of the plebeian mob, expresses reservations against aiming at Marcius particularly, the First Citizen replies firmly:
Against him first:
he's a very dog to the commonalty.
- Act I, scene i, lines 28-29
This is the key to Marcius' character. He is a "dog" to his enemies. He snarls and bites. Plutarch says of him: "he was so choleric and impatient, that he would yield to no living creature, which made him churlish, uncivil, and altogether unfit for any man's conversation."
That is his tragedy: the tragedy of his personality. What he might have gained, and ought to have gamed for the better qualities within himself, he threw away by his perpetual anger and willfulness.
It may have been just this which was the challenge that interested Shakespeare and made him decide to write the play. In Antony and Cleopatra (see page I-317), which he had written a year or so earlier, Shakespeare shows us a flawed hero, Mark Antony, who sacrificed honor and worldly ambition to love and to sexual passion. In Coriolanus he shows us the reverse, a hero who served only military honor and who allowed nothing to stand in his way (with one exception).
Yet although Antony is loaded to the breaking point with weaknesses, while Marcius is stuffed to the bursting point with virtues, we end by loving Antony and feeling a cold dislike for Coriolanus. Surely Shakespeare is far too good a playwright to have done this by accident. Might not Coriolanus be viewed as a frigid satire of the military virtues; as an example of Shakespeare's distaste for war, a distaste that shows through even the official idolatry of the English hero-king in Henry V (see page II-481)?
... to please his mother.. .
When the Second Citizen urges in Marcius' defense that he has served his country well, the First Citizen admits that much but insists it was not done for Rome. He says:
... though soft-conscienced men can be content
to say it was for his country,
he did it to please his mother...
- Act I, scene i, lines 37-39
There is Marcius' one weakness. He loves his mother. And even that weakness is, looked at superficially, another piece of nobility. Why should not a man love his mother? Certainly the United States of today, with its Mother's Day and its semiofficial matriolatry, is no society in which to argue that to love one's mother is wrong, or even a weakness.
Yet it is made plain as the play progresses that the love-of-mother in Coriolanus' case is extreme. It is the clearest case of an Oedipal fixation in Shakespeare, far clearer than in the dubious case of Hamlet.
According to the legend, Marcius' father died while he was very young and the boy was then brought up by his mother. The rearing was successful in establishing a close relationship between them. Here are Plutarch's words: "... touching Marcius, the only thing that made him to love honor was the joy he saw his mother did take of him. For he thought nothing made him so happy and honorable, as that his mother might hear everybody praise and commend him, that she might always see him return with a crown upon his head, and that she might still embrace him with tears running down her cheeks for joy."
This sort of thing, we can see, is not calculated to endear him to Rome generally. Those plebeians who got only the rough side of Marcius' tongue and the harsh side of his advice on policy might not feel any necessity to be grateful for something he did only to please his mother. Let his mother reward him, not the people, and this is what the First Citizen seems to be implying.
Furthermore, Marcius' attitude as described by Plutarch and as adopted by Shakespeare is that of a boy, not a man. Marcius is a boy who never grew up, except physically. Emotionally he remains a boy, not only with respect to his mother but with respect to everything else. If we are to understand the play, this point must not be forgotten.
... To th'Capitol
While the citizens talk, there are shouts from offstage which seem to signify the revolt is spreading. The First Citizen cries out impatiently:
Why slay we prating here?
To th'Capitol!
- Act I, scene i, lines 48-49
The city of Rome eventually spread out over seven hills. One of the earliest to be occupied was the Capitoline Hill. This had steep sides in some directions, which made it suitable for defense. A large temple to Jupiter was built upon it which