Step inside Coriolanus

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The plebeians of Rome are starving and they want blood - specifically the blood of Caius Martius, who thinks they deserve neither corn nor the vote.

9:41

The Cast

Caius Martius Coriolanus

Main · Roman patricians / military nobility

A Roman warrior whose wounds win a city and whose contempt loses Rome.

Locations

Rome - the divided city

city

A starving city that needs its greatest soldier and cannot bear to keep him.

Passage

Starving citizens weigh justice against violence as hunger turns grievance into revolt.

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The Author’s Pen

Hunger for Bread

SECOND CITIZEN. One word, good citizens.

FIRST CITIZEN. We are accounted poor citizens, the patricians good. What authority surfeits on would relieve us. If they would yield us but the superfluity while it were wholesome, we might guess they relieved us humanely. But they think we are too dear. The leanness that afflicts us, the object of our misery, is as an inventory to particularize their abundance; our sufferance is a gain to them. Let us revenge this with our pikes ere we become rakes; for the gods know I speak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge.

SECOND CITIZEN. Would you proceed especially against Caius Martius?

FIRST CITIZEN. Against him first. He’s a very dog to the commonalty.

Reading

This citizen is careful to insist he wants bread, not blood, even as he calls for pikes. That contradiction runs through the whole speech: he names the patricians' wealth as a mirror of the poor's starvation, argues their suffering literally feeds rich men's profit, and then, having built a case for violence, swears the gods know it is hunger, not revenge, driving him. It is the opening of the play, and Rome's poor are deciding whether to rise. His careful disclaimer already tells us they will.

World Index

The Plot

Rome Hungry and DividedCorioles and the NameThe Consulship and the GownI Banish YouThe Exile Joins the EnemyVolumnia at the TentBoy of Tears

The Cast

Caius Martius CoriolanusVolumniaTullus AufidiusMenenius AgrippaSicinius VelutusJunius BrutusVirgiliaRoman citizens / plebeiansCominiusTitus LartiusPatricians / SenateVolscian soldiers / conspiratorsYoung MartiusValeriaRoman HeraldAedilesNicanor / Roman spyUnnamed VolsceAufidius’s servants / guardsGentlewoman

Locations

Antium public placeAufidius’s house in AntiumCoriolesField between Roman and Volscian campsGate of RomeGates of CoriolesMartius’s house / Coriolanus’s houseRoman campRome - the divided cityRome street / public streetThe CapitolThe ForumVolscian camp

Objects of Note

Belly fableCorn / grainGown of humility / consul’s gownMilitary intelligence letterOaken garlandStaves and clubsSwordThe name CoriolanusWoundsWritten terms / Coriolanus’s letter to Rome

Core Concepts

A public name can become a woundBattle honour fails when it must ask for civic trustExile promises elsewhere but leaves no homeHunger turns class power into civic crisisMotherhood makes the warrior it later must unmakeRome imagines one body but acts like divided limbsThe enemy becomes the mirror that knows him best

The Author's Pen

Rome And Her RatsThe Mutable MultitudeFive Tribunes GrantedRome Was ReadyHonour Above a SonMartius Shut InMartius Himself AloneWe Hate AlikeThe Forgotten HostCaius Martius CoriolanusCoriolanus Refuses PraiseHalf Through The CustomCounterfeit Love for the PeopleDeny Him YetFalse To My NatureRepent What You Have SpokeI Banish YouYour Ancient CourageNo Place For YouOnly That Name RemainsHe Is Their GodVirtue in the InterpretationHe Would Not AnswerMenenius Turned BackVolumnia Pleads for PeaceFramed for NoblenessA Happy Victory to RomeAufidius Calls Him TraitorThe Lie Thrust BackAlone I Did It

Plot point 01

Rome Hungry and Divided

The plebeians of Rome are starving and they want blood - specifically the blood of Caius Martius, who thinks they deserve neither corn nor the vote.

Objects of Note

Sword

Fighting is the one language Coriolanus speaks without stumbling, and it undoes him in peace.

The Cast

Volumnia

Main · Roman patrician household

The mother who teaches her son to wear wounds as honour, then kneels to save Rome from him.

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Coriolanus

William Shakespeare

The cast, locations, objects of note, core concepts, and selected passages in the Author’s Pen - at your own pace.

One of 127 classics in the Literah library

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