Coriolanus · Chapter
Scene I explained
A group of mutinous citizens, armed with staves and clubs, gather in Rome to protest against the patricians, particularly targeting Caius Marcius for his pride and enmity toward the common people.
What happens
A group of mutinous citizens, armed with staves and clubs, gather in Rome to protest against the patricians, particularly targeting Caius Marcius for his pride and enmity toward the common people. Menenius Agrippa attempts to pacify them with the fable of the belly, arguing that the senators, like the belly, distribute benefits to all parts of the state. The citizens are unconvinced until Caius Marcius himself arrives and berates them harshly, escalating the conflict.
Themes in this chapter
Class Conflict
The scene opens with armed citizens protesting against patrician hoarding of grain, highlighting the deep economic and social divide between the plebeians and the ruling class.
Pride and Arrogance
Caius Marcius is accused by the First Citizen of being proud to the 'altitude of his virtue,' and his contemptuous treatment of the citizens exemplifies his arrogance.
Political Manipulation
Menenius uses the fable of the belly to manipulate the citizens into accepting the patricians' authority, framing their rebellion as foolish and ungrateful.
Characters to notice
- First Citizen
Leads the mutinous citizens, accusing Caius Marcius of being the chief enemy to the people and advocating for his death to secure corn at a fair price.
- Second Citizen
Attempts to moderate the crowd by reminding them of Caius Marcius's services to Rome, but is overruled by the First Citizen's accusations of pride.
- Menenius Agrippa
Enters to calm the citizens, using the fable of the belly to argue that the patricians care for the people like fathers, though his efforts are met with skepticism.
- Caius Marcius Coriolanus
Arrives and harshly rebukes the citizens, calling them 'dissentious rogues' and 'curs,' displaying his contempt for the common people and their grievances.
Key passages
“Let us kill him, and we’ll have corn at our own price.”
If we eliminate Caius Marcius, we can force the patricians to sell grain at a fair price.
The First Citizen proposes murder as a direct solution to the food crisis, showing the desperation and anger of the plebeians.
“What authority surfeits on would relieve us: if they would yield us but the superfluity, while it were wholesome, we might guess they relieved us humanely; but they think we are too dear: the leanness that afflicts us, the object of our misery, is as an inventory to particularize their abundance; our sufferance is a gain to them.”
The excess that the rich enjoy could feed us, but they see our suffering as a way to highlight their own wealth, and our pain benefits them.
The First Citizen articulates the economic exploitation of the poor by the patricians, framing their misery as a tool for the rich to flaunt their abundance.
“He did it to please his mother, and to be partly proud; which he is, even to the altitude of his virtue.”
Caius Marcius's heroic deeds were motivated by a desire to impress his mother and feed his pride, which is as extreme as his courage.
The First Citizen interprets Marcius's valor as self-serving, linking his actions to maternal influence and arrogance.
“The senators of Rome are this good belly, and you the mutinous members; for examine Their counsels and their cares, digest things rightly Touching the weal o’ the common, you shall find No public benefit which you receive But it proceeds or comes from them to you And no way from yourselves.”
The senators are like the belly that distributes nourishment to the whole body; all public benefits come from them, not from your own efforts.
Menenius uses the fable to argue that the patricians are essential to the state's well-being, dismissing the citizens' grievances as misguided.
