Coriolanus: Act 1, Scene 1 Summary & Analysis

A group of mutinous Roman citizens floods a street in Rome. One calls out to make sure that his fellow people are prepared to die instead of go hungry. He names Caius Martius as “chief enemy of the people,” and says that the people should kill him so that they can set their own price for corn. The mob shouts out in agreement, but a second citizen speaks out. The first citizen decries the fact that the patricians (aristocrats) are considered substantial while the rest of the citizens are forced to be poor.

The first Roman citizen says that the surplus food that the ruling class “surfeits” on would be more than enough to humanely feed the common people and relieve the famine, but the aristocrats find this plan to be too expensive. What’s more, the famine that afflicts the lower-class, the citizen argues, is the very means of profit for the aristocrats. Therefore, the citizens should take revenge with pitchforks before they become as lean as rakes. The citizen clarifies that he speaks in hunger for bread, not thirst for revenge.

The second citizen asks if the mob is intent on getting revenge specifically on Caius Martius, even considering the service he has done for Rome. The mob says that they want revenge against Caius Martius first and foremost, since he is an enemy of the common people. The first citizen believes that all Caius Martius’s deeds were done for fame. While weak-minded people think Caius Martius served his country, the citizen says, really he only serves his mother and his pride. The second citizen protests that what the first citizen calls “vice” is merely Caius Martius’s nature, which is not self-serving in the slightest.

Shouts indicate that the other side of the city has risen up in revolt, and the Roman citizens prepare to make for the capitol. Before they can continue, however, the “worthy” Menenius Agrippa, a patrician recognized as a friend to the common people, enters the street. Menenius addresses the citizens as his countrymen and asks them what’s the matter and why they are carrying weapons. The second citizen explains that the Roman Senate knows full well what they have been planning and what they are now enacting. The Senate thinks that poor protesters have strong voices, and now they’ll see that they have strong arms as well.

Speaking colloquially and emphasizing that he is a friend to the common people, Menenius asks why the citizens are undoing themselves. The citizens, though, believe they are already undone. Menenius tries to calm the crowd, saying that the patricians have only the best intentions for the citizens. They should direct all complaints about desires and their suffering in the famine to heaven, since it’s the gods causing everything, not the Roman state. The common people should take to their knees (i.e. pray to the gods) instead of taking up arms against the state. The people, Menenius says, have become carried away, causing them to slander the Roman leaders that are like fathers to the common people, not enemies.

The second Roman citizen, though, remains convinced that the patricians are causing the famine, that they support usury (illegally lending money at high interest), and that they prop up themselves and keep the poor suppressed. If the wars don’t “eat [the common people] up,” the citizen claims, the patricians will. Menenius responds that the citizens are either being extremely malicious or foolish, and he offers to better explain the situation with a “pretty tale.” On behalf of the mob, the second citizen agrees to listen to the tale, though he tells Menenius that a mere story will not get rid of the people’s hardships.

Menenius begins his tale of the belly: once there was a time when all of the different body parts rebelled against the belly, accusing it of being only a “gulf” in the middle of the body, lying idle and doing nothing. The mutinous body parts claimed that the belly stored all the food without doing any of the labor, like walking, seeing, hearing, feeling, or thinking. The second citizen asks for the belly’s response, but Menenius drags out the story, characterizing the belly as smiling and taunting. The second citizen presses Menenius for the belly’s answer to the mutinous parts, outlining a traditional idea of the “body politic” with “the kingly crownèd head, the vigilant eye, the counselor heart, the arm our soldier, our steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter,” and he asks Menenius what the belly could possibly say if these other parts complained.

After telling the second citizen to be patient, Menenius explains that the belly was deliberate in his answer. The belly responded that it’s true that he receives the food that the whole body lives on first, since he is the storehouse of the body, but he reminds the other parts that he is also responsible for sending that food through the blood to all of the different body parts. Even though it isn’t always apparent what the belly is doing, everyone lives on the substance he provides to them, while saving only the scraps for himself. The second citizen then asks Menenius how the common people should interpret the belly’s answer.

Menenius explains that the senators of Rome are the belly, and the Roman citizens are the mutinous body parts. The senators “digest things rightly” for the common good, and all public benefits come from the senators, not from the citizens themselves. Menenius calls the second citizen a “toe of this assembly” and asks what he thinks. Menenius clarifies that the citizen is a toe because he is one of the “lowest, basest, poorest of the most wise rebellion,” but he leads out in front, hoping to get an advantage.

Caius Martius enters and asks what’s the matter, calling the common people “dissentious rogues” that “rubbing the poor itch of [their] opinion[s] make [themselves] scabs.” The second citizen comments that the people always have Caius Martius’s good word, but this sends Caius Martius into a rant. He says that giving good words to the common people is worse than flattery. The common people are dissatisfied with both war and peace, being afraid of war and becoming prideful in peacetime. They cannot be satisfied, and they are extremely fickle and ever changing in their opinions and desires, making them extremely untrustworthy. It’s outrageous, Caius Martius says, that the commoners are rising up against the senators who keep the citizens from devouring each other.

Menenius tells Caius Martius that the people want “corn at their own rates,” since they believe the city has a surplus of corn. Martius cries “hang ‘em!” outraged that the common people sit at home presuming to know what’s happening in the capital. He wishes the nobility would set their pity aside and let him slaughter the protesters. Menenius tells him that there’s no need for that, since he has almost persuaded this cowardly group.

Menenius asks for the status of the other group of citizens on the other side of the city, and Caius Martius reports that the group has dissolved after saying that they were hungry and listing proverbs and demands, until they were granted a strange resolution. The city has granted “five tribunes to defend their vulgar wisdoms,” and two are named Junius Brutus and Sicinius Velutus. Martius himself would have sooner allowed the people to destroy the city than grant them tribunes, which he believes will lend more power to their argument and insurrection. He cries out to the people, “Go get you home, you fragments!”

A messenger enters the street in Rome asking for Caius Martius, whom he informs that the Volsces (Volscians – a neighboring, enemy Italian people) have taken up arms. Martius is thrilled, saying it will give the Romans the opportunity to “vent [their] musty superfluity.” Sicinius Velutus and Junius Brutus (the two new tribunes) enter along with Roman general Cominius, his lieutenant Titus Lartius, and other Roman Senators. One senator affirms what Martius just heard from the messenger, and what the Senator says Martius has been saying all along: “the Volsces are in arms.”

Caius Martius reports that the Volscians have a leader, Tullus Aufidius, whom Martius envies for his nobility. If Martius were anyone but himself, he says, he would wish he were Aufidius. Martius claims that if two halves of the world were divided and fighting against each other and Aufidius were on his side, he would revolt to fight Aufidius, since “he is a lion that [Martius is] proud to hunt.” Martius and Lartius agree to accompany Cominius in the war, and the senators beckon all of the soldiers to return to the capital. They instruct the citizens to go home, but Martius says they should follow, since the Volsces have a lot of corn. The citizens disband anyways, and the soldiers and Roman senators exit, leaving the two tribunes alone in the street.

Sicinius asks Brutus if there ever lived a man so proud as Caius Martius, and Brutus responds that “he has no equal.” They reflect on how poorly Martius reacted when they were named tribunes, and hope that the wars devour him. He has become too proud, which they believe is dangerous.

Sicinius wonders how someone so insolent can even be commanded on the battle field, but Brutus responds that Caius Martius only fights for fame (which he already has), and that it’s better for his fame to be second in command, since all of the problems will be seen as the general’s fault, which will then cause people to say ‘if only Martius were in command!’ At the same time, if things go well people will say it’s only because of Martius instead of the general. The tribunes the decide to follow Martius and the Roman Senators to the capital to see what new decisions are made as Martius heads off to war.