| Aufidius – sexual innuendo, sleeping | we have been down together in my sleep |
| Aufidius – innuendo, fisting | fisting each others throats |
| Audifius – the height of his excitement, placing him above his own wife | thou noble thing, more dances my rapt heart / than when I first my wedded mistress saw / bestride my threshold |
| Aufidius – aggressive threats have an affectionate undertone | he’s mine, or I am his |
| Aufidius – hugging, joining bodies | let me twine / mine arms about that body |
| Aufidius – Coriolanus has often beat him; his is the weaker out of them | Five times, Marcius, / I have fought with thee…so often hast thou beat me |
| Aufidiues – the worst insult, completely tearing down everything Coriolanus was aiming towards in being the perfect Roman man | thou boy of tears |
| Aufidius – revealing Coriolanus as weak, mocking the exchange between him and his mother | at his nurse’s tears / he whined and roar’d away your victory / that pages blush’d at him and men of heart / look’d wondering at each other |
| Aufidius – the effectiveness of Coriolanus’ pleading speech – his envy of his opponent is revealed | each word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heart / a root of ancient envy |
| Coriolanus – understanding Aufidius’ intent, nobility in not fearing death | if / I had fear’d death, of all the men i’ the world / I would have voided thee |
| Aufidius – both excelling as Romans, the conflict between them is the only thing that challenges them and adds dimension to their otherwise dull lives | I have nightly since / dreamt of encounters twixt thyself and me |
| Coriolanus – wanting to be Audifius, envy, conflict based on attempting to learn from him to be a better person | were I anything but what I am / I would wish me only he |
| Power – the patricians abusing their power and using the plebains suffering to their advantage | our suffering is a gain to them |
| Power – the desperation of the plebain’s situation, must resort to violence | I speak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge |
| Power – Menenius pretends that the patricians care for the plebians, establishing a relationship between them as metaphorically family | care for you like fathers / when you curse them as enemies |
| Family – Volumnia’s skewed relationship with her son; seees violence and the beauty of childbirth in the same light (Janet Adelman thinks this provides evidence that Volumnia did not breastfeed Coriolanus as a baby (witheld nutrients) | the breasts of Hecuba / when she did suckle Hector, looked not lovelier / than Hector’s forehead when it spit forth blood |
| Language and Communication – the plebians want to act not speak, disorganised and out of control, or so starving that they have no choice but to act? | no more talking on’t; let it be done |
| Language and Communication – the importance of having a voice, of being able to express yourself, no matter who you are | the people / must have their voices |
| Language and Communication – the worthlessness of what the plebians have to say – animalistic tendencies also implied | that, rubbing the poor itch of your opinion / make yourselves scabs? |
| Art, Culture and Politics – Menenius; you must be a goof entertainer and performer to be a good politician | good friend / your most grave belly was deliberate |
| Art, Culture and Politics – Coriolanus, unlike Menenius, physically cannot bring himself to ‘perform’ for the people – actor himself is reluctant to perform for the audience | I do beseech you / let me o’erleap that custom, for I cannot / put on the gown, stand naked, and entreat them / for my wounds’ sake |
| Art, Culture and Politics – Coriolanus resigns himself to the fact that he is acting | it is a part / that I shall blush in acting |
| Warfare – the importance of it in the Roman period could be enough to excuse Coriolanus’ behaviour and intentions | consider you what services he has done for his country? |
| Warfare – the undecided, cowardly nature of the plebians – contradict themselves, have no right to be proud of one when they cannot align themselves with the other | you curs / that like nor peace nor war? The one affrights you / the other makes you proud |
| Warfare – Coriolanus is grateful for war, it’s a comfort zone for him, and will remove some of the stress the plebians are providing | the Volsces are in arms…I am glad on’t… / we shall ha’ means to vent / our musty superfluity |
| Gender – everyday violence is considered typical behaviour of men (even young boys) | I saw him run after a gilded butterfly…when he caught it…let it go again…and after it again…over and over…’tis a noble child |
| Gender – Valeria insulting Virgilia, claiming she fits into the stereotype of Penelope who waits for her husband Odysseus in The Oddyssey | you would be another Penelope |
| Pride – Coriolanus ruins the good deeds he has committed with his attitude | could be content to give him a good report for ‘t, but that he pays himself with being proud |
| Pride – conversation between Sicinius and Brutus – discussing the extent of Coriolanus’ pride | was ever a man so proud as this Martius?…he has no equal…will not spare to gird the gods-…bemock the modest moon |
| Coriolanus – resisting his instincts | great nature cries ‘Deny not!’ |
| Coriolanus = wishing he could exist independently under no influence and of his own decisions (what the name Coriolanus that he earned alone could represent) | but stand / as if a man were author of himself |
| Coriolanus – the only demonstration of fatherly affection towards his son | that’s my brave boy |
| Volumnia – a blow to Coriolanus – all he wants it to respect and please his mother; in this sentence she reveals that he has done just the opposite – deals significant damage | thou shalt no sooner / march to assault thy country than to tread… / on thy mother’s womb / that brought thee to this world |
| Volumnia – twisting the way in which she brought him up (playing the victim – suddenly wearing the motherly affection that he never experienced?) | thou hast never in thy life / showed thy dear mother any courtesy / when she, poor hen… / has clucked thee to the wars and safely home / loaden with honour |
| He cries – finally letting out emotion, extreme impact after his character being built consistently throughout as incorrigibly masculine he suddenly demonstrates extreme ‘femininity’ | Coriolanus: (weeping) |
| Coriolanus’ response to Volumnia’s monologue – after this, he is destined to die (could this be his anagnorisis?) | o mother, mother! / what have you done? behold, the heavens do ope, / the gods look down, and this unnatural scene / they laugh at. O my mother, mother, o! / you have won a happy victory for Rome; / but for your son, believe it, o believe it, / most dangerously you have with him prevailed / if not most mortal to him |
| Coriolanus – cannot even bear to call it crying | Mine eyes sweat compassion |
| Aufidius – analysis of him as a substitute father | I raised him |
| Aufidius – hostility of Rome to one man rule | I seemed his follower, not partner |
| Aufidius – sexism (women’s emotions are worthless), the sin of having gone against your masculinity – Coriolanus may be stubborn, but not committed to his resolve | at a few drops of woman’s rheum, which are / as cheap as lies, he sold the blood and labour / of our great action; therefore he shall die |
| Irony of Coriolanus’ return before his death – didn’t mean to become dominant in the rule of the Volsces? A peace treaty may have been the only good decision he’s made in the entire play – would have worked out well! Found definition and meaning in having someone to ‘belong’ to? | hail, lords! I am returned your soldier / no more infected with my country’s love / than when I parted hence |
| Aufidius – the only one to refer to him by his first name (Caius) – the importance of names – its almost worse now since they shared such an intimate moment | ay, Martius, Caius Martius |
| Coriolanus refuses to accept being called a ‘boy’ – doesn’t know how to recover from it, would rather die than have that name | cut me to pieces, Volsces. Men and lads, / stain your edges on me. ‘Boy’!…I / fluttered your Volscians in Corioles. / alone I did it, boy! |
| Coriolanus is unable to have a proper tragic conclusion because Aufidius does this | (Aufidius stands on him) |
| Aufidius killed Martius lost to the same rage that Martius was always victim to – loses his control just as Martius used to | my rage is gone, / and I am struck with sorrow |
| Volumnia’s wish is complete – almost; not for his country, if anything against his country, but still dies nobly – second to last line | yet he shall have a noble memory |
| Volumnia – complete lack of motherly instinct to protect – focused only on war | had I a dozen sons…I had rather had eleven die nobly for their country than one voluptuously surfeit out of action |
| Philosophical question – is it moral to be yourself if yourself is a terrible person? Warning the plebeians with his honesty = will not put on a false persona as other politicians do | would you have me / false to my nature? rather say I play / the man I am |
| The Tribunes subtle manipulation of the people – never truly a democracy | If I say ‘fine’, cry ‘fine!’, if ‘death’ cry ‘death!’ |
| Coriolanus goes off at the people – cannot physically control his hamartia | 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! |
| Exchange between them: feels practiced, natural, like a routine | Coriolanus: Let them hangVolumnia: Ay, and burn too |
| Volumnia’ absolute control over him | he must, and will |
| Volumnia – really obviously demonstrating how she’s manipulated him, but just regarded as normal by everyone? | my praises made thee first a soldier, so, / to have my praise for this, perform a part / thou hast not done before |
| Coriolanus – value of chastity put on Roman women (and Rome in general!) – suppression of eros | the moon of Rome, chaste as the icicle / that’s candied by the frost from the purest snow / and hangs on Dian’s temple – dear Valeria! |
| Coriolanus – chaste himself, surprisingly so for a soldier | by the jealous queen of heaven, that kiss / i carried from thee, dear, and my true lip / hath virgined it e’er since |
| Volumnia – Oedipus complex, + repression of eros (women expected to gain more pleasure from their husband’s honour than from their sexual relations) | if my son were my husband, I should freelier rejoice in that absence wherein he won honour than in the embracements of his bed where he would show most love |
| Volumnia – the cost of Rome’s focus on masculinity – lacking in education – parallel with Plutarch’s Greek Alcibiades | he had rather see the swords and hear the drum than look upon his schoolmaster |
| Coriolanus – closest he gets to a soliloquy – but a halfhearted, badly written, rhyming one | most sweet voices / better it is to die, better to starve, / than crave the hire which first we do deserve….to one that would do thus. I am half through. / the one part suffered, the other I will do |
Coriolanus More General Quotes!
July 12, 2019