CORIOLANUS.
| 1 |
SHAKESPEAR has in this play shewn himself
well versed in history and state-affairs. CORIOLANUS
is a store-house of political commonplaces.
Any one who studies it may save himself
the trouble of reading Burke's Reflections,
or Paine's Rights of Man, or the Debates in
both Houses of Parliament since the French
Revolution or our own. The arguments for and
against aristocracy or democracy, on the privileges
of the few and the claims of the many, on liberty
and slavery, power and the abuse of it, peace
and war, are here very ably handled, with the spirit
of a poet and the acuteness of a philosopher.
Shakespear himself seems to have had a leaning
to the arbitrary side of the question, perhaps
from some feeling of contempt for his own origin;
and to have spared no occasion of baiting
the rabble. What he says of them is very true:
what he says of their betters is also very true,
though he dwells less upon it.--The cause of
the people is indeed but little calculated as a
subject for poetry: it admits of rhetoric, which
goes into argument and explanation, but it
presents no immediate or distinct images to the
mind, "no jutting frieze, buttress, or coigne of
vantage" for poetry "to make its pendant bed
and procreant cradle in." The language of poetry
naturally falls in with the language of power.
The imagination is an exaggerating and exclusive
faculty: it takes from one thing to add to
another: it accumulates circumstances together
to give the greatest possible effect to a favourite
object. The understanding is a dividing and
measuring faculty: it judges of things, not according
to their immediate impression on the
mind, but according to their relations to one
another. The one is a monopolizing faculty,
which seeks the greatest quantity of present excitement
by inequality and disproportion; the
other is a distributive faculty, which seeks the
greatest quantity of ultimate good, by justice
and proportion. The one is an aristocratical,
the other a republican faculty. The principle
of poetry is a very anti-levelling principle. It
aims at effect, it exists by contrast. It admits
of no medium. It is every thing by excess.
It rises above the ordinary standard of sufferings
and crimes. It presents a dazzling appearance.
It shews its head turretted, crowned,
and crested. Its front is gilt and bloodstained.
Before it "it carries noise, and behind
it tears." It has its altars and its victims,
sacrifices, human sacrifices. Kings, priests,
nobles, are its train-bearers, tyrants and slaves
its executioners.--"Carnage is its daughter."--Poetry
is right-royal. It puts the individual
for the species, the one above the infinite many,
might before right. A lion hunting a flock of
sheep or a herd of wild asses is a more poetical
object than they; and we even take part with the
lordly beast, because our vanity or some other
feeling makes us disposed to place ourselves in
the situation of the strongest party. So we feel
some concern for the poor citizens of Rome
when they meet together to compare their wants
and grievances, till Coriolanus comes in and
with blows and big words drives this set of
"poor rats," this rascal scum, to their homes and
beggary before him. There is nothing heroical
in a multitude of miserable rogues not wishing
to be starved, or complaining that they are
like to be so: but when a single man comes
forward to brave their cries and to make them
submit to the last indignities, from mere pride
and self-will, our admiration of his prowess is
immediately converted into contempt for their
pusillanimity. The insolence of power is
stronger than the plea of necessity. The tame
submission to usurped authority or even the
natural resistance to it has nothing to excite or
flatter the imagination: it is the assumption of
a right to insult or oppress others that carries
an imposing air of superiority with it. We had
rather be the oppressor than the oppressed.
The love of power in ourselves and the admiration
of it in others are both natural to man:
the one makes him a tyrant, the other a slave.
Wrong dressed out in pride, pomp, and circumstance
has more attraction than abstract
right.--Coriolanus complains of the fickleness
of the people: yet the instant he cannot gratify
his pride and obstinacy at their expense, he
turns his arms against his country. If his
country was not worth defending, why did he
build his pride on its defence? He is a conqueror
and a hero; he conquers other countries,
and makes this a plea for enslaving his
own; and when he is prevented from doing so,
he leagues with its enemies to destroy his
country. He rates the people "as if he were
a God to punish, and not a man of their infirmity."
He scoffs at one of their tribunes for
maintaining their rights and franchises: "Mark
you his absolute shall?" not marking his own
absolute will to take every thing from them,
his impatience of the slightest opposition to his
own pretensions being in proportion to their arrogance
and absurdity. If the great and powerful
had the beneficence and wisdom of Gods,
then all this would have been well: if with a
greater knowledge of what is good for the people,
they had as great a care for their interest
as they have themselves, if they were seated
above the world, sympathising with the welfare,
but not feeling the passions of men, receiving
neither good nor hurt from them, but bestowing
their benefits as free gifts on them, they
might then rule over them like another Providence.
But this is not the case. Coriolanus
is unwilling that the senate should shew their
"cares" for the people, lest their "cares",
should be construed into "fears," to the subversion
of all due authority; and he is no sooner
disappointed in his schemes to deprive the people
not only of the cares of the state, but of all
power to redress themselves, than Volumnia is
made madly to exclaim,
|
| 2 |
"Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome,
And occupations perish."
|
| 3 |
This is but natural: it is but natural for a
mother to have more regard for her son than for
a whole city; but then the city should be left to
take some care of itself. The care of the state
cannot, we here see, be safely entrusted to maternal
affection, or to the domestic charities of
high life. The great have private feelings of
their own, to which the interests of humanity
and justice must courtesy. Their interests are
so far from being the same as those of the community,
that they are in direct and necessary
opposition to them; their power is at the expense
of our weakness; their riches of our
poverty; their price of our degradation; their
splendour of our wretchedness; their tyranny
of our servitude. If they had the superior
knowledge ascribed to them (which they have
not) it would only render them so much more
formidable; and from Gods would convert them
into Devils. The whole dramatic moral of CORIOLANUS
is that those who have little shall
have less, and that those who have much shall
take all that others have left. The people are
poor; therefore they ought to be starved. They
are slaves; therefore they ought to be beaten.
They work hard; therefore they ought to be
treated like beasts of burden. They are ignorant;
therefore they ought not to be allowed
to feel that they want food, or clothing, or rest,
that they are enslaved, oppressed, and miserable.
This is the logic of the imagination and the
passions; which seek to aggrandise what excites
admiration and to heap contempt on misery,
to raise power into tyranny, and to make
tyranny absolute; to thrust down that which is
low still lower, and to make wretches desperate:
to exalt magistrates into kings, kings into gods;
to degrade subjects to the rank of slaves, and
slaves to the condition of brutes. The history of
mankind is a romance, a mask, a tragedy, constructed
upon the principles of poetical justice;
it is a noble or royal hunt, in which what is sport
to the few, is death to the many, and in which
the spectators halloo and encourage the strong
to set upon the weak, and cry havoc in the
chase, though they do not share in the spoil.
We may depend upon it that what men delight
to read in books, they will put in practice in
reality.
|
| 4 |
One of the most natural traits in this play is
the difference of the interest taken in the success
of Coriolanus by his wife and mother. The
one is only anxious for his honour; the other is
fearful for his life.
|
| 5 |
"Volumnia. Methinks I hither hear your husband's drum:
I see him pluck Aufidius down by th' hair:
Methinks I see him stamp thus--and call thus--
Come on, ye cowards; ye were got in fear
Though you were born in Rome; his bloody brow
With his mail'd hand then wiping, forth he goes
Like to a harvest man, that's task'd to mow
Or all, or lose his hire.
Virgilia. His bloody brow! Oh Jupiter, no blood.
Volumnia. Away, you fool; it more becomes a man
Than gilt his trophy. The breast of Hecuba,
When she did suckle Hector, look'd not lovelier
Than Hector's forehead, when it spit forth blood
At Grecian swords contending."
|
| 6 |
When she hears the trumpets that proclaim
her son's return, she says in the true spirit of a
Roman matron,
|
| 7 |
"These are the ushers of Martius: before him
He carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears.
Death, that dark spirit, in's nervy arm doth lie,
Which being advanc'd, declines, and then men die."
|
| 8 |
Coriolanus himself is a complete character:
his love of reputation, his contempt of popular
opinion, his pride and modesty are consequences
of each other. His pride consists in the inflexible
sternness of his will: his love of glory is a
determined desire to bear down all opposition,
and to extort the admiration both of friends and
foes. His contempt for popular favour, his unwillingness
to hear his own praises, spring from
the same source. He cannot contradict the
praises that are bestowed upon him; therefore
he is impatient at hearing them. He would
enforce the good opinion of others by his actions,
but does not want their acknowledgments
in words.
|
| 9 |
"Pray now, no more: my mother,
Who has a charter to extol her blood,
When she does praise me, grieves me."
|
| 10 |
His magnanimity is of the same kind. He
admires in an enemy that courage which he
honours in himself: he places himself on the
hearth of Aufidius with the same confidence
that he would have met him in the field, and
feels that by putting himself in his power, he
takes from him all temptation for using it against
him.
|
| 11 |
In the title-page of CORIOLANUS, it is said
at the bottom of the Dramatis Personae, "The
whole history exactly followed, and many of
the principal speeches copied from the life of
Coriolanus in Plutarch." It will be interesting
to our readers to see how far this is the case.
Two of the principal scenes, those between Coriolanus
and Aufidius and between Coriolanus
and his mother, are thus given in Sir Thomas
North's translation of Plutarch, dedicated to
Queen Elizabeth, 1579. The first is as follows:--
|
| 12 |
"It was even twilight when he entered the city of Antium,
and many people met him in the streets, but no man
knew him. So he went directly to Tullus Aufidius' house,
and when he came thither, he got him up straight to the
chimney-hearth, and sat him down, and spake not a word
to any man, his face all muffled over. They of the house
spying him, wondered what he should be, and yet they
durst not bid him rise. For ill-favouredly muffled and disguised
as he was, yet there appeared a certain majesty in
his countenance and in his silence: whereupon they went to
Tullus, who was at supper, to tell him of the strange disguising
of this man. Tullus rose presently from the board,
and coming towards him, asked him what he was, and
wherefore he came. Then Martius unmuffled himself, and
after he had paused awhile, making no answer, he said
unto himself, If thou knowest me not yet, Tullus, and seeing
me, dost not perhaps believe me to be the man I am
indeed, I must of necessity discover myself to be that I am.
'I am Caius Martius, who hath done to thyself particularly,
and to all the Volsces generally, great hurt and
mischief, which I cannot deny for my surname of Coriolanus
that I bear. For I never had other benefit nor recompence
of the true and painful service I have done, and
the extreme dangers I have been in, but this only surname:
a good memory and witness of the malice and
displeasure thou shouldest bear me. Indeed the name
only remaineth with me; for the rest, the envy and cruelty
of the people of Rome have taken from me, by the
sufferance of the dastardly nobility and magistrates, who
have forsaken me, and let me be banished by the people.
This extremity hath now driven me to come as a poor
suitor, to take thy chimney-hearth, not of any hope I
have to save my life thereby. For if I had feared death,
I would not have come hither to put myself in hazard:
but pricked forward with desire to be revenged of them
that thus have banished me, which now I do begin, in
putting my person into the hands of their enemies.
Wherefore if thou hast any heart to be wrecked of the
injuries thy enemies have done thee, speed thee now,
and let my misery serve thy turn, and so use it as my
service may be a benefit to the Volsces: promising thee,
that I will fight with better good will for all you, than I
did when I was against you, knowing that they fight
more valiantly who know the force of the enemy, than
such as have never proved it. And if it be so that thou
dare not, and that thou art weary to prove fortune any
more, then am I also weary to live any longer. And it
were no wisdom in thee to save the life of him who hath
been heretofore thy mortal enemy, and whose service now
can nothing help, nor pleasure thee.' Tullus hearing
what he said, was a marvellous glad man, and taking
him by the hand, he said unto him: 'Stand up, O Martius,
and be of good cheer, for in proffering thyself unto
us, thou doest us great honour: and by this means thou
mayest hope also of greater things at all the Volsces'
hands.' So he feasted him for that time, and entertained
him in the honourablest manner he could, talking with him
of no other matter at that present: but within few days
after, they fell to consultation together in what sort they
should begin their wars."
|
| 13 |
The meeting between Coriolanus and his
mother is also nearly the same as in the play.
|
| 14 |
"Now was Martius set then in the chair of state, with
all the honours of a general, and when he had spied the
women coming afar off, he marvelled what the matter
meant: but afterwards knowing his wife which came foremost,
he determined at the first to persist in his obstinate
and inflexible rancour. But overcome in the end with natural
affection, and being altogether altered to see them,
his heart would not serve him to tarry their coming to his
chair, but coming down in haste, he went to meet them,
and first he kissed his mother, and embraced her a pretty
while, then his wife and little children. And nature so
wrought with him, that the tears fell from his eyes, and
he could not keep himself from making much of them, but
yielded to the affection of his blood, as if he had been violently
carried with the fury of a most swift-running stream.
After he had thus lovingly received them, and perceiving
that his mother Volumnia would begin to speak to him, he
called the chiefest of the council of the Volsces to hear what
she would say. Then she spake in this sort: 'If we held
our peace, my son, and determined not to speak, the
state of our poor bodies, and present sight of our raiment,
would easily betray to thee what life we have led
at home, since thy exile and abode abroad; but think
now with thyself, how much more unfortunate than all
the women living, we are come hither, considering that
the sight which should be most pleasant to all others to
behold, spiteful fortune had made most fearful to us:
making myself to see my son, and my daughter here her
husband, besieging the walls of his native country: so as
that which is the only comfort to all others in their adversity
and misery, to pray unto the Gods, and to call to
them for aid, is the only thing which plungeth us into
most deep perplexity. For we cannot, alas, together
pray, both for victory to our country, and for safety of
thy life also: but a world of grievous curses, yea more
than any mortal enemy can heap upon us, are forcibly
wrapped up in our prayers. For the bitter sop of most hard
choice is offered thy wife and children, to forego one of
the two: either to lose the person of thyself, or the
nurse of their native country. For myself, my son, I am
determined not to tarry till fortune in my lifetime do
make an end of this war. For if I cannot persuade them
rather to do good unto both parties, than to overthrow
and destroy the one, preferring love and nature before
the malice and calamity of wars, thou shalt see, my son,
and trust unto it, thou shalt no sooner march forward to
assault thy country, but thy foot shad tread upon thy
mother's womb, that brought thee first into this world.
And I may not defer to see the day, either that my son
be led prisoner in triumph by his natural countrymen, or
that he himself do triumph of them, and of his natural
country. For if it were so, that my request tended to
save thy country, in destroying the Volsces, I must confess,
thou wouldest hardly and doubtfully resolve on that.
For as to destroy thy natural country, it is altogether unmeet
and unlawful, so were it not just and less honourable
to betray those that put their trust in thee. But
my only demand consisteth, to make a goal delivery of
all evils, which delivereth equal benefit and safety, both
to the one and the other, but most honourable for the
Volsces. For it shall appear, that having victory in their
hands, they have of special favour granted us singular
graces, peace and amity, albeit themselves have no less
part of both than we. Of which good, if so it came to
pass, thyself is the only author, and so hast thou the only
honour. But if it fail, and fall out contrary, thyself alone
deservedly shalt carry the shameful reproach and burthen
of either party. So, though the end of war be uncertain,
yet this notwithstanding is most certain, that if it be thy
chance to conquer, this benefit shalt thou reap of thy
goodly conquest, to be chronicled the plague and destroyer
of thy country. And if fortune overthrow thee,
then the world will say, that through desire to revenge
thy private injuries, thou hast for ever undone thy good
friends, who did most lovingly and courteously receive
thee.' Martins gave good ear unto his mother's words,
without interrupting her speech at all, and after she had
said what she would, he held his peace a pretty while, and
answered not a word. Hereupon she began again to speak
unto him, and said: 'My son, why dost thou not answer
me? Dost thou think it good altogether to give place unto
thy choler and desire of revenge, and thinkest thou it
not honesty for thee to grant thy mother's request in so
weighty a cause? Dost thou take it honourable for a
nobleman, to remember the wrongs and injuries done
him, and dost not in like case think it an honest nobleman's
part to be thankful for the goodness that parents
do shew to their children, acknowledging the duty and
reverence they ought to bear unto them? No man living
is more bound to shew himself thankful in all parts and
respects than thyself; who so universally shewest all ingratitude.
Moreover, my son, thou hast sorely taken of
thy country, exacting grievous payments upon them, in
revenge of the injuries offered thee; besides, thou hast
not hitherto shewed thy poor mother any courtesy. And
therefore it is not only honest, but due unto me, that
without compulsion I should obtain my so just and reasonable
request of thee. But since by reason I cannot
persuade thee to it, to what purpose do I defer my last
hope?' And with these words herself, his wife and children,
fell down upon their knees before him: Martius
seeing that, could refrain no longer, but went straight and
lifted her up, crying out, 'Oh mother, what have you
done to me?' And holding her hard by the right hand,
'Oh mother,' said he, 'you have won a happy victory for
your country, but mortal and unhappy for your son: for
I see myself vanquished by you alone.' These words
being spoken openly, he spake a little apart with his mother
and wife, and then let them return again to Rome, for so
they did request him; and so remaining in the camp that
night, the next morning he dislodged, and marched homeward
unto the Volsces' country again."
|
| 15 |
Shakespear has, in giving a dramatic form to
this passage, adhered very closely and properly
to the text. He did not think it necessary to
improve upon the truth of nature. Several of
the scenes in Julius Caesar, particularly Portia's
appeal to the confidence of her husband by shewing
him the wound she had given herself, and
the appearance of the ghost of Caesar to Brutus,
are, in like manner, taken from the history.
|
