THE GRAND CONTRAST. SHAKESPEARE’S CONCEPTION OF THE SITUATION IN ROME
It is difficult to describe with any certainty the reasons for
Shakespeare’s variations from Plutarch in his treatment of the people.
They may, like some of those already discussed, be due to the dramatic
requirement of compression. They may be due to the deliberate purpose
of exonerating the hero. They may, and this is more likely, have arisen
quite naturally and unconsciously from Shakespeare’s indifference to
questions of constitutional theory and his inability to understand the
ideals of an antique self-governing commonwealth controlled by all
its free members as a body. In any case the result is a picture of
the primitive society, from which some of Plutarch’s inconsistencies,
but with them some of the most typical traits, have been removed. The
grand characteristic which the Tudor Englishman rejects, or all but
rejects, is the intuitive political capacity which Plutarch, perhaps
in idealising retrospect, attributes to all classes of citizens in the
young republic, and which at any rate in after development formed the
distinctive genius of the Roman state. He has indeed an inarticulate
sense of it that enables him to suggest the general impression. He
could not but have a sense of it; for few men have been so pentrated
with the greatness of later Rome as he, and he seems to have felt, as
the shapers of the tradition and as Plutarch felt, that such a tree
must have sprung from a healthy seed. So when we examine what his story
involves, we have evidence enough of a general spirit of moderation,
accommodation, compromise, that flow from and minister to an efficient
practical patriotism; an ingrafted love of the city; and a conviction
of the community of interests among high and low alike. Mr. Watkiss
Lloyd puts this with great emphasis, and on the whole with great truth.
Rome is preserved from cleaving in the midst by the virtues
of the state, the reverence for the political majority which
pervades both contending parties. The senate averts the
last evil by the timely concession of the tribunitian power
first, and then by sacrifice of a favourite champion of
their own order, rather than civil war shall break out and
all go to ruin in quarrel for the privilege and supremacy
of a part. Rather than this they will concede, and trust to
temporising, to negociating, to management, to the material
influence of their position and the effect of their own
merits and achievements, to secure their power or recover
it hereafter. Among the people, on the other hand, there is
also a restraining sentiment, a religion that holds back
from the worst abuses of successful insurrection and excited
faction. The proposition to kill Marcius is easily given up.
Even the tribunes are capable of being persuaded to forego
the extremity of rancour against the enemy of the people and
of their authority, when he is fairly in their power, and
commute death for banishment; and, the victory achieved,
they counsel tranquility, as Menenius, on the other hand,
softens down; and all goes smoothly again like a reconciled
household, after experience of the miseries of adjusting
wrongs by debate and anger.
Similarly the interests of the country are supreme when Coriolanus,
with his new allies, advances to the attack:
Some impatience of the people against the tribunes is
natural, but the tribunes with all their faults, take
their humiliation not ignobly, and the nobles never for a
moment dream of getting a party triumph by foreign aid. The
danger of the country engrosses all, and at last Volumnia
presses upon her son the right and the noble, and employs
all the influences of domestic and natural affection—but
all entirely to the great political and national end,—and
is as disregardful of the fortunes or interests of the
aristocratical party, which might have hoped to seize the
opportunity for recovering lost ground, as she is apparently
unaware, unconscious, regardless of what may be the
consequences personally to her much loved son.
And Mr. Lloyd clinches his plea by his estimate of the catastrophe.
In the concluding scene we appear to see the supremacy of
Rome assured.... In the senate house of the Volscians is
perpetrated the assassination, from the disgrace of which
the better spirit of the Romans preserved their city:
Aufidius and his fellows with equal envy and ingratitude
take the place of the plotting tribunes, and the senators
are powerless to control the conspirators and mob of
citizens who abet them.
They are, in short, in comparison with Rome self-condemned; and this
becomes more manifest if we contrast the finale of the play with the
concluding sentences in Plutarch, which Shakespeare leaves unused.
Now Martius being dead, the whole state of the Volsces
hartely wished him alive again. For first of all they
fell out with the Æques (who were their friendes and
confederates) touching preheminence and place: and this
quarrell grew on so farre betwene them, and frayes and
murders fell out apon it one with another. After that, the
Romaines overcame them in battell, in which Tullus was
slaine in the field, and the flower of all their force was
put to the sworde: so that they were compelled to accept
most shameful conditions of peace, in yelding them selves
subject unto the conquerors, and promising to be obedient at
their commandement.
It is at first sight rather strange that Shakespeare should give no
indication that the Volscians, first by condoning Tullus’ crime, the
breach of friendship from desire for pre-eminence, then by repeating
it as a community, prepare the way for their own downfall. Perhaps he
felt that no finger-post was necessary, and that all must see how in
the long run such a state must inevitably succumb to the greater moral
force of Rome.
A few slight qualifications would have to be made in Mr. Lloyd’s
statement of his thesis to render it absolutely correct, but it is true
in the main. Nevertheless, true though it be, it makes no account of
two very important considerations. One of these is that despite the
general appreciation which Shakespeare shows for the attitude of the
Roman _Civitas_, he has no perception of the real issues between the
plebeians and the patricians, or of the course which the controversy
took, though these matters constitute the chief claim of the citizens
of early Rome to the credit they receive in Plutarch’s narrative. And
the other consideration is, that Shakespeare’s general appreciation of
the community he describes is perceptible only when we view the play at
a distance and in its mass: the impression in detail as we follow it
from scene to scene is by no means so favourable to either party.
The first point is well brought out by the total omission in the drama
of the initial episode in the discussion between the populace and the
senate, and between the populace and Marcius. And the omission is all
the more noticeable since Plutarch gives it particular prominence as
directly leading to the establishment of the tribunate, which the
drama, as we shall see, ascribes merely to an insignificant bread
riot. Here is what Shakespeare must have read, and what slips from him
without leaving more than a trace, though to modern feeling it is one
of the most impressive passages in the whole _Life_.
Now (Martius) being growen to great credit and authoritie in
Rome for his valliantnes, it fortuned there grewe sedition
in the cittie, bicause the Senate dyd favour the riche
against the people, who dyd complaine of the sore oppression
of userers, of whom they borowed money. For those that had
litle, were yet spoyled of that litle they had by their
creditours, for lack of abilitie to paye the userie: who
offered their goodes to be solde, to them that would
geve most. And suche as had nothing left, their bodies
were layed holde of, and they were made their bonde men,
notwithstanding all the woundes and cuttes they shewed,
which they had receyved in many battells, fighting for
defence of their countrie and common wealth: of the which,
the last warre they made, was against the Sabynes, wherein
they fought apon the promise the riche men had made them,
that from thenceforth they would intreate them more gently,
and also upon the worde of Marcus Valerius chief of the
Senate, who by authoritie of the counsell, and in the
behalfe of the riche, sayed they should performe that they
had promised. But after that they had faithfully served in
this last battell of all, where they overcame their enemies,
seeing they were never a whit the better, nor more gently
intreated, and that the Senate would geve no eare to them,
but make as though they had forgotten their former promise,
and suffered them to be made slaves and bonde men to their
creditours, and besides, to be turned out of all that ever
they had; they fell then even to flat rebellion and mutinie,
and to sturre up daungerous tumultes within the cittie. The
Romaines enemies, hearing of this rebellion, dyd straight
enter the territories of Rome with a marvelous great power,
spoyling and burning all as they came. Whereupon the Senate
immediatly made open proclamation by sounde of trumpet, that
all those which were of lawfull age to carie weapon, should
come and enter their names into the muster masters booke, to
goe to the warres: but no man obeyed their commaundement.
Whereupon their chief magistrates, and many of the Senate,
beganne to be of divers opinions emong them selves. For
some thought it was reason, they should somewhat yeld to
the poore peoples request, and that they should a little
qualifie the severitie of the lawe. Other held hard against
that opinion, and that was Martius for one. For he alleaged,
that the creditours losing their money they had lent, was
not the worst thing that was thereby: but that the lenitie
that was favored, was a beginning of disobedience, and
that the prowde attempt of the communaltie, was to abolish
lawe, and to bring all to confusion. Therefore he sayed;
if the Senate were wise, they should betimes prevent, and
quenche this ill favored and worse ment beginning. The
Senate met many dayes in consultation about it: but in the
end they concluded nothing. The poore common people seeing
no redresse, gathered them selves one daye together, and
one encoraging another, they all forsooke the cittie, and
encamped them selves upon a hill, called at this daye the
holy hill, alongest the river of Tyber, offering no creature
any hurte or violence, or making any shewe of actuall
rebellion; saving that they cried as they went up and down,
that the riche men had driven them out of the cittie, and
that all Italie through they should finde ayer, water and
ground to burie them in. Moreover, they sayed, to dwell
at Rome was nothing els but to be slaine, or hurte with
continuell warres and fighting for defence of the riche mens
goodes.
Plutarch goes on to tell how in this crisis the Senate adopts a
conciliatory attitude, and how after the fable of Menenius, the
mutineers are pacified by the concession of five _Tribuni plebis_,
“whose office should be to defend the poore people from violence and
oppression.” Then he concludes this part of his recital:
Hereupon the cittie being growen againe to good quiet and
unitie, the people immediatly went to the warres, shewing
that they had a good will to doe better than ever they dyd,
and to be very willing to obey the magistrates in that they
would commaund concerning the warres.
Now, in this account there is no question which side is on the right
and has a claim on our sympathies. The plebs is reduced to distress
by fighting for the state and for the aristocratic _régime_ that was
set up some twenty years before: its misery is aggravated by harsh and
inadequate laws, the redress of which it seeks by a policy of passive
resistance; its demands are so equitable that they are approved by a
portion of the Senate, and so urgent that they are conceded by the
Senate as a whole: but such is the strength of class selfishness, that
when the hour of need is past, the patricians violate their explicit
promise, and the grievances become more intolerable than before. Even
now the plebeians break out in no violent rebellion, and hardly show
their discontent in a casual riot. In their worst desperation they
merely secede, and in their very secession they are far from stubborn.
They admit Menenius’ moral that the Senate has an essential function in
the state: and as a preliminary to their return, only stipulate for a
machinery that will protect them against further oppression.
But hardly a line in the description of this movement which the
plebeians conducted so moderately and sagaciously to a successful
end, has passed into the picture of Shakespeare. He ignores the
reasonableness of their cause, the reasonableness of their means,
and fails to perceive the essential efficiency and steadiness of
their character, though all these things are expressed or implied in
Plutarch’s narrative. This episode, in which the younger contemporary
of Nero favours the people, the elder contemporary of Pym summarily
dismisses, and substitutes for it another far less important, in which
they appear in no very creditable light, but which had nothing to do
with the institution of the Tribunate, and occurred in consequence of
the dearth only after the capture of Corioli.
Now when this warre was ended, the flatterers of the people
beganne to sturre up sedition againe, without any newe
occasion, or just matter offered of complainte. For they dyd
grounde this seconde insurrection against the Nobilitie and
Patricians, apon the people’s miserie and misfortune, that
could not but fall out, by reason of the former discorde
and sedition, betweene them and the Nobilitie. Bicause the
most parte of the errable land within the territorie of
Rome, was become heathie and barren for lacke of plowing,
for that they had no time nor meane to cause corne, to be
brought them out of other countries to sowe, by reason of
their warres which made the extreme dearth they had emong
them. Now those busie pratlers that sought the peoples good
will, by suche flattering wordes, perceyving great scarsitie
of corne to be within the cittie, and though there had bene
plenty enough, yet the common people had no money to buye
it: they spread abroad false tales and rumours against the
Nobilitie, that they in revenge of the people, had practised
and procured the extreme dearthe emong them.
This circumstance, combined with the still later demand for a
distribution of corn, Shakespeare transposes, and makes the surely
rather inappropriate cause of the appointment of the tribunes.
Inappropriate, that is, to what the logic of the situation requires,
and to what the sagacity of the traditional plebs would solicit. They
ask for bread and they get a magistrate. But not inappropriate to the
unreasoning demands of a frenzied proletariat. Many parallels might
be cited from the French revolutions. But this is just an instance of
Shakespeare’s inability to conceive a popular rising in other terms
than the outbreak of a mob.
And this leads us to the second point. The general moderation
and dignity implied in the attitude of Rome, viewed broadly and
comprehensively, almost disappears when we are confronted with the full
concrete life of the participants in all its picturesque and incisive
details.
For consider first a little more closely the treatment of the
people. We have seen that in many ways the proceedings which it and
its representatives take against Coriolanus are more defensible in
Shakespeare than in Plutarch: but, on the other hand, they have less
rational grounds for the original insurrection, and are much less
clear-sighted and consequent in choosing the means of redress. They are
comparatively well-meaning and fair, neither bitter nor narrow-minded,
but they are quite inefficient, far from self-reliant, very childish
and helpless. They are conspicuously lacking in political aptitude,
but they make up for it by a certain soundness of feeling. Plutarch’s
plebeians go the right way about protecting themselves from unjust
laws, but they pursue Coriolanus with rancorous chicane even when
his policy has been overturned. Shakespeare’s plebeians seek to
legislate against a natural calamity, but at the crisis they turn quite
justifiably, if a little tardily, on a would-be governor who makes no
secret of his ill-will. Taken as separate units, they may be unwashed
and puzzle-headed, but they are worthy fellows whom misery has driven
desperate, yet whose misery claims compassion, though their desperation
makes them meddle in things too high for them. In the opening scene,
the First Citizen, even when calling for the death of Marcius, does so
merely because he imagines that it is the preliminary to getting cheap
food:
The gods know I speak this in hunger for bread, not in
thirst for revenge.
(I. i. 15.)
But even among the maddened and famishing crowd, Marcius is not without
his advocate. The Second Citizen admonishes them:
Consider you what services he has done for his country?
(I. i. 30.)
And though these the ringleader discounts on the ground that they were
due not to patriotism, but to personal pride and filial affection,
his apologist, persisting in his defence, points out that he is not
responsible for his inborn tendencies.
What he cannot help in his nature, you account a vice in him.
(I. i. 42.)
All this is candid enough: a benevolent neutral could not say more.
These rioters have no thought of libelling their adversary. They deny
neither his claims nor his merits; they only assert that these are
outweighed by his offences. The Second Citizen proceeds in his plea:
You must in no way say he is covetous;
and the First rejoins:
If I must not, I need not be barren of accusations; he hath
faults, with surplus, to tire in repetition.
(I. i. 43.)
We have seen how Shakespeare adopts from Plutarch the motive for the
plebeians’ initial support of Coriolanus at the election, but he makes
it a more striking instance of their fairness, for he represents them
as quite aware and mindful of the reasons on the other side.
_Fourth Citizen._ You have deserved nobly of your
country, and you have not deserved nobly.
_Coriolanus._ Your enigma?
_Fourth Citizen._ You have been a scourge to her
enemies, you have been a rod to her friends; you have not
indeed loved the common people.
(II. iii. 94.)
It is all very well for the candidate to turn this off with a flout,
but it is the sober truth. That the despised plebeian should see both
sides of the case shows in him more sanity of judgment than Coriolanus
ever possessed: that he should nevertheless cast his vote for such an
applicant shows more generosity as well. And the generosity, if also
the simplicity, of the electors is likewise made more pronounced than
in Plutarch by their persevering in their course despite the scorn
with which Coriolanus treats them; of which Plutarch of course knows
nothing. Even that they forgive till the tribunes irritate the wounds
and predict more fatal ones from the new weapon that has been put into
such ruthless hands.
Did you perceive
He did solicit you in free contempt
When he did need your loves, and do you think
That his contempt shall not be bruising to you,
When he hath power to crush?
(II. iii. 207.)
All these instances of right feeling and instinctive appreciation of
greatness are in Shakespeare’s picture, while they are either not at
all or in a much less degree in Plutarch’s. And these citizens are
capable of following good leadership as well as bad. They listen to
Menenius, and are “almost persuaded” by his argument, without, as in
Plutarch, making their acceptance of it merely provisional. Under
Cominius they quit themselves, as he says, “like Romans,” and he gives
them the praise:
Breathe you, my friends: well fought.
(I. vi. 1.)
Afterwards too he recognises that they are earning their share of the
spoil, even as before they had borne themselves stoutly:
March on, my fellows:
Make good this ostentation, and you shall
Divide in all with us.
(I. vi. 85.)
This is said to the volunteers who come forward at Marcius’ summons, an
episode for which there is hardly a hint in Plutarch. There, indeed, we
read that he cannot call off the looters from the treasures of Corioli:
Whereupon taking those that willingly offered them selves he
went out of the cittie:
which supplies the sentence,
I, with those that have the spirit, will haste
To help Cominius.
(I. v. 14.)
But this hint, if hint it were, Shakespeare uses anew with far stronger
and brighter colouring in the incident of Marcius’ stirring appeal to
Cominius’ men and their enthusiastic response: which is to be found
only in the drama:
If any such be here—
As it were sin to doubt—that love this painting
Wherein you see me smear’d: if any fear
Lesser his person than an ill report;
If any think brave death outweighs bad life
And that his country’s dearer than himself;
Let him alone, or so many so minded,
Wave thus, to express his disposition,
And follow Marcius.
[_They all shout and wave their swords, take him up in
their arms, and cast up their caps._]
(I. vi. 67.)
If they are handled in the right way, these citizen soldiers can play
their part well. But they need to be rightly handled, they need to
have their feelings stirred. They have no rational initiative of their
own, and cannot do without inspiration and guidance. For, consider the
grounds for their rising. Shakespeare not only completely suppresses
the remarkable secession to the Mons Sacer, but barely mentions the
social grievances that led to it. The First Citizen says indeed of the
patricians:
[They] make edicts for usury, to support usurers; repeal
daily any wholesome act established against the rich, and
provide more piercing statutes daily, to chain up and
restrain the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will.
(I. i. 83.)
But this is a mere passing remark, and no stress is laid on these, the
real causes of the discontent, in comparison with the dearth, which
for the rest seems to end with the Coriolan campaign, when there is,
as Cominius promises, a “common distribution” of the spoils. Now the
dearth is represented as a mere disastrous accident, for which no one
is responsible, and for which there is no remedy save prayer—or such a
foray as presently took place. Menenius expressly says so:
For the dearth,
The gods, not the patricians, made it, and
Your knees to them, not arms, must help.
(I. i. 74.)
It is alleged, no doubt, by the mutineers that the “storehouses are
crammed with grain,” but there is no confirmation of this in the play,
and the way in which “honest” Menenius reports the rumour, and Marcius,
who is never less than honest receives it, implies that it is mere
tittle tattle and gossip of the chimney corner.
_Marcius._ What’s their seeking?
_Menenius._ For corn at their own rates: whereof, they say,
The city is well stored.
_Marcius._ Hang ’em! They say!
They’ll sit by the fire, and presume to know
What’s done i’ the Capitol; who’s like to rise,
Who thrives and who declines; side factions and give out
Conjectural marriages; making parties strong
And feebling such as stand not in their liking
Below their cobbled shoes. They say there’s grain enough!
(I. i. 192.)
In short their temper is hardly parodied in the modern skit,
Who fills the butchers’ shops with large blue flies?
And if they resemble the ignorant fanatics of later days in the
unreasonableness of their complaints, they resemble them too, as we
have seen, in the unreasonableness of their remedies. If things were as
the play implies what help would lie in constitutional reform? They are
no better than the starving _Sansculottes_ who sought to allay their
hunger by snatching new morsels of the royal prerogative. It really
reads like a scene in Carlyle’s Paris of 1790 A.D., and not like any
scene in Plutarch’s Rome of 494 B.C., when Coriolanus describes the
delight of the famine-stricken crowds at getting their representatives:
They threw their caps
As they would hang them on the horns o’ the moon,
Shouting their emulation.
(I. i. 216.)
Moreover, when left to themselves, or when their sleeping manhood is
not awakened, these plebeians, otherwise than those of Plutarch, have
not even the average of physical courage. They can fight creditably
under the competent management of Cominius, or heroically under the
stimulus of Marcius’ rousing appeal: but if such influences are
lacking, they fail. Menenius says of them:
Though abundantly they lack discretion,
Yet are they passing cowardly.
(I. i. 206.)
Marcius ironically invites them to the wars by indicating what would
be, and turns out to be, provision for their needs:
The Volsces have much corn: take these rats thither
To gnaw their garners. Worshipful mutineers,
Your valour puts well forth: pray, follow.
(I. i. 253.)
And the citizens steal away. In truth the low opinion of their mettle
seems justified by events. At Corioli the troops under Cominius do
well, but those in Marcius’ division, perhaps because his treatment
does not call out what is best in them, seem to deserve a part at least
of his imprecations:
All the contagion of the south light on you,
You shames of Rome! You herd of——. Boils and plagues
Plaster you o’er, that you may be abhorr’d
Further than seen, and one infect another
Against the wind a mile! You souls of geese,
That bear the shapes of men, how have you run
From slaves that apes would beat! Pluto and hell!
All hurt behind! backs red, and faces pale
With flight and agued fear!
(I. iv. 30.)
Nor do they appear in a better light in the moment of partial victory,
for they at once fall to plunder instead of following it up and helping
their fellows. This touch, of course, Shakespeare derived from Plutarch.
The most parte of the souldiers beganne incontinently to
spoyle, to carie awaye, and to looke up the bootie they had
wonne. But Martius was marvelous angry with them, and cried
out on them, that it was no time now to looke after spoyle,
and to ronne straggling here and there to enriche them
selves, whilest the other Consul and their fellowe cittizens
peradventure were fighting with their enemies; and howe that
leaving the spoyle they should seeke to winde them selves
out of daunger and perill. Howbeit, crie, and saye to them
what he could, very fewe of them would hearken to him.
But Shakespeare is not content with this. He quite without warrant
describes the articles as worthless, to emphasise the baseness of the
pillagers.
See here these movers that do prize their hours
At a crack’d drachma! Cushions, leaden spoons,
Irons of a doit, doublets that hangmen would
Bury with those that wore them, these base slaves,
Ere yet the fight be done, pack up.
(I. v. 5.)
This strain of baseness appears in another way afterwards, when they
yell and hoot at their banished enemy, like a pack of curs at a
retreating mastiff, or when at his threatened return they eat their
words and their deeds.
_First Citizen._ For mine own part, When I said, banish
him, I said ’twas pity.
_Second Citizen._ And so did I.
_Third Citizen._ And so did I: and, to say the truth,
so did very many of us....
_First Citizen._ I ever said we were i’ the wrong when
we banished him.
_Second Citizen._ So did we all.
(IV. vi. 139 and 155.)
What then is Shakespeare’s opinion of the people as a whole? Despite
his sympathy with those of whom it is composed, it is to him a
giant not yet in his teens, with formidable physical strength, with
crude natural impulses to the good and the bad, kindly-natured and
simple-minded, not incapable of fair-dealing and generosity; but rude,
blundering, untaught, and therefore subject to spasms of fury, panic,
and greed, fit for useful service only when it finds the right leader,
but sure to go wrong if abandoned to its own or evil guidance.
To the danger of evil guidance, however, it is specially exposed, for
it loves flattery and is imposed on by professions of goodwill: so
Shakespeare reserves his severest treatment for those who cajole it,
the demagogues of the Tribunate. No doubt in his tolerant objective way
he concedes even to them a measure of justification. He was bound to do
so, else they would have been outside the pale of dramatic sympathy;
and also the culpability of Coriolanus would have been obscured. So
there is something to be said even for their policy and management.
They are quite right in fearing the results of Coriolanus’ elevation to
the chief place in Rome:
_Sicinius._ On the sudden,
I warrant him consul.
_Brutus._ Then our office may
During his power, go sleep.
(II. i. 237.)
Their admonitions to the electors are such as the organisers of a party
are not only entitled but bound to give to a constituency:
Could you not have told him
As you were lesson’d, when he had no power,
But was a petty servant to the state,
He was your enemy, ever spake against
Your liberties and the charters that you bear
I’ the body of the weal: and now, arriving
A place of potency and sway o’ the state,
If he should still malignantly remain
Fast foe to the plebeii, your voices might
Be curses to yourselves.
(II. iii. 180.)
These forebodings of what is likely to occur are not only thoroughly
justifiable but obvious.
Then, though their abandonment of the methods of violence and
acceptance of a trial are discounted partly by the perils of open
force, partly by their confidence in and manipulation of a verdict to
their minds, their willingness to substitute the penalty of banishment
for the extreme sentence of death, must stand, as we have seen, to the
credit, if not of their placability, at least of their moderation and
prudence. Moreover, if we could disregard the dangers of war, their
“platform,” as we should now call it, seems approved by its success.
One cannot but sympathise with the satisfaction of Sicinius at the
results of Marcius’ expulsion:
We hear not of him, neither need we fear him:
His remedies are tame i’ the present peace
And quietness of the people, which before
Were in wild hurry. Here do we make his friends
Blush that the world goes well, who rather had,
Though they themselves did suffer by ’t, behold
Dissentious numbers pestering streets, than see
Our tradesmen singing in their shops and going
About their functions friendly.
(IV. vi. 1.)
And when the citizens pass with their greetings, the tribune has a
right to say to Menenius:
This is a happier and more comely time
Than when these fellows ran about the streets,
Crying confusion.
(IV. vi. 27.)
Even Menenius has to give a modified and grudging approval of the new
position of things:
All’s well: and might have been much better, if
He could have temporised.
(IV. vi. 16.)
And when the disastrous news comes in, after the first outburst of
incredulous wrath and terrified impatience, the two colleagues bear
themselves well enough. There is shrewdness and good sense in Sicinius’
words to the citizens:
Go, masters, get you home: be not dismay’d;
These are a side that would be glad to have
This true which they so seem to fear. Go home,
And show no sign of fear.
(IV. vi. 149.)
When this very natural and probable conjecture proves false, they both
rise to the occasion, or seek to do so, the cross-grained Sicinius
somewhat more effectually than the glib-tongued Brutus, and show a
certain dignity and justness of feeling. Their remonstrance with and
petition to Menenius, if we grant the patriotism on the one side as
well as the other, are not without their cogency:
Nay, pray, be patient: if you refuse your aid
In this so never-needed help, yet do not
Upbraid’s with our distress.
(V. i. 33.)
When Menenius objects that his mission will be futile, Sicinius’ reply
comes near being noble:
Yet your good will
Must have that thanks from Rome, after the measure
As you intended well.
(V. i. 45).
When Menenius, returning from his fruitless mission, describes
Coriolanus in his unapproachable, inexorable power, the tribune’s
rejoinder is again the true one:
_Menenius._ He wants nothing of a god but eternity and
a heaven to throne in.
_Sicinius._ Yes, mercy, if you report him truly.
(V. iv. 24.)
Yet these various traits so little interfere with the general
impression, that perhaps many tolerably careful readers who are
familiar with the play, hardly take them into account. In the total
effect they both seem to us pitiful busybodies, whose ill-earned
influence only leads to disaster; or, as Menenius describes them:
A pair of tribunes that have rack’d for Rome,
To make coals cheap.
(V. i. 16.)
The first feature we notice in them is their pride, a vice which they
blame in Coriolanus, and with which their own is expressly contrasted.
For his is the haughty, unbending self-consciousness that is based on
the sense of indwelling force, and has a shrinking disgust for praise.
Theirs, on the other hand, revels in popularity, and their power
depends entirely on the support which that popularity secures them. As
Menenius tells them:
You are ambitious for poor knaves’ caps and legs.
(II. i. 76.)
Your helps are many, or else your actions would grow
wondrous single: your abilities are too infant-like for
doing much alone.
(II. i. 39.)
They are really consequential and overweening rather than proud. And
magnifying their importance and their office, they are apt to take
too seriously any trifle in which they are concerned, and to become
irritated at any mishap to their own convenience. Having no standard
but themselves by which to measure the proportion of things, they are
fussy over minor points and lose their tempers over petty troubles.
This is the point of Menenius’ banter.
You wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause
between an orange-wife and a fosset-seller; and then
rejourn the controversy of three pence to a second day of
audience. When you are hearing a matter between party and
party, if you chanced to be pinched with the colic, you
make faces like mummers; set up the bloody flag against all
patience; and, in roaring for a chamber-pot, dismiss the
controversy bleeding, the more entangled by your hearing:
all the peace you make in their cause is, calling both the
parties knaves.
(II. i. 77.)
This is, they are disposed to treat a molehill as a mountain, but if
they are galled, to break out in indiscriminate and unjustified abuse.
Menenius gives it them home in respect of these foibles:
You talk of pride: O that you could turn your eyes toward the
napes of your necks, and make but an interior survey of your
good selves! O that you could!
_Brutus._ What then, sir?
_Menenius._ Why, then you should discover a brace of
unmeriting, proud, violent, testy magistrates, alias fools,
as any in Rome.
(II. i. 41.)
This is the utterance of an enemy; nevertheless it is confirmed by
their behaviour, and is moreover a prophecy of their action in regard
to Marcius. In the first place their pride has been insulted by his:
_Sicinius._ Was ever man so proud as is this Marcius?
_Brutus._ He has no equal.
_Sicinius._ When we were chosen tribunes of the people,—
_Brutus._ Mark’d you his lip and eyes?
_Sicinius._ Nay, but his taunts.
_Brutus._ Being moved, he will not spare to gird the gods—
_Sicinius._ Bemock the modest moon.
(I. i. 256.)
A man who gibes at the gods, the moon, and above all the tribunes, is
evidently a profane and irreverent fellow who should be got rid of. And
perhaps it is anxiety not only for the public good but for their own
authority that makes them dread their office may “go sleep,” during
his consulship. At any rate the disrespect with which they have been
treated is one main motive of their indignation: “_Our_ Aediles smote,
_ourselves_ resisted!” they exclaim in pardonable horror (III. i. 319).
Then the means they take to ruin Coriolanus, though not without its
astuteness, and similar enough to what is practised every day in
parliamentary tactics, is altogether base: it is the device of mean,
paltry, inferior natures. They speculate on the defect of their enemy’s
greatness, they reckon on his heroic vehemence and forcefulness to
destroy him, and lay plans to betray his nobility to a passion that
will embroil him with the people. It is as easy, says Sicinius, to
drive him to provocation “as to set dogs on sheep” (II. i. 273). But
easy though it is, they are careful to give minute directions to their
gang. Sicinius tells them that any condition proposed to him,
Would have gall’d his surly nature,
Which easily endures not article
Tying him to aught; so putting him to rage,
You should have ta’en the advantage of his choler
And pass’d him unelected.
(II. iii. 203.)
Then, after engineering the disavowal of the elected candidate, Brutus
calculates
If, as his nature is, he fall in rage
With their refusal, both observe and answer
The vantage of his anger.
(II. iii. 266.)
And here are his final instructions for the behaviour of the people at
the trial:
Put him to choler straight: he hath been used
Ever to conquer, and to have his worth
Of contradiction: being once chafed, he cannot
Be rein’d again to temperance; then he speaks
What’s in his heart; and that is there which looks
To break his neck.
(III. iii. 25.)
The suggestion for these proceedings comes, as we saw, from Plutarch;
but in this one respect his tribunes are by no means so wily. They
contrive a dilemma in which Coriolanus will have either to humble
or to compromise himself; but though they would prefer the latter
alternative, they do nothing to bring it about.
Yet with all their activity in the matter, they are meanly desirous of
evading responsibility and saving their own skins.
_Brutus._ Lay
A fault on us, your tribunes; that we labour’d,
No impediment between, but that you must
Cast your election on him.
_Sicinius._ Say you chose him
More after our commandment than as guided
By your own true affections, and that your minds,
Pre-occupied with what you rather must do
Than what you should, made you against the grain
To voice him consul: lay the fault on us.
(II. iii. 234.)
And parallel with this is the crowning vulgarity of their triumph:
Go, see him out at gates, and follow him,
As he hath follow’d you, with all despite;
Give him deserved vexation.
(III. iii. 138.)
This is perhaps the supreme instance of their headstrong, testy and
inconsiderate violence, for, as we shall see, it embitters the wavering
Marcius and drives him to alliance with the foe. But the same violence
has abundantly appeared before. The rest do all in their power to
appease the tumult and procure a hearing for Sicinius, he uses the
opportunity to add fuel to the fire and deserves Menenius’ rebuke:
This is the way to kindle, not to quench.
(III. i. 197.)
When Brutus proceeds in the same way, Cominius interrupts:
That is the way to lay the city flat;
To bring the roof to the foundation,
And bury all, which yet distinctly ranges,
In heaps and piles of ruin.
(III. i. 204.)
Menenius has to admonish them:
Do not cry havoc, where you should but hunt
With modest warrant.
(III. i. 274.)
And again:
One word more, one word.
This tiger-footed rage, when it shall find
The harm of unscann’d swiftness, will too late
Tie leaden pounds to’s heels.
(III. i. 311.)
They do yield at last, but clearly the game they were playing in
unreflecting impatience was most hazardous for the populace itself.
Indeed, even when they have accepted more moderate counsels, the
expulsion of Coriolanus seems an act not only of ingratitude but of
recklessness. Their low cunning has attained an end, good perhaps
in itself for the party they represent, but even for that party of
insignificant advantage in view of the wider issues. Volumnia’s taunt
is very much to the point:
Hadst thou foxship
To banish him that struck more blows for Rome
Than thou hast spoken words?
(IV. ii. 18.)
For after all, the pressing need in that period of constant war,
as Plutarch and Shakespeare imagine it, was defence of the whole
state, the plebs as well as the senate, against the foreign enemy,
and the danger of an invasion was one of the ordinary probabilities
of the case. Most men who had any sense of proportion would, in the
circumstances, pause before they banished the sword and soldiership of
Rome. No doubt the tribunes were to be excused for not foreseeing the
renegacy of Coriolanus; when it is announced as a fact Menenius can
hardly credit it.
This is unlikely:
He and Aufidius can no more atone
Than violentest contrariety.
(IV. vi. 71.)
It is less excusable that they should neglect the danger of a new
attack from the Volsces, for though Cominius, as we saw, makes a
similar error, he does so when Marcius is still on the side of the
Romans. Menenius’ exclamation, when the invasion actually takes
place and when the news of it is first brought to Rome, describes a
situation, the possibility or probability of which every public man
should have anticipated.
’Tis Aufidius,
Who, hearing of our Marcius’ banishment,
Thrusts forth his horns again into the world:
Which were inshell’d when Marcius stood for Rome,
And durst not once peep out.
(IV. vi. 42.)
This, though of course an understatement, for in point of fact Aufidius
did not wait for Marcius’ banishment, is at any rate the least that
was to be expected. But the tribunes, with a sanguine and criminal
shortsightedness that suggests a distinguished pair of British
politicians in our own day, refuse to admit as conceivable a fact the
likelihood of which the circumstances of the case and recent experience
avouch.
_Brutus._ It cannot be
The Volsces dare break with us.
_Menenius._ Cannot be!
We have record that very well it can,
And three examples of the like have been
Within my age.
(IV. vi. 47.)
Besides, the Volscians were not the only jealous neighbours the young
republic had to guard herself against.
But their reception of the unwelcome tidings is a new instance of the
ignoble strain in the tribunes’ nature. The first effect they have on
Brutus is to enrage him against the informant: “Go see this rumourer
whipp’d”; and Sicinius seconds the humane direction, but improves on
it that the public may be duly cautioned against telling unpalatable
truths: “Go whip him ’fore the people’s eyes.” Menenius may well
remonstrate:
Reason with the fellow,
Before you punish him, where he heard this,
Lest you shall chance to whip your information,
And beat the messenger who bids beware
Of what is to be dreaded.
(IV. vi. 51.)
This is not merely an illustration of their habitual touchiness and
irritability at whatever thwarts them. Once more we think of the
words of the messenger in _Antony and Cleopatra_ when he fears to
report the worst: “The nature of bad news infects the teller”; and of
Antony’s reply: “When it concerns the fool and coward.” There is beyond
doubt more than a spice of folly and cowardice in the self-important
quidnuncs, with their purblind temerity and shifty meanness. We are
very glad to hear in the end of Brutus being mishandled by the mob
and very sorry that Sicinius goes free: but at least he has had his
dose of alarm and mortification, and in the future his influence will
be gone; which is well. Yet they are not bad men. They are very like
the majority of the citizens of Great and Greater Britain, and no
inconsiderable portion of those who govern the Empire and its members.
They have a certain amount of principle, shrewdness, and, if the test
of misfortune comes, even of proper feeling. They would have made very
worthy aldermen of a small municipality. But measured against the
greatness of Rome, or even of Coriolanus, they are as gnats to the lion.
The picture, then, of the people and its elect is not flattering if
we follow it in detail, but a similar examination is hardly more
favourable to the nobles. Of course their behaviour is to a certain
extent accounted for by the peculiarity of their position. Hitherto,
since the expulsion of the kings, the “honoured number” have had
it all their own way in the state, and Shakespeare imputes no blame
to their management, unless it be their excessive arrogance towards
the populace they rule and employ. But now bad times have made that
populace seditious, and they have discovered that, rightly or wrongly,
they must give it a share of the power. Their pride, their traditions,
the consciousness of their faculty for government, pull them one
way, the necessities of the case pull them another. A dominant caste
is placed in a false position when it is forced to capitulate to
assailants for whom it feels an unreasonable contempt and a reasonable
mistrust. When we consider the difficulties of the situation and the
broad results, the patricians, as we saw, come off respectably enough,
and we must give them credit for circumspection, adaptability, and
civic cohesion. But in detail their attitude betrays the uncertainty
and weakness that cannot but ensue in a man or a body of men when
there is a conflict between conviction and expediency, and an attempt
to obey them both. Their scorn of the plebeians, followed by the
very brief effort for their champion and very prompt acquiescence in
his expatriation, makes an unpleasant impression; and this is more
noticeable in the drama than in the biography. Plutarch repeatedly
states that they disagree among themselves, many of them sympathising
with the popular demands and only the younger men favouring the harsh
and reactionary views of Coriolanus.[260] This distinction has left
no trace in the play except in the stage direction which represents
him as departing into exile escorted to the gates by his friends, his
relatives, and “the young nobility of Rome”: but otherwise Shakespeare
makes no use of it. Coriolanus is mouthpiece for the ideals not of
heedless youth but of all the aristocracy, though most of them may be
more politic than he and not so frank. Nevertheless his presuppositions
are theirs, and therefore they seem temporisers and poltroons beside
their outspoken advocate. Indeed, through Menenius, they admit they
have been to blame:
We loved him; but, like beasts
And cowardly nobles, gave way unto your clusters,
Who did hoot him out o’ the city.
(IV. vi. 121.)
[260] See especially the passage that describes his behaviour after
he has been rejected for the consulship: “Coriolanus went home to his
house, full fraighted with spite and malice against the people, being
accompanied with all the lustiest young gentlemen, whose mindes were
nobly bent, as those that came of noble race, and commonly used for
to followe and honour him. But then specially they floct about him,
and kept him companie, to his muche harme; for they dyd but kyndle and
inflame his choller more and more, being sorie with him for the injurie
the people offred him.”
Nor do they act very vigorously when destruction threatens Rome. They
do not indeed seek to separate their cause from that of the whole
community and make terms with their former friend for their own class.
Beyond some naturally bitter gibes at the “clusters” and their leaders,
not unaccompanied for the rest by bitter outbursts against themselves,
there is no trace of the dissensions with the people which Plutarch
describes. But they have no thought of organising any attempt at
resistance. True, there are circumstances in Shakespeare that account
for this supineness as it is not explained in his authority. It is
partly due to the feeling that they are in the wrong, which Shakespeare
in a much greater degree than Plutarch attributes to them. As their own
words show:
_Cominius_. For his best friends, if they
Should say, “Be good to Rome,” they charged him even
As those should do that had deserved his hate,
And therein show’d like enemies.
_Menenius._ ’Tis true:
If he were putting to my house the brand
That should consume it, I have not the face
To say, “Beseech you, cease.”
(IV. vi. 111.)
And again:
If he could burn us all into one coal,
We have deserved it.
(IV. vi. 137.)
Partly, too, there has been no time for preparation, for, as we
have seen, the invasion is a bolt from the blue, and after it has
first struck there is no convenient truce of thirty days before its
recurrence. Entreaty, says Sicinius, might help
More than the instant army we can make;
(V. i. 37.)
and it is the opinion of all.
Partly, too, the inertness of Rome is a tribute to the greatness of the
adversary, which is enhanced beyond the hyperboles of Plutarch, and
with which to inspire them the Volscians are irresistible.
He is their god: he leads them like a thing
Made by some other deity than nature
That shapes men better: and they follow him,
Against us brats, with no less confidence
Than boys pursuing summer butterflies,
Or butchers killing flies.
(IV. vi. 90.)
But contrition, unpreparedness, despair of success hardly excuse the
palsy of incompetence into which this proud aristocracy has now fallen.
It does not of course sink so low as in Plutarch. Of the first of the
repeated deputations he narrates:
The ambassadours that were sent, were Martius familliar
friendes and acquaintaunce, who looked at the least for a
curteous welcome of him, as of their familliar friende and
kynesman. Howbeit they founde nothing lesse. For at their
comming, they were brought through the campe, to the place
where he was set in his chayer of state, with a marvelous
and unspeakable majestie, having the chiefest men of the
Volsces about him: so he commaunded them to declare openly
the cause of their comming. Which they delivered in the most
humble and lowly wordes they possiblie could devise, and
with all modest countenaunce and behaviour agreeable for the
same. When they had done their message; for the injurie they
had done him, he aunswered them very hottely and in great
choller.
This is evidently the foundation of the interviews with Cominius and
Menenius respectively, and it is worth while noting the points of
difference.
In the first place single individuals are substituted for an
unspecified number. Just in the same way the final deputation
consists of “Virgilia, Volumnia, leading young Marcius, Valeria,
and Attendants,” without any of “all the other Romaine Ladies” that
accompany them in Plutarch. In the last case it is the members and the
friend of Coriolanus’ family, in the previous cases it is his sworn
comrade Cominius and his idolatrous admirer Menenius who make the
appeal: and this at once gives their intercessions more of a personal
and less of a public character. One result of this with which we are
not now concerned, is that the rigour of Coriolanus’ first two answers
is considerably heightened; but at present it is more important to
observe that the impression of a formal embassy is avoided. Cominius
and Menenius strike us less as delegates from the Roman state, than
as private Romans who may suppose that their persuasions will have
special influence with their friend. There is nothing to indicate that
Cominius was official envoy of the republic, and we know that Menenius
went without any authorisation, in compliance with the request made
by Sicinius and Brutus in the street. Shakespeare’s senate is spared
the ignominy of the recurring supplications to which Plutarch’s senate
condescends. If these are not altogether suppressed, the references to
them are very faint and vague.
And also the suppliants bear themselves more worthily. Menenius is far
from employing “the most humble and lowly wordes” that could possibly
be devised or “the modest countenaunce and behaviour agreeable for the
same.” Cominius indeed tells how at the close of the interview, we may
suppose as a last resort, he “kneeled before” Coriolanus, but there was
no more loss of dignity in his doing so, consul and general though he
had been, than there was afterwards in Volumnia’s doing the same; and
his words as he repeats them do not show any lack of self-respect.
Still the inactivity, the helplessness, the want of nerve in the Roman
nobles in the hour of need are somewhat pitiful. It was the time to
justify their higher position by higher patriotism, resourcefulness
and courage. They do not make the slightest effort to do so. Remorse
for their desertion of Coriolanus need not have lamed their energies,
since now they would be confronting him not for themselves but for the
state. Even their “instant armies” might do something if commanded
and inspired by devoted captains. At the worst they could lead their
fellow-citizens to an heroic death. One cannot help feeling that if a
Coriolanus, or anyone with a tithe of his spirit, had been among them,
things would have been very different. But while they retain much of
the old caste pride, they have lost much of the old caste efficiency.
Thus Shakespeare, when he comes to the concrete, views with some
severity both the popular and the senatorial party. They show
themselves virulent and acrimonious in their relations with each other,
yet inconsequent even in their virulence and acrimony: then, after
having respectively enforced and permitted the banishment of their
chief defender, they are ready to succumb to him without a blow when,
it has well been said, he returns not even as an _émigré_ using foreign
aid to restore the privileges of his own order and the old _régime_,
but as a barbarian bringing the national foe to exterminate the state
and all its members. And we cannot help asking: Is this an adequate
representation of the young republic that was ere long to become the
mistress of the world? We must look steadily at those general aspects
of the story which we have noticed above, as well as at the doings of
the persons and parties amidst which Coriolanus is set, if we would get
the total effect of the play. Then it produces something of the feeling
which prompted Heine’s description of the ancient Romans:
They were not great men, but through their position they
were greater than the other children of earth, for they
stood on Rome. Immediately they came down from the Seven
Hills, they were small.... As the Greek is great through
the idea of Art, the Hebrew through the idea of one most
holy God; so the Romans are great through the idea of their
eternal Rome; great, wheresoever they have fought, written
or builded in the inspiration of this idea. The greater
Rome grew, the more this idea dilated: the individual lost
himself in it: the great men who remain eminent are borne up
by this idea, and it makes the littleness of the little men
more pronounced.[261]
[261] _Reisebilder_, 2ter Theil; “Italien, Reise nach Genua,” Cap. xxiv.
The Idea of Rome! It is the triumph of that which yields the promise
and evidence of better things that the final situation contains. The
titanic intolerance of Coriolanus after being expelled by fear and
hatred from within, has threatened destruction from without, and
the threat has been averted. The presumptuous intolerance of the
demagogues, after imperilling the state, has been discredited by its
results, and their authority is destroyed. The Idea of Rome in the
patriotism of Volumnia has led to her self-conquest and the conquest of
her son, and is acclaimed by all alike. Thus we have borne in upon us
a feeling of the majesty and omnipotence of the Eternal City, and we
understand how it not only inspires and informs the units that compose
it, but stands out aloft and apart from its faulty representatives as a
kind of mortal deity that overrules their doings to its own ends, and
against which their cavilling and opposition are vain. What Menenius
says to the rioters applies to all dissentients:
You may as well
Strike at the heaven with your staves as lift them
Against the Roman state, whose course will on
The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs
Of more strong link asunder than can ever
Appear in your impediment.
(I. i. 69.)
This, then, is the background against which are grouped with more or
less prominence, as their importance requires, Coriolanus’ family, his
associates, his rival, round the central figure of the hero himself.