in good heart, cheering up his mother and his friends. (Plutarch describes the leave-taking similarly.)
Shakespeare has him make a significant comment, however. Coriolanus says:
I shall be loved when I am lacked.
- Act IV, scene i, line 15
This is a strange optimism on his part. He does not show elsewhere in this play any such general confidence in his fellowmen. It almost sounds as though he has something specific in mind; that he has firm information that his friends intend to take action to bring him back; even unconstitutional action.
That this may be so is strengthened by an odd scene that follows hard thereafter and which seems somewhat irrelevant to the action. A Roman named Nicanor and a Volscian named Adrian meet somewhere between Rome and Antium. Their speeches are ascribed merely to "Roman" and "Volsce." They appear nowhere else in the play and the only purpose of the scene is to highlight gathering treason in Rome on the part of the patricians.
The Roman says:
... the nobles receive so to heart
the banishment of that worthy Coriolanus,
that they are in a ripe aptness to take all power
from the people and to pluck from them their tribunes forever.
- Act IV, scene iii, lines 21-25
To attain this end, it may be that the patricians are even considering allying themselves with the common enemy. The Volscian had said of his own people:
... they are in a most warlike preparation,
and hope to come upon them [the Romans]
in the heat of their division.
- Act IV, scene iii, lines 17-19
The Roman's response to this news of the Volscian activity is:
/ am joyful to hear
of their readiness...
- Act IV, scene iii, lines 48-50
My birthplace hate I ...
Yet the next scene does not follow this up. There is a sudden break. Coriolanus has made his way to Antium. It is his intention to seek out Tullus Aufidius himself and throw himself upon his mercy. He says:
My birthplace hate I, and my love's upon
This enemy town. I'll enter. If he slay me,
He does fair justice; if he give me way,
I'll do his country service.
- Act IV, scene iv, lines 23-26
What happened? According to the previous scene, it looked as though there were a conspiracy to bring Coriolanus back, even with Volscian help. Nothing further of that is mentioned in the play. Plutarch, to be sure, says that the nobles turned against Coriolanus, but only after the exiled man had joined the Volscians. As for his motive in joining the enemy, Plutarch cites merely rage and desire for revenge.
Yet it almost seems as though Shakespeare had something better in mind...
It often happened in the history of the Greek cities that there were internal disturbances between the social classes and that the leaders of one side or the other would be exiled. In such cases, it was common for the exiles to join a foreign enemy and fight their own city with the aid of their sympathizers within, as was the case of Alcibiades, for instance (see page I-142), some eighty years after the time of Coriolanus. (Indeed, Plutarch gives his biographies of Coriolanus and Alcibiades as a pair, showing himself aware of the similarities in their histories.)
It was this constant civil war and almost constant treason that helped bring down the Greeks and place them at last at the mercy of first the Macedonians and then the Romans.
It never happened in Rome. There were internecine struggles within the city in plenty throughout the history of the Republic, but never in the face of an outside enemy. When the foreign armies invaded, all Romans locked arms and this was never so remarkable or admirable as when Hannibal nearly ruined the realm two and a half centuries after the time of Coriolanus. It was this which saved Rome and brought her to world empire at last.
It would almost seem, then, as though there were a missing scene here. Perhaps there should be a scene in Rome after the meeting of the Roman and Volsce, one in which the patricians are meditating treason. The news of the Volscian invasion comes, and after some soul searching, Cominius might rise and insist that the city must come before class and that even Coriolanus must be sacrificed in the greater need of the defense of Rome. And with that the conspiracy would collapse.
... our dastard nobles.. .
Coriolanus, hearing of this, is more than disappointed. It is the last straw. Everyone has deserted him. Surely it must be this which makes him turn to the Volscians. Plutarch doesn't have