Or Jove for's power to thunder. His heart's his mouth:
- Act III, scene i, lines 254-56
Jupiter (Jove) has the lightning bolt as his chief weapon. Neptune's trident ("three teeth") is the three-pointed spear with which he (like Triton and his shell) calmed the waves or drove them to fury. Both lightning bolt and trident were unique attributes, and if Coriolanus would not stoop to beg for them, how much less would he stoop for a mere consulship.
And yet does Menenius really believe that this is a sign of nobility-or of stupidity? In his very next speech, he bursts out:
What the vengeance!
Could he not speak 'em fair?
- Act III, scene i, lines 261-62
When the plebeians return, Menenius just barely manages to talk them out of their determination for instant execution and gains Coriolanus the chance of a trial.
/ muse my mother
Coriolanus is at home, utterly unrepentant. He feels he has done completely right and would do it again at whatever risk. Only one thing bothers him. His mother, somehow, is not happy. Coriolanus says:
/ muse my mother
Does not approve me further, who was wont
To call them [the plebeians] woolen vassals...
- Act III, scene ii, lines 7-9
And when his mother conies in, he says to her in a child's aggrieved tone:
I talk of you:
Why did you wish me milder?
Would you have me False to my nature?
Rather say I play The man I am.
- Act III, scene ii, lines 13-16
But she does wish him milder. It is not because she (or Menenius for that matter) are more liberal than Coriolanus or less likely to use harsh measures. It is a matter of being more politic. First get the consulship, by any means, and then, with power, crush the plebeians. She says:
I have a heart as little apt as yours,
But yet a brain that leads my use of anger
To better vantage.
- Act III, scene ii, lines 29-31
Menenius and the rest are urging him now to stand trial voluntarily, to repent his words and, in effect, crawl a little. Coriolanus is horrified at the very thought, but his mother adds her pleas, saying in one phrase exactly what is wrong with him:
You are too absolute;
- Act III, scene ii, line 39
But that, of course, is her own fault, since she taught him to treat the world as though it consisted of nothing but gilded butterflies which he might tear apart at a mindless whim.
She tells him now flatly that he must treat this as a stratagem of war. He would play a part to deceive an enemy in arms and cajole a town to surrender. Let him now play a part to deceive the plebeians. (There is no thought in the mind of Volumnia or the other patricians-or probably in those of Shakespeare's audience-that such a course of action is dishonorable.)
To force Coriolanus to do this, Volumnia does not scruple to pull hard at the Oedipal ties that bind him to her:
/ prithee now, sweet son, as thou hast said
My praises made thee first a soldier, so,
To have my praise for this, perform a part
Thou hast not done before.
- Act III, scene ii, lines 107-110
That is it. Coriolanus would not be swayed by thoughts of his own safety, by the city's danger, by his friend's reasoning, but once his mother has pled, he says:
Well, I must do't.
- Act III, scene ii, line 110b
For a moment, though, his resolution wavers even now. He can't go through with it. Thereupon Volumnia throws up her hands and tells him angrily to do as he pleases. At that, Coriolanus promptly gives in, out of the absolute terror of being in the position of disobeying his mother's wishes. He says, in little-boy terms:
Pray, be content:
Mother, I am going to the marketplace;
Chide me no more.
- Act III, scene ii, lines 130-32
And yet, after all that, when he comes to trial, he can no more hold his tongue than he can jump to the moon. It is an easy task for the tribunes to irritate him into madness again. He is convicted of treason and condemned, not to death at the Tarpeian Rock, but to lifelong exile. (This is actually supposed to have taken place in 491 b.c.)
It is a politic commutation of sentence, for the tribunes could now say that Coriolanus had deserved death, but that they had shown mercy out of consideration for his services in war.
... to pluck from them their tribunes.. .
Coriolanus leaves the city, after showing himself surprisingly cheerful, firm, resolute, and