Nor was there any other agency to divide the young man’s allegiance to his mother or to counteract or temper her authority. Generally the most powerful rivals of home influence are the companionship of friends, and the love that founds a new home in marriage. But both of these are either wanting in Coriolanus’ life, or serve only to deepen the impressions made on him by Volumnia.
If, for example, we consider the relation of friendship, we cannot but notice that Shakespeare gives him no intimate of his own years. A French tragedian would infallibly have placed by his side the figure of a confidant. Shakespeare was dispensed from the necessity by the freer usage of the Elizabethan stage and was at liberty to follow out the hints which he found in Plutarch. Marcius was
churlishe, uncivill, and altogether unfit for any mans conversation.... They could not be acquainted with him, as one cittizen useth to be with another in the cittie. His behaviour was so unpleasaunt to them, by reason of a certaine insolent and sterne manner he had, which bicause it was to lordly, was disliked.
So in Shakespeare he has no personal relations with any of the younger generation, even their resort to him as their congenial leader surviving, as has already been pointed out, only in the desiccated phrase of a stage direction; and his only associates are old or elderly men like Titus Lartius, the Consul Cominius, and Menenius Agrippa. What sort of antidote could they supply against his mother’s intolerant virtue? As Shakespeare conceives them, they respectively follow in Marcius’ wake, or are powerless to change and check his course, or even urge him forward.
Take Lartius, whom Shakespeare has drawn in a few rapid and vigorous strokes. He is old and stiff, but ready if need be to lean on one crutch and fight with the other, prompt to take a sporting wager, and, when he wins, eager to remit the stake in his admiration for the noble youngster, to whom with all his years he grants priority, whom on his supposed death he laments as an irreplaceable jewel, whom he hails as the living force that dwells within the trappings of their armament. Clearly from this cheery old fighting man, with his reverential enthusiasm for Marcius’ fighting powers in voice, looks and blows, we need not expect much correction of Marcius’ restiveness at the civic curb.
Cominius would seem more likely to prove a fitting Mentor, for to his love and esteem he adds discretion. In Shakespeare, though he “has years upon him,” he is the avowed friend and comrade-in-arms of the younger man; the brave and prudent general, “neither foolish in his stands, nor cowardly in retire”; who, perhaps from seniority, holds the position to which the other might aspire, but who confidently appeals to his promise of service. For their mutual affection is untouched by jealousy, and Cominius not only extols his heroism in the camp, but is his warmest advocate in the Senate. He resents the citizens’ fickleness and the tribunes’ trickery at the election as unworthy of Rome as well as insulting to her hero, and is indignant at the attempt to arrest Coriolanus; but he abhors civil brawls, and, just as in the field so in the city, he bows to “odds beyond arithmetic,” and considers that
Manhood is call’d foolery, when it stands
Against a falling fabric.
(III. i. 246.)
So he counsels Marcius’ withdrawal from the hostile mob, and afterwards dispassionately states the three courses open to him, with some hesitation sanctioning the method of compromise if the hothead can bring himself to give it fair play. When his doubts prove true, he interposes first with a remonstrance to his friend, and then with a solemn appeal to the people; and though in neither case is he allowed to finish, his efforts do not flag. He wishes to accompany the exile for a month, and maintain a correspondence with him and have everything in readiness for his recall. And if, when the invasion takes place, he rails at those who have brought about the calamity, that does not hinder him from his vain but zealous attempt at intercession. Altogether a sagacious, loyal, generous, but somewhat ineffective character, who wins our respect rather for what he essays than for what he achieves; for he brings nothing to a successful issue. With the best will in the world, which he has, and with more freedom from class prejudice than can in point of fact be attributed to him, such an one could do little to tame or bridle his friend.