Act 1, Scene 3

Rome. An apartmnet in MARCIUS' house.

[Enter VOLUMNIA and VIRGILIA; they sit down on two low stools and sew.]
Volumnia
335 I pray you, daughter, sing, or express yourself in a more
336 comfortable sort; if my son were my husband, I should freelier
337 rejoice in that absence wherein he won honour than in the
338 embracements of his bed where he would show most love. When yet
339 he was but tender-bodied, and the only son of my womb; when youth
340 with comeliness pluck'd all gaze his way; when, for a day of
341 kings' entreaties, a mother should not sell him an hour from her
342 beholding; I,—considering how honour would become such a person;
343 that it was no better than picture-like to hang by th' wall if
344 renown made it not stir;—was pleased to let him seek danger
345 where he was to find fame. To a cruel war I sent him; from whence
346 he returned his brows bound with oak. I tell thee, daughter, I
347 sprang not more in joy at first hearing he was a man-child than
348 now in first seeing he had proved himself a man.
Virgilia
349 But had he died in the business, madam? how then?
Volumnia
350 Then his good report should have been my son; I therein
351 would have found issue. Hear me profess sincerely,—had I a dozen
352 sons, each in my love alike, and none less dear than thine and my
353 good Marcius, I had rather had eleven die nobly for their country
354 than one voluptuously surfeit out of action.
[Enter a GENTLEWOMAN.]
Gentlewoman
355 Madam, the Lady Valeria is come to visit you.
Virgilia
356 Beseech you, give me leave to retire myself.
Volumnia
357 Indeed you shall not.
358 Methinks I hear hither your husband's drum;
359 See him pluck Aufidius down by the hair;
360 As children from a bear, the Volsces shunning him:
361 Methinks I see him stamp thus, and call thus:—
362 'Come on, you cowards! you were got in fear
363 Though you were born in Rome:' his bloody brow
364 With his mail'd hand then wiping, forth he goes,
365 Like to a harvest-man that's tasked to mow
366 Or all, or lose his hire.
Virgilia
367 His bloody brow! O Jupiter, no blood!
Volumnia
368 Away, you fool! It more becomes a man
369 Than gilt his trophy: the breasts of Hecuba,
370 When she did suckle Hector, looked not lovelier
371 Than Hector's forehead when it spit forth blood
372 At Grecian swords contending.—Tell Valeria
373 We are fit to bid her welcome.
[Exit GENTLEWOMAN.]
Virgilia
374 Heavens bless my lord from fell Aufidius!
Volumnia
375 He'll beat Aufidius' head below his knee,
376 And tread upon his neck.
[Re-enter GENTLEWOMAN, with VALERIA and her Usher.]
Valeria
377 My ladies both, good-day to you.
Volumnia
378 Sweet madam.
Virgilia
379 I am glad to see your ladyship.
Valeria
380 How do you both? you are manifest housekeepers. What are
381 you sewing here? A fine spot, in good faith.—How does your
382 little son?
Virgilia
383 I thank your ladyship; well, good madam.
Volumnia
384 He had rather see the swords and hear a drum than look upon his
385 schoolmaster.
Valeria
386 O' my word, the father's son: I'll swear 'tis a very pretty boy.
387 O' my troth, I looked upon him o' Wednesday, half an hour
388 together: has such a confirmed countenance. I saw him run after a
389 gilded butterfly; and when he caught it he let it go again; and
390 after it again; and over and over he comes, and up again; catched
391 it again; or whether his fall enraged him, or how 'twas, he did
392 so set his teeth and tear it; O, I warrant, how he mammocked it!
Volumnia
393 One on's father's moods.
Valeria
394 Indeed, la, 'tis a noble child.
Virgilia
395 A crack, madam.
Valeria
396 Come, lay aside your stitchery; I must have you play the idle
397 huswife with me this afternoon.
Virgilia
398 No, good madam; I will not out of doors.
Valeria
399 Not out of doors!
Volumnia
400 She shall, she shall.
Virgilia
401 Indeed, no, by your patience; I'll not over the threshold till my
402 lord return from the wars.
Valeria
403 Fie, you confine yourself most unreasonably; come, you must go
404 visit the good lady that lies in.
Virgilia
405 I will wish her speedy strength, and visit her with my prayers;
406 but I cannot go thither.
Volumnia
407 Why, I pray you?
Virgilia
408 'Tis not to save labour, nor that I want love.
Valeria
409 You would be another Penelope; yet they say all the yarn she spun
410 in Ulysses' absence did but fill Ithaca full of moths. Come; I
411 would your cambric were sensible as your finger, that you might
412 leave pricking it for pity.—Come, you shall go with us.
Virgilia
413 No, good madam, pardon me; indeed I will not forth.
Valeria
414 In truth, la, go with me; and I'll tell you excellent news
415 of your husband.
Virgilia
416 O, good madam, there can be none yet.
Valeria
417 Verily, I do not jest with you; there came news from him last
418 night.
Virgilia
419 Indeed, madam?
Valeria
420 In earnest, it's true; I heard a senator speak it. Thus it
421 is:—the Volsces have an army forth; against whom Cominius the
422 general is gone, with one part of our Roman power: your lord and
423 Titus Lartius are set down before their city Corioli; they
424 nothing doubt prevailing, and to make it brief wars. This is
425 true, on mine honour; and so, I pray, go with us.
Virgilia
426 Give me excuse, good madam; I will obey you in everything
427 hereafter.
Volumnia
428 Let her alone, lady; as she is now, she will but disease our
429 better mirth.
Valeria
430 In troth, I think she would.—Fare you well, then.—Come,
431 good sweet lady.—Pr'ythee, Virgilia, turn thy solemness out o'
432 door and go along with us.
Virgilia
433 No, at a word, madam; indeed I must not. I wish you much mirth.
Valeria
434 Well then, farewell.
[Exeunt.]

Reading mode

Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 343rhetorical device
“picture-like to hang by th' wall if renown made it not stir”
Volumnia compares a man without military renown to a portrait hanging uselessly on a wall — decorative but motionless, incapable of action. The image argues that physical beauty or nobility counts for nothing without the movement and fame that war alone provides.
TLN 346historical topical
“his brows bound with oak”
A wreath of oak leaves — the corona civica, or 'civic crown' — was the Roman military award given to a soldier who saved the life of a fellow citizen in battle. It was the second highest Roman decoration, worn on the head of the man honoured. Returning from a campaign with such a crown marks Marcius as already an exceptional soldier.
TLN 353cultural context
“I had rather had eleven die nobly for their country than one voluptuously surfeit out of action”
Volumnia says she would rather see eleven of twelve sons die in battle than have one live in idle luxury ('voluptuously surfeit out of action'). The statement reveals the Roman patrician ideal she has drilled into Coriolanus: honourable death in service of Rome is worth more than survival in comfort. Plutarch notes that Roman mothers were expected to rejoice in their sons' military deaths.
classical Plutarch's Lives (North's Translation)
TLN 365rhetorical device
“Like to a harvest-man that's tasked to mow Or all, or lose his hire”
Volumnia imagines Marcius cutting down enemies the way a hired reaper must cut all the grain in his field or forfeit his wages — total, relentless, driven by necessity. 'Hire' means his pay or wages; the simile presents warfare as a piece-work job that admits no stopping short of completion.
TLN 369classical allusion
“the breasts of Hecuba, When she did suckle Hector, looked not lovelier Than Hector's forehead when it spit forth blood”
Hecuba was the queen of Troy whose son Hector, Troy's greatest warrior, was slaughtered by the Greek hero Achilles. Volumnia invokes Hecuba nursing the infant Hector — one of the most tender maternal images in the classical world — only to claim that a warrior's bloody brow in battle surpasses even that. The comparison deliberately elevates wounds above mother-love.
classical Hecuba, Queen of Troy
TLN 392archaic vocab
“how he mammocked it”
'Mammocked' means tore to pieces, mangled or shredded. Valeria describes young Marcius catching a butterfly, letting it go, catching it again, and finally ripping it apart in frustrated rage. The word is rare and intensely vivid — it captures the violence of the tearing.
TLN 395archaic vocab
“A crack, madam”
'A crack' here means a lively, mischievous youngster or rascal — Virgilia is affectionately deflecting Valeria's praise of young Marcius with a mild disclaimer: he's just a naughty boy. The word is colloquial and warm in tone.
TLN 409classical allusion
“You would be another Penelope; yet they say all the yarn she spun in Ulysses' absence did but fill Ithaca full of moths”
Valeria compares Virgilia's vow to stay home until her husband returns to Penelope, the wife of the hero Odysseus (Ulysses), who famously waited twenty years for him. Valeria's joke twists the comparison: Penelope's famous weaving — which she unravelled each night to delay suitors — produced nothing useful in the end but a house full of moths. It is a comic deflation of the myth to tease Virgilia out of her stubbornness.
TLN 421historical topical
“the Volsces have an army forth; against whom Cominius the general is gone, with one part of our Roman power: your lord and Titus Lartius are set down before their city Corioli”
Valeria relays the strategic situation: the Roman army has split — the general Cominius leads one part against the main Volscian force in the field, while Marcius and Titus Lartius besiege the Volscian city of Corioli. 'Set down before' means they have established a siege. This is the campaign from which Marcius will return with the surname 'Coriolanus.'
historical The Volscians, Corioli, and Antium