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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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( Concluded from p . 202 . J
The scene has again changed , and Coriolanus is beneath his own roof , accompanied by sundry patricians , before , rather than to whom , he gives vent to the indignant feelings which injustice
has aroused . Like the Indian at the stake , he scorns to yield to the pressure of circumstances , and the more terrible those circumstances become , the stronger is his resolution to resist , and not to acknowledge the commission of those things of which he knows himself to be guiltless . Death on the wheel , or at wild horses' heels > or the plunge from the Tarpeian rocks , one piled on
the other , can in no way shake him . His firmness is the result of conscious integrity . While in this mood , his mother enters , with an expression of angry discontent , the result of her ineffectual efforts to work upon her son ' s nature . He asks her why she wishes him to humble himself to the people whom she has
always been accustomed to treat , and teach him to treat , with contempt , calling them f woollen vassals , things created to buy and sell with groats . ' The base nature of Volumnia now shows itself , and she appears to the unbiassed judgment as vile as the vilest being ever known under the name of ' slave , ' and thus degraded below the standard of human nature .
' I would have had you put your power well on , Before you had worn it out . # ?****• *
Lesser had been The thwartings of your dispositions , if You had not show'd them how you were disposed ; Ere they lacked power to cross you . '
This means , she wished her son to possess a treacherous nature , in order to acquire power easily . Simple power was all she cared for , no matter how acquired , or for what purpose used . But Coriolanus was too noble to do this , and would only reply with an expression of disgust . All present join to aid Volumnia ' s purpose , prompted by their personal fears . Even the honest Menenius yields to the impulse of that destroyer of all good , the
Whiggish doctrine of expediency , in striving to bring about a reconciliation of all parties . Volumnia taunts liar son , proclaiming that her heart is to the full as hard as his , but that her brain is far more cunning , being able to shape even her anger to her interests . All her phrases go to prove that she excels in ' cunning , ' the principal art of those who combine intellect with moral worthlessness . Coriolanus has been nurtured in the customary reverence to patriarchal authority , and cannot break through that reverence
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292
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CORIOLANUS NO ARISTOCRAT .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1834, page 292, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2632/page/64/
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