We see Shakespeare's whole soul with Coriolanus when he cannot bring himself to ask the Consulate of the people in requital of his services. Let them freely give him his reward, but that he should have to ask for it—torture!
When his friends insist upon his conforming to custom and appearing in person as applicant, Shakespeare, who has hitherto followed Plutarch step by step, here diverges, in order to represent this step as being excessively disagreeable to Marcius. According to the Greek historian, Coriolanus at once proceeds with a splendid retinue to the Forum, and there displays the wounds he has received in the recent wars; but Shakespeare's hero cannot bring himself to boast of his exploits to the people, nor to appeal to their admiration and compassion by making an exhibition of his wounds:
"I cannot
Put on the gown, stand naked, and entreat them,
For my wounds' sake, to give their suffrage: please you
That I may pass this doing" (Act ii. sc. 2).
He finally yields, but has hardly set foot in the Forum before he begins to curse at the position in which he has placed himself:
"What must I say?
'I pray, sir '—Plague upon't! I cannot bring
My tongue to such a pace:—'Look, sir, my wounds!
I got them in my country's service when
Some certain of your brethren roared and ran
From the noise of our own drums'" (Act ii. sc. 3).
He makes an effort to control himself, and, turning brusquely to the nearest bystanders, he addresses them with ill-concealed irony. On being asked what has induced him to stand for the Consulate, he hastily and rashly replies:
"Mine own desert.
"Second Citizen. Your own desert!.
"Coriolanus. Ay, but not mine own desire.
"Third Citizen. How not your own desire?
"Coriolanus. No, sir, 'twas never my desire to trouble the poor with
begging."
Having secured a few votes in this remarkably tactless manner, he exclaims:
"Most sweet voices!
Better to die, better to starve,
Than crave the hire which first we do deserve."
When the intrigues of the tribunes succeed in inducing the people to revoke his election, he so far forgets himself in his fury at the insult that they are enabled to pronounce sentence of banishment against him. He then bursts into an outbreak of taunts and threats: "You common cry of curs! I banish you!"—which recalls how some thousand years later another chosen of the people and subsequent object of democratic jealousy, Gambetta, thundered at the noisy assembly at Belleville: "Cowardly brood! I will follow you up into your very dens."