his banishment: “The fires i' th' lowest hell fold-in the people!” (3.3.68). It is the final answer of the heroic voice to the lesser voices.

The contrast is also realized dramatically in the movement of these scenes, for around the figure of Coriolanus, standing his ground and fighting, the crowd swirls and eddies. Coriolanus and the patricians enter to a flourish of trumpets; to them the tribunes enter. After the hero's lengthy denunciation of the people, they are sent for by the tribunes. The stage business is clearly indicated in the directions: “Enter a rabble of Plebeians with the Aediles.” “They all bustle about Coriolanus.” “Coriolanus draws his sword.” “In this mutiny the Tribunes, the Aediles, and the People are beat in.” “A noise within.” “Enter Brutus and Sicinius with the Rabble again” (3.1.180, 185, 223, 229, 260, 263).

If Shakespeare does not make the many-voiced, ceaselessly shifting people hateful, he also makes it impossible to respect them. M. W. MacCallum shows that while the people are given more reason to fear Coriolanus than they are in Plutarch, their original uprising is made considerably less justifiable. Whether or not Shakespeare reveals a patrician bias in his portrayal of them, there can be no doubt that he shares the distrust of popular government common to his time. Condescension qualifies whatever sympathy he shows.

Coriolanus cannot be condescended to. He belongs to another world, as he makes clear in his final denunciation of the people in response to their verdict of banishment:

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! …
.....                                                                                                                        Despising
For you the city, thus I turn my back.
There is world elsewhere.

(3.3.120-23, 133-35)

That world is the forbidding world of heroes, from which he promises his friends:

                                                                                          you shall
Hear from me still, and never of me aught
But what is like me formerly.

(4.1.51-53)

The tribunes are portrayed much less favourably than the people, though, surprisingly, they have eager apologists among the critics. Less foolish than the plebeians, they are more malicious. Motivated by political ambition, they provoke sedition, encouraging the plebeians to change their votes, and baiting Coriolanus with insults. When the exiled Coriolanus is marching on Rome “like a thing / Made by some other deity than nature,” they appear almost as small and insignificant as the people themselves.

The contrast with these scheming politicians establishes the honesty of Coriolanus and his lack of ulterior motives. He has political convictions rather than ambitions. Though he believes that his services to Rome deserve the reward of the consulship, the wielding of political power does not in itself interest him, nor is it necessary to him as an expression of authority. He is dictatorial without being like a modern dictator. The tribunes, who accuse him of pride, are fully as jealous of their prerogatives as he is, and far more interested in increasing them. Coriolanus's nature, compared to theirs, seems both larger and more pure.

Certain aspects of this heroic nature come out most clearly in contrasts between Coriolanus and his fellow patricians. Menenius is to Coriolanus what Horatio is to Hamlet. Horatio's poise and his freedom from the tyranny of passion show him to be what would be called today a “better adjusted” person than Hamlet; yet Hamlet's lack of what he admires in his friend reveals the stresses of a much rarer nature. No one mistakes Horatio for a hero. Similarly, Menenius is far better than Coriolanus at “getting on” with people. In the first scene of the play his famous fable of the belly, told with a fine combination of good humour and firmness, calms the plebeians. When Coriolanus, after his glorious victory, objects to soliciting votes by showing his wounds in the Forum, Menenius urges, “Pray you go fit you to the custom” (2.2.146). After the banishment he says to the tribunes in a conciliating fashion, “All's well, and might have been much better if / He could have temporiz'd” (4.6.16-17). Menenius's ability to temporize and fit himself to the custom has made him liked on all sides, but this striking evidence of political success does not guarantee him the unqualified respect of the spectator. Dennis erred only in exaggerating, when he called Menenius a buffoon.

In contrast to this jolly patrician, always ready to compromise, the austerity and fixity of Coriolanus stand out. To Plutarch, writing as a moralist and historian, it is lamentable that Coriolanus lacks “the gravity and affability that is gotten with judgement of learning and reason, which only is to be looked for in a governor of state,” but though the lack is equally apparent in Shakespeare's tragedy, the conclusion to be drawn differs as the point of view of tragedy differs from that of history. Plutarch judges Coriolanus as a potential governor. He finds that a deficient education has made him “too full of passion and choler” and of wilfulness, which Plutarch says “is the thing of the world, which a governor of a commonwealth for pleasing should shun, being that which Plato called solitariness.” The tragedy of Coriolanus, for all its political concern, is not contrived to expose either the deficiencies of the protagonist as a governor (though all the evidence is presented) or the unreliability of the plebeians and their representatives (which could be taken for granted). What Shakespeare insists on is an extraordinary force of will and a terrible “solitariness” characteristic of this hero. No contrast in the play brings these out more clearly than the contrast with Menenius.

The change in emphasis from history to the heroic is clearly evident in Shakespeare's treatment of Aufidius. In Plutarch's account he is not mentioned until the time of the banishment, when Coriolanus offers himself as a general to the Volsces. At this point, however, Plutarch states that Aufidius was noble and valiant, that the two had often encountered in battle and that they had “a marvellous private hate one against the other.” From these hints Shakespeare makes the figure of the worthy antagonist, who is a part of the story of so many heroes. The rivalry is mentioned in the very first scene of the play, and is made one of the deepest motives of the hero's conduct. He envies the nobility of Aufidius,

And were I anything but what I am,
I would wish me only he. …
Were half to half the world by th'ears, and he
Upon my party, I'd revolt, to make
Only my wars with him. He is a lion
That I am proud to hunt.

(1.1.235-40)

To fight with Aufidius is the ultimate test of Coriolanus's valour—of his warrior's areté. And because the rival warrior most nearly shares his own ideals, the relationship takes on an intense intimacy. Shakespeare introduces Aufidius unhistorically into the battle at Corioles. We discover that although Aufidius reciprocates the feelings of Coriolanus, he is prepared after his defeat at Corioles to use dishonourable means, if necessary, to destroy his enemy, but of this Coriolanus knows nothing, nor is there any hint of it when Aufidius later welcomes Coriolanus as an ally:

                                                                                          Let me twine
Mine arms about that body whereagainst
My grained ash an hundred times hath broke
And scarr'd the moon with splinters. …
.....                                                                                Know thou first,
I lov'd the maid I married; never man
Sigh'd truer breath. But that I see thee here,
Thou noble thing, more dances my rapt heart
Than when I first my wedded mistress saw
Bestride my threshold.

(4.5.111-14, 118-23)

Plutarch's Aufidius makes only a brief and formal speech acknowledging the honour Coriolanus does him. Shakespeare's invention of a long speech, loaded with the metaphors of love, is the more striking at this point, since the preceding speech by Coriolanus follows Plutarch very closely indeed. The strong bond between the rival warriors is obviously important.

It is sometimes thought highly ironic that Coriolanus, who prides himself on his constancy, should be guilty of the supreme inconstancy of treason to his country. In fact, however reprehensible he may be, he is not inconstant. Shakespeare makes it clear that his first allegiance is always to his personal honour. The fickleness of the mob and the scheming of the tribunes have deprived him of his deserts, much as Agamemnon's seizure of Briseis deprives Achilles. Both this threat to his honour and an ambivalent love-hatred draw Coriolanus to the enemy whom he considers almost an alter ego.

Resemblances or fancied resemblances between the two warriors establish the supremacy of the heroic ideal in Coriolanus's scale of values, but we cannot doubt which of them more nearly encompasses the ideal. As we watch the progress of their alliance, we see Aufidius becoming increasingly jealous and finally working for the destruction of his rival even while he treats him almost as a mistress. In defence of his conduct he asserts that Coriolanus has seduced his friends with flattery, but there is no evidence to support this unlikely accusation. Malice and double-dealing are quite absent from the nature of Coriolanus.

The ill-will mixed with Aufidius's love serves another purpose than contrast, however: it adds considerable weight to his praise of Coriolanus to other characters, such as that contained in a long speech to his lieutenant:

All places yield to him ere he sits down,
And the nobility of Rome are his;
The senators and patricians love him too.
The tribunes are no soldiers, and their people
Will be as rash in the repeal as hasty
To expel him thence. I think he'll be to Rome
As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it
By sovereignty of nature. First he was
A noble servant to them, but he could not
Carry his honours even. Whether 'twas pride,
Which out of daily fortune ever taints
The happy man; whether defect of judgment,
To fail in the disposing of those chances
Which he was lord of; or whether nature,
Not to be other than one thing, not moving
From th' casque to th' cushion, but commanding peace
Even with the same austerity and garb
As he controll'd the war; but one of these
(As he hath spices of them all, not all,
For I dare so far free him) made him fear'd,
So hated, and so banish'd. But he has a merit
To choke it in the utt'rance. So our virtues
Lie in th' interpretation of the time;
And power, unto itself most commendable,
Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair
T'extol what it hath done.
One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail;
Rights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail.
Come, let's away. When, Caius, Rome is thine,
Thou art poor'st of all; then shortly art thou mine.

(4.7.28-57)

Surely, what is most remarkable in this account of failure is the emphasis on virtue. One thinks of Monsieur, telling Guise that Nature's gift of virtue is responsible for the death to which Bussy hastens at that very moment, led on by plots of Monsieur's contriving. In both cases the interests of the speaker are so exactly contrary to the tenor of their remarks that the character-analysis is given the force of absolute truth. Aufidius's speech has to be taken in its entirety, so dependent are its component parts on one another. Its frame is a realistic appraisal of the situation at Rome and of his own malicious purposes. Within is an intricate structure of praise and underlies the entire speech: the superiority of Coriolanus to Rome is as much in the order of nature as is the predominance of the osprey, who was thought to have the power of fascinating fish. Next comes Coriolanus's lack of equilibrium, a point which the play has thoroughly established. Aufidius then mentions three possible causes of failure, carefully qualifying the list by saying that in all probability only one was operative. Pride, the first, is presented as the natural temptation of the happy man, as it is in the medieval conception of fortune's wheel. The defect of judgment, mentioned next, recalls the contrast with Menenius, and the patent inability of Coriolanus to take advantage of his situation—to dispose “of those chances / Which he was lord of.” Thus, the first cause of failure is a generic fault of the fortunate, while the second is a fault which distinguishes Coriolanus from a lesser man. The third is the inflexibility which makes him austere and fierce at all times. This is not only the most persuasive as an explanation of his troubles but is also the most characteristic of him. The comments which follow immediately—on the “merit to choke it in the utt'rance” and the virtues which “lie in th' interpretation of the time”—suggest redeeming features. They are not simply good qualities which can be balanced against the bad, but virtues inherent in some of the faults which have just been enumerated, or qualities which might be interpreted as either virtues or faults. The inflexibility is the best example. It is closely related to the other faults, to the lack of equilibrium, the pride, and the defect of judgment. Yet it is impossible to regard Coriolanus's refusal to compromise as entirely a fault. It is also his greatest strength. The concluding lines of the speech put forth a paradox even more bewildering, that power, rights and strengths often destroy themselves. Aufidius need only wait for his rival's success to have him in his power. The final emphasis falls entirely on virtue, with no mention of weakness or deficiency.

The eloquent couplet which sums up this paradox,

One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail;
Rights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail

is very like the lines … from Chapman's nearly contemporaneous Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron:

We have not any strength but weakens us,
No greatness but doth crush us into air.
Our knowledges do light us but to err.

From this melancholy point of view the hero is only more certainly doomed than the average man.

Next to Coriolanus Volumnia is the most interesting character in the play—the Roman mother, whose influence over her son is so great and ultimately so fatal. In the first scene a citizen says of Coriolanus's services to Rome, “Though soft-conscienc'd 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” (ll. 37-41). In the last act Coriolanus says,

                                                            O my mother, mother! O!
You have won a happy victory to Rome;
But for your son—believe it, O believe it!—
Most dangerously you have with him prevail'd,
If not most mortal to him.

(5.3.185-89)

But powerful and obvious as this influence is, it should not be allowed to obscure the major differences between mother and son. Volumnia belongs to the world which Coriolanus, as hero, both opposes and seeks to redeem. She represents the city of Rome much more completely than Zenocrate represents the city of Damascus. She is by far the strongest of the forces which Rome brings to bear on him, and much of her strength derives from the fact that she seems at first so thoroughly committed to everything in which he believes. Only gradually do we discover what she truly represents.

In her first scene she is every inch the mother of a warrior, shocking timid Virgilia with grim speeches about a soldier's honour. We next see her welcome Coriolanus after his victory at Corioles, and make the significant remark that only one thing is wanting to fulfil her dreams—one thing “which I doubt not but / Our Rome will cast upon thee” (2.1.217-18)—obviously the consulship. Her son's reply foreshadows the conflict between them:

                                                            Know, good mother,
I had rather be their servant in my way
Than sway with them in theirs.

(2.1.218-20)

Volumnia wants power for her son as much as Lady Macbeth wants it for her husband. Coriolanus wants above all to do things “in his way.”

Close to the center of the play occurs the first of the two conflicts between mother and son. There is no basis for the scene in Plutarch. It is an addition of great importance, contributing to the characterization of the principals and preparing for the famous interview in which Coriolanus is deterred from his vengeance on Rome. The issues engaged here are what separate Coriolanus from every other character.

He has just delivered his lengthy excoriation of the people, and is being urged by his friends to apologize. As Volumnia enters he asks her if she would wish him to be milder—to be false to his nature, and she, who proclaimed to Virgilia that life was not too great a price to pay for honour, gives him an answer based solely on political expediency: “I would have had you put your power well on, / Before you had worn it out” (3.2.17-18). She observes with great shrewdness, “You might have been enough the man you are / With striving less to be so,” but she adds a sentence which shows that what she is advocating is politic concealment of Coriolanus's true nature:

                                                            Lesser had been
The thwarting of your dispositions, if
You had not show'd them how ye were dispos'd
Ere they lack'd power to cross you.

(ll. 19-23)

In the previous scene, where Coriolanus defied the people and the tribunes, the sincerity of his voice as compared to theirs was expressed in Menenius's words, “His heart's his mouth; / What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent.” The same imagery is caught up here in the words in which Volumnia characterizes her attitude towards apologizing:

I have a heart as little apt as yours,
But yet a brain that leads my use of anger
To better vantage.

(ll. 29-31)

It is not in the least surprising that Menenius applauds this speech, as he does a later and longer one in which Volumnia urges Coriolanus to speak to the people not what his heart prompts,

But with such words that are but roted in
Your tongue, though but bastards and syllables
Of no allowance to your bosom's truth.

(ll. 55-57)

Heart opposes the politician's brain and the orator's tongue in these speeches as honour opposes policy, even though Volumnia tries, by a specious parallel with the tactics of war, to persuade her son that honour can be mixed with a little policy and no harm done. Coriolanus, whom she accuses of being “too absolute,” sees plainly that the two are not compatible:

                                                                                                                        Must I
With my base tongue give to my noble heart
A lie that it must bear?

(ll. 99-101)

Volumnia has aligned herself firmly with the advocates of policy: that is, of compromise and hypocrisy. Without admitting it, she is one of the enemies of the “noble heart.”

Under the stress of her passionate urging (she does not hesitate to mention that she will undoubtedly die with the rest of them if he refuses to take her advice), Coriolanus finally agrees to conceal his true nature, as Bussy, at the request of Tamyra, agrees that “policy shall be flanked with policy.” Some critics, taking a line similar to that of Volumnia, have chided Coriolanus for going from one extreme to another in his response to his mother. He says:

                                                                                                    Well, I must do't.
Away, my disposition, and possess me
Some harlot's spirit!

(ll. 110-12)

It is very difficult, however, to deny the keenness of his perception. He has agreed with great reluctance to do as his mother wishes, but he is well aware that she is asking him to betray an ideal and to sell himself.

The drama of this confrontation is infinitely heightened by our awareness that Volumnia desires more than anything else the honour of her son, though she, rather than his enemies, moves him towards the loss of it. In the following scene the tribunes are largely responsible for Coriolanus's reassertion of his heroic integrity. In words which fit into the now familiar imagery Brutus announces their strategy for provoking another outburst:

Put him to choler straight …
.....                                                                                Being once chaf'd, he cannot
Be rein'd again to temperance; then he speaks
What's in his heart, and that is there which looks
With us to break his neck.

(3.3.25, 27-30)

The successful execution of their plan makes Coriolanus go back on his promise to dissimulate, and leads to his banishment. The city on which he turns his back to seek “a world elsewhere” is made up of his friends and his foes, but at this point in the play it is clear that they all belong almost equally to the world which he rejects.

The last two acts of the play are illuminated by the implications of the words, “There is a world elsewhere.” The world which Coriolanus now inhabits is neither the world of the Romans nor that of the Volscians. It is a world of absolutes—the world, as I have already suggested, of heroes. When Cominius comes to intercede for Rome, he refuses to answer to his name, insisting that he must forge a new name in the fire of burning Rome; he sits “in gold, his eye / Red as 'twould burn Rome” (5.1.11-15, 63-64). The fierceness of his adherence to his principles has translated him almost beyond humanity. Menenius is rejected in his turn, with the comment: “This man, Aufidius, / Was my belov'd in Rome; yet thou behold'st.” “You keep a constant temper,” Aufidius replies (5.2.98-100). The loss of humanity is brought out again in the half-humorous description given by Menenius:

The tartness of his face sours ripe grapes. When he walks, he moves like an engine, and the ground shrinks before his treading. He is able to pierce a corslet with his eye, talks like a knell, and his hum is a battery. He sits in his state, as a thing made for Alexander. What he bids be done is finish'd with his bidding. He wants nothing of a god but eternity and a heaven to throne in.

(5.4.18-26)

The hard metallic imagery which G. Wilson Knight has noted throughout the play is very telling in this passage. Coriolanus has steeled himself to become a Tamburlaine and administer divine chastisement, refusing to be softened by considerations of friendship.

Unlike Tamburlaine, however, Shakespeare's Herculean hero finds that in despising a petty and corrupt world he is also denying nature. Tamburlaine is obliged to accept the limitations of nature only when he is faced with death; the situation forces Coriolanus to submit sooner. As Hermann Heuer says, “‘Nature’ becomes the keyword of the great scene” of the hero's second conflict with his formidable mother. As he sees them approach, the battle is already engaged in his mind between nature and heroic constancy:

Shall I be tempted to infringe my vow
In the same time 'tis made? I will not.

(5.3.20-21)

And a moment later:

                                                                                          But out, affection!
All bond and privilege of nature, break!
Let it be virtuous to be obstinate.

(ll. 24-26)

                                                                                          I'll never
Be such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand
As if a man were author of himself
And knew no other kin.

(ll. 34-36)

Nowhere in the play is the conflict between the heroic and the human more clear-cut. Only the demigod which Coriolanus aspires to be could resist the appeal made by Volumnia and Virgilia. Tamburlaine could refuse Zenocrate before the gates of Damascus, but Marlowe made him more nearly the embodiment of a myth. Coriolanus belongs to a more familiar world and his tragedy can be put very generally as the impossibility in this world, as in the world of Bussy D'Ambois, of reliving a myth. Heroic aspiration is not proof here against the urgent reality of human feelings. Already sensing his weakness, Coriolanus begs Virgilia not to urge forgiveness of the Romans, and to Volumnia he says:

                                                                                Do not bid me
Dismiss my soldiers or capitulate
Again with Rome's mechanics. Tell me not
Wherein I seem unnatural. Desire not
T'allay my rages and revenges with
Your colder reasons.

(ll. 81-86)

There is unconscious irony in the phrase, “colder reasons,” for Volumnia's appeal is nothing if not emotional. It begins and ends with the pitiable plight of Coriolanus's family—a direct assault upon his feelings and instincts. Enclosed in this context is the appeal to his honour. No longer does Volumnia urge mixing honour with policy. It is her strategy now to make the course she recommends appear to be dictated by pure honour. She suggests that if he makes peace between the two sides, even the Volscians will respect him (presumably overlooking his abandonment of their cause), while if he goes on to conquer Rome he will wipe out the nobility of his name. Honour as she now presents it is a godlike sparing of offenders:

Think'st thou it honourable for a noble man
Still to remember wrongs?

(ll. 154-55)

The final, and successful, appeal, however, is personal:

This fellow had a Volscian to his mother;
His wife is in Corioles, and this child
Like him by chance.

(ll. 178-80)

Aufidius, shortly after, shows that he has understood perfectly the essential nature of the appeal:

I am glad thou hast set thy mercy and thy honour
At difference in thee. Out of that I'll work
Myself a former fortune.

(ll. 200-202)

I have emphasized Volumnia's rhetorical strategy more than the validity of her arguments, because it is important that Coriolanus is broken by a splendid oration. Eloquence, as is well known, was highly prized by the Elizabethans, and we have seen it in Tamburlaine as a further evidence of heroic superiority. But the rhetorical training of the Elizabethans made them acutely aware of the trickiness of oratory, and eloquence on their stage could be a danger-signal as well as a badge of virtue. The case of Volumnia's appeal to Coriolanus is as far from being clear-cut as it could be. The plea for mercy and the forgetting of injuries commands assent; yet one is well aware that the nature of the injuries, and hence the validity of the vow Coriolanus has taken, are never mentioned. If the matter were to be discussed in the manner of the debate in the Trojan council in Troilus and Cressida, it would be a question of whether true honour lay in revenging or forgiving an undoubted injury, and whether the hero's loyalty at this point should be to the city which exiled him or to the city whose forces he now leads. As it is, Volumnia's rhetoric identifies the cause of mercy with the lives of the pleaders, and Coriolanus must choose between his vow and his family. He must indeed defy nature if he resists his mother's plea. Of this she is very well aware, and she plays on her son's attachment to her just as she had done previously, when urging on him a course of moderate hypocrisy. After her victory, judgment between the conflicting issues remains as puzzling as it was before.

When Volumnia's lack of principle and her association with the political world of Rome are fully perceived, it becomes more difficult to be sure of the significance of Coriolanus's capitulation. We know from him that it is likely to be “most mortal,” and we know that Aufidius will do whatever he can to make it so. We know, that is, that the hero is now a broken man, but has he been ennobled by choosing the course glorified by Volumnia's eloquence? This is not the impression made by the last scenes. MacCallum says, “Still this collapse of Coriolanus's purpose means nothing more than the victory of his strongest impulse. There is no acknowledgement of offence, there is no renovation of character.” His choice is a recognition of the claims of nature, but this recognition makes possible no new affirmation such as Antony's after the bitterness of his defeat. Nature, as amoral as fecund, seems to melt the valour and stoic integrity of Antony, but in the new growth stimulated by this nature, valour and integrity appear again, transformed. To Coriolanus nature comes in the guise of a moral duty, which is also a temptation to betray his principles. The idea of fecundity is present only as Volumnia uses it for a persuasive weapon, threatening him with the horror of treading on his mother's womb. The melting that follows this persuasion leads to mere destruction. Nature, instead of opening a new way to the hero, blocks an old one and teaches him his mortal finitude.

The decision Coriolanus is asked to make is an impossible one. In the situation as Shakespeare presents it, it is almost inconceivable that he should deny the claims made by Volumnia; yet in acknowledging them he accomplishes nothing positively good. He avoids an act of shocking inhumanity and thereby surrenders control of his world to the forces of policy and compromise—the enemies of the “noble heart.” Volumnia and Virgilia are hailed by the Romans, whose one thought is gratefulness to be alive. In Corioles Aufidius contrives the assassination of the hero, who is of no further use. What Coriolanus says of the scene of his submission might be applied to the entire ending of the play:

                                                                                Behold, the heavens do ope,
The gods look down, and this unnatural scene
They laugh at.

(5.3.183-85)

For if the natural order seems to be preserved when Coriolanus decides to spare his country, it is wrecked when the one man of principle is defeated and then murdered. The colossal folly of destroying what far outweighs everything that is preserved is sufficient to provoke the laughter of the gods.

Yet the play does not end on the note of ironic laughter. The final note is affirmation. There is no new vision to affirm and no transcendent world to which the hero willingly goes. Coriolanus will not “join flames with Hercules.” What the last scene of the play affirms with compelling force is the value of what the world is losing in the death of the hero. The incident of the assassination dramatizes the essential heroism which Coriolanus has displayed throughout the action. Instead of the comfort of an apotheosis we are given the tragic fact of irremediable loss. After the success of the conspiracy even Aufidius is “struck with sorrow,” and closes the play with the prophecy: “Yet he shall have a noble memory.”

The handling of the assassination scene restores a much needed clarity after the puzzling ambiguities of Coriolanus's submission to his mother. Envy, meanness, and an underhand way of seeking revenge all make Aufidius the equivalent of the tribunes in earlier scenes. He baits Coriolanus in a similar way and provokes an exactly comparable self-assertion on the part of the hero. As the accusation “traitor” inflamed him before, it does so again, but here there is an interesting difference. After calling him traitor, Aufidius addresses him as Marcius, stripping him of his title of Coriolanus, and finally calls him “thou boy of tears” (5.6.84-99), referring of course to his giving in to his mother's plea. Coriolanus protests each term, but it is “boy” which raises him to the height of his rage:

                                                                                                              Boy! O slave!
.....Cut me to pieces, Volsces. Men and lads,
Stain all your edges on me. Boy? False hound!
If you have writ your annals true, 'tis there,
That, like an eagle in a dovecote, I
Flutter'd your Volscians in Corioles.
Alone I did it. Boy?

(5.6.103, 111-16)

What hurts most is the impugning of his manhood—his heroic virtus. He asserts it by the magnificently foolhardy reminiscence of his singlehanded victory over the very people he is addressing—“Alone I did it.” His words recall the earlier description of him, “He is himself alone, / To answer all the city” (1.4.51-52). Shakespeare's alteration of history, making Coriolanus “alone” is one of the touches which reveals most unequivocally his heroic conception of the character. In Coriolanus the opposition of the individual might of the hero to the superior forces of nature and fate is pushed to the uttermost.

It is characteristic of Shakespeare's Coriolanus that he resents “boy” more than “traitor,” for it is clear throughout that the honour and integrity to which Coriolanus is committed are intensely personal. In this respect he resembles Antony in his final moments. When James Thomson wrote his Coriolanus in the middle of the eighteenth century, he reversed the order of the accusations. Thomson's Tullus does not call Coriolanus “boy,” but he reminds him of his capitulation and condescendingly offers to protect him from the Volscians. Coriolanus, in return, recalls his victory at Corioles, though he says nothing of being alone. Tullus then insults the Romans and finally accuses Coriolanus of being a traitor both to them and to the Volscians. To the slurs on Rome Coriolanus replies:

Whate'er her blots, whate'er her giddy factions,
There is more virtue in one single year
Of Roman story, than your Volscian annals
Can boast thro' all your creeping dark duration!

This patriotic emphasis, which Thomson presumably felt necessary as a means of getting sympathy for his hero, makes all the plainer the consequences of Shakespeare's climactic emphasis on Coriolanus as an individual who can never be completely assimilated into a city, his own or another.

John Philip Kemble's acting version combined Thomson and Shakespeare. He kept the patriotic defence of Rome from Thomson, but followed it with the speeches from Shakespeare prompted by the accusation “traitor.” The culmination of the interchange is once more the hero's indignant repetition of “boy!,” which Kemble made memorable by his way of saying it. Slightly later, Macready was especially pleased that he could rival Kemble's success in the inflection of this crucial monosyllable. These actors, who made “boy!” the high point of their portrayal of heroic dignity, were much closer to the core of Shakespeare's character than are the critics who see him as in fact boyish and small. The whole effect of the last scene depends on a recognition very similar to Cleopatra's after the death of Antony:

The soldier's pole is fall'n! Young boys and girls
Are level now with men. The odds is gone,
And there is nothing left remarkable
Beneath the visiting moon.

(4.15.65-68)

Coriolanus is angular, granitic, and hence unlovable. Antony's faults are much more easily forgiven than this obduracy. Yet of the two it is Coriolanus who more certainly commands respect and veneration.