But through this symmetrical rise and fall of the excitement, there is no abatement of the interest. Attention and suspense are always kept on the alert. They are secured partly by the diversity of the details and the swiftness of the fluctuations. Dr. Johnson says:
The Tragedy of Coriolanus is one of the most amusing of our author’s performances. The old man’s merriment in Menenius, the lofty lady’s dignity in Volumnia, the bridal modesty in Virgilia, the patrician and military haughtiness in Coriolanus, the plebeian malignity and tribunitian insolence in Brutus and Sicinius, make a very pleasing and interesting variety; and the various revolutions of the hero’s fortune fill the mind with anxious curiosity.
This is so because, while the agitation culminates in the third act, the emotion is neither overtaxed in the two that precede nor allowed to subside in the two that follow. For though this movement, first of intensification, then of relaxation, is discernible in the play as a whole, it is not uniform or uninterrupted. There is throughout a throb and pulse, an ebb and flow. The quieter scenes alternate with the more vehement: Coriolanus’ fortune by turns advances and retires. Only when we reflect do we become aware that we have risen so high out of our daily experience, and have returned “with new acquist” of wisdom to a spot whence we can step back to it once more.
But to produce so consummate a masterpiece from the material of history, no matter how dramatic that material was, Shakespeare was bound to reshape it more freely than he was wont to do when dealing with historical themes. We have seen from Hardy’s example what stores of half-wrought treasure Plutarch’s narrative offered to a dramatist who knew his business. Still it was only half-wrought, and in working it up Shakespeare consciously or unconsciously allowed himself more liberties than in his other Roman plays. His loans indeed are none the fewer or the less on that account; nowhere has he borrowed more numerous or so lengthy passages. But it almost seems as though with the tact of genius he had the feeling that he was at work, not on fact, but on legend. Though he is far from recasting the Roman tradition as he recast the pseudo-historic traditions of his own island in Lear and Macbeth, yet he gives a new colouring to the picture as he hardly does to genuine histories like Richard II. or Antony and Cleopatra.
This will appear from a comparison of the play with the Life.
CHAPTER II
PARALLELS AND CONTRASTS WITH PLUTARCH
The first impression produced by a comparison of the biography and the play is that the latter is little more than a scenic replica of the former. Shakespeare has indeed absorbed so many suggestions from the translation that it is difficult to realise how much he has modified them, or to avoid reading these modifications into his authority when we try to distinguish what he has received from what he has supplied. And the illusion is confirmed by the frequency with which we light on familiar words, familiar traits, familiar incidents. For the similarity seems at first to pervade the language, the characterisation, and the action.[249]
In the language it is most marked. Nowhere has Shakespeare borrowed so much through so great a number of lines as in Volumnia’s appeal to the piety of her son. This passage, even if it stood alone, would serve to make the play a notable example of Shakespeare’s indebtedness to North.[250] But it does not stand alone. Somewhat shorter, but still longer than any loan in the other plays, is Coriolanus’ announcement of himself to Aufidius, and in it Shakespeare follows North even more closely than in the former instance.
If thou knowest me not yet, Tullus, and seeing me, dost not perhappes beleeve me to be the man I am in dede, I must of necessitie bewraye my selfe to be that I am. I am that Caius Martius, who hath done to thy self particularly, and to all the Volsces generally, great hurte and mischief, which I cannot denie for my surname of Coriolanus that I beare. For I never had other benefit nor recompence, of all the true and paynefull service I have done, and the extreme daungers I have bene in, but this only surname: a good memorie and witnes, of the malice and displeasure thou showldest beare me. In deede the name only remaineth with me: for the rest, the envie and crueltie of the people of Rome have taken from me, by the sufference of the dastardlie nobilitie and magistrates, who have forsaken me, and let me be banished by the people. This extremitie hath now driven me to come as a poore suter, to take thy chimney harthe, not of any hope I have to save my life thereby. For if I had feared death, I would not have come hither to have put my life in hazard: but prickt forward with strife and desire I have to be revenged of them that thus have banished me, whom now I beginne to be avenged on, putting my persone betweene their enemies. Wherefore, if thou hast any harte to be wrecked[251] of the injuries thy enemies have done thee, spede thee now, and let my miserie serve thy turne, and so use it, as my service maye be a benefit to the Volsces: promising thee, that I will fight with better good will for all you, then ever I dyd when I was against you, knowing that they fight more valliantly, who know the force of their enemie, then such as have never proved it. And if it be so that thou dare not, and that thou art wearye to prove fortune any more; then am I also weary to live any lenger. And it were no wisedome in thee, to save the life of him, who hath bene heretofore thy mortall enemie, and whose service now can nothing helpe nor pleasure thee.
Shakespeare gives little else than a transcript, though, of course, a poetical and dramatic transcript, of this splendid piece of forthright prose.