Coriolanus: Act 3, Scene 1 Summary & Analysis

Part of the tension in this scene is driven by dramatic irony; the characters on stage all assume that Coriolanus will become consul, and Cominius even calls him by that title. Coriolanus is thrilled to move from politics back to war. Immediately upon return from battle he is looking for a reason to go back to it, and part of his heroism seems to be his unending hunger for violence. He’s a terrible politician since he has no interest in peace or governing. As always, he’s curious about Aufidius, the rival that he loves to hate.

Coriolanus invokes the body politic to describe the tribunes’ roles of expressing the opinions of the people. Coriolanus is right that the tribunes are power hungry and are plotting against him, but he wrongly attributes this to a crusade against the whole patrician class rather than the personal vendetta they have against him. His political philosophy amounts to the idea that the more power given to the people, the less effectively (authoritatively and efficiently) the nobles of the Roman government can lead.

Brutus brings the debate back to corn and to the disparity of material resources that first enraged the people. To Coriolanus, being named tribune would be an insult and a dishonor, since he believes the position is superfluous and even detrimental to the Roman government.

Sicinius knows that Coriolanus cannot exhibit a gentler spirit, because it would require him to act like a politician, which he can’t do because of his lack of language ability, and which he won’t do because it’s so contrary to his values. Coriolanus finally uses the type of imagery that the citizens hate most, calling them a fickle, disgusting multitude. His understanding of the power structure in Rome is that nobles need to maintain their power by keeping as separate as possible from the powerless masses. In his eyes, ceding to any of the citizens’ demands threatens the existence of Rome itself.

Usually Coriolanus avoids language in favor of action, so it’s ironic that this single deluge of words brings his downfall. Again he is compared to a god instead of human, but Brutus makes this comparison to highlight Coriolanus’ arrogance and elitism, not his heroism. Renaissance medicine held that bodily “humors” were responsible for emotions; “choler” was the humor responsible for anger. By blaming it on choler, Menenius hopes Coriolanus will not be held accountable for his rant against the plebeians and their tribunes.

Though Coriolanus prefers action, violence, and wounds to words, here he lashes out due to a single insulting word. In Greek mythology Triton is the messenger of the sea, and in Coriolanus’ analogy the common people are minnows, at once insulting the people and suggesting that the tribune is virtually powerless. The hydra is a mythical multi-headed monster, the perfect metaphor to describe the worst view of the common people.

In one of his only long speeches in the play, Coriolanus makes a straightforward plea for the senators to either revoke power from the tribunes, or just allow Rome to collapse into chaos. The structure of this speech is fairly simple, showing again that Coriolanus is no master rhetorician. Coriolanus’ criticism is both impassioned and practical. As a classic Roman idealist, he is offended to his soul by the concessions made to the common people. But in a practical sense, he sees a power vacuum which makes it extremely difficult to rule and threatens to throw Rome into chaos.

Coriolanus makes a food pun, saying that feeding the people only works to feed rebellion and the ruin of Rome. He’s of the belief that granting requests teaches the people that they can get their way by asking, and thus teaches them to continue asking for more and more, which will eventually lead the state into destruction.

Coriolanus reiterates the idea that the people’s opinions are subject to change without rhyme or reason. The corn represents the broader desires of the people, and their anti-Roman cowardice in the most recent war gives Coriolanus even more reason to despise them. These are topics that Menenius and Volumnia explicitly told Coriolanus not to mention in front of the common people for the sake of his political career.

In calling the common people the “bosom multiplied,” Coriolanus finally uses the many-headed multitude language that the people hate. “Digest” is meant literally, since they ate the corn, and figuratively as “understand.” Since the people know that they do not deserve the corn (in Coriolanus’ mind), he reasons that they must recognize their power in numbers. It’s ironic that Coriolanus hates words but finds himself unable to stop speaking (and thereby stop killing his political career).

Though Coriolanus is unable to make an argument without insulting the common people – as in the “for good reason” comment – his argument (and his hatred) seems derived from a legitimate threat to Rome. He describes a power vacuum and the impracticality of governing while constantly looking to the common people (who admit to having many opinions) for approval. Coriolanus seems to hate the commoners insofar as their demand for a voice threatens the stability of the city he loves more than himself.

Coriolanus’ list of “anyone who” characteristics echoes his battle speech given outside of Corioles. Attempting to use a battle speech in a political debate perfectly captures Coriolanus’ inability to transition from soldier to politician. He uses the body politic and a medical analogy to suggest the people be stripped of their new tribunes, whom he has already called “tongues of the common mouth.”

The tribunes have been waiting for Coriolanus to incriminate himself enough to take action. Though he’s already “said enough,” Coriolanus might be said to have shown some ounce of restraint up until he is called a traitor. After that point, his love for Rome and his adherence to his ideals are so strong that all attempts to play the part are abandoned, along with metaphors and analogies, and he directly says that he thinks the tribunes should be stripped of their power.

An Aedile was a Roman officer under control of the people’s tribunes. While Sicinius and Brutus are playing a careful political game, Coriolanus is quick to resort to physical violence. Though he loves Rome more than himself, the tribunes are able to accuse him of being a traitor since he’s against part of the city’s government structure. In the chaos, even a master orator like Menenius is rendered speechless. Menenius tries to keep the peace, but the tribunes don’t want peace, as they are intentionally creating an uproar in order to seize power and oust Coriolanus.

As mentioned above, Sicinius doesn’t want to calm the people, since he is using their anger to get rid of his political competition. Calling Coriolanus by his original name is an insult and a rejection of the most recent military deeds that qualified Coriolanus to be a politician, another subtle way for Sicinius to undercut and infuriate Coriolanus. The arguments here make up two major political viewpoints of what makes Rome great. For the tribunes (and those reading through a leftist or Marxist lens) the greatness and power of the city comes from the common people. From the other perspective, Rome is strong because of the firm social hierarchy in place. Threats to this social order (which in some ways mirrors the social order of Shakespeare’s England) are to Coriolanus threats with the potential to destroy the city he loves.

Again, in drawing his sword Coriolanus cannot contain his inner soldier. He’d rather die on the spot, both because he’d die in battle and because dying by formal execution would mean he died as a traitor to Rome. Menenius is concerned with saving Coriolanus’ political career, not with saving the common people.

Coriolanus is war-minded again, hoping to fulfill his earlier wish of slaughtering the common citizens. Somehow Menenius doesn’t believe that all is already lost for Coriolanus. Menenius must compare the political failure to a wound so that Coriolanus can understand it, which is ironic since the wounds he received in battle were his original qualification and political currency.

Even though Coriolanus hates the common people, he still recognizes them as civilized Romans and therefore will not kill them, suggesting that Roman-ness might come before class distinctions. Cominius explains an important distinction between masculinity and violence, suggesting that being violent alone doesn’t make one manly. Instead, one must fight a righteous and winnable battle to be manly.

Coriolanus’ stubbornness can be viewed as the utmost nobility and an adherence to strict, classic Roman values. This trait makes Coriolanus heroic, but also un-relatable, and it is possible that this is one of the reasons he is so often disliked by audiences. Menenius perfectly captures Coriolanus’ lack of language ability with the “heart’s his mouth” analogy and the comment that he couldn’t “speak” the people into agreement. Coriolanus’ only use of language is brutal honesty. He’s incapable of editing his speech to reflect something not in his character, and he cannot use language as a tool.

Sicinius’ comment suggests that Coriolanus wants to kill all of the citizens and be the only person in Rome. Menenius has already demonstrated his ability to calm the crowd with words at the beginning of the play, but here the tribunes prevent him by speaking over him. The citizens reinforce their power dynamic with the tribunes (and the city) by reiterating the body politic analogy in which the tribunes are mouths – they voice the opinions of the people – and the citizens are hands – they carry out the will of the tribunes.

Menenius tries to subtly save Coriolanus’ career by calling him Consul, but the tribunes are too attuned to the language-based political game, so they refuse to let this comment slip by unnoticed and make sure to limit how much Menenius is allowed to speak. The people’s outcries reinforce the way that the tribunes harness the power and (literal) voices of the people for their own political power.

Sicinius inverts the analogy used by Coriolanus in which the tribunes are a diseased, “multitudinous tongue” that must be ripped from the body of Rome to save it. In Sicinius’ analogy, Coriolanus is the diseased limb that must be cut off from the body (killed).The dismemberment imagery – breaking off of body parts – reflects the fragmentation in Rome itself. Menenius’ counterargument is based on the ideals of Rome and the idea – one that the citizens themselves admitted – that it’s wrong to be ungrateful to someone who has done such a great service and received so many wounds for the city.

While the rioting people were once the foot (“toe”) of Rome, now Coriolanus is characterized as the mutinous, diseased foot. Both sides disagree on who is really infected, but they agree that the fragmentation in the city could legitimately cause civil war and the destruction of Rome, heightening the stakes of the political drama.

Menenius’ “one more word,” namely mentioning the fact that without justice war will break out, is enough to spare Coriolanus and buy him another chance. This ability to use language so effectively in such a short amount of time highlights Coriolanus’ contrasting inability to use language, even in his lengthy impassioned speeches. Menenius also reinforces the idea that Coriolanus was raised in war, and uses his language ineptitude as an excuse for the outrage Coriolanus just caused.