(V. iii. 65.)
The woman to whom this splendid compliment is paid by one who never speaks otherwise than he thinks, is assuredly no more obnoxious than Volumnia herself to the charge of levity. They are both great high-hearted Roman ladies who do not let their private or public solicitudes interfere with their customary social routine, and Valeria visits her friend to cheer her in her anxiety, as she would have her, in turn, visit and comfort their common acquaintance. But Virgilia is cast in a gentler mould; though neither is she lacking in character, spirit and magnanimity. Of course she is not an aggressive woman, and she feels that the home is the place for her. She speaks seldom, and when she does her words are few. It is typical that she greets her husband when he returns a victor with no articulate welcome, but with her more eloquent tears. He addresses her in half humorous, half tender reproach:
My gracious silence, hail!
Wouldst thou have laugh’d had I come coffin’d home,
That weep’st to see me triumph?
(II. i. 192.)
A wonderful touch that comes from a wonderful insight. It may well be asked, as it has been asked, how Shakespeare knew that Virgilia’s heart was too full for words.
But with all this, she shows abundant resolution, readiness and patriotism. She is adamant to the commands of her imperious mother-in-law and the entreaties of her insistent friend when they urge her to break her self-imposed retirement. She, too, has her rebuke for the insolent tribunes. Above all, she, too, plays her part in turning Coriolanus from his revenge. In that scene, after her wont, she does not say much, less than two lines in all, that serve to contain the simple greeting and the quick answer to her husband’s warning that he no longer sees things as he did:
The sorrow that delivers us thus changed
Makes you think so.