(iII. ii. 93.)
The first expedient of making strong party and resorting to force is out of the question, both because, as Cominius has already pointed out, it is practically hopeless in face of the odds, and because, as he and others have also pointed out, even if successful it would ruin the state. The second expedient of calmness and conciliation is the one that Volumnia and Menenius in their pertinacious craving to see Coriolanus consul, strongly advocate; and in the abstract it is the right one. But it suffers from a drawback which makes it worse than hopeless, and which Cominius has the foresight to recognise. “Only fair speech,” says Menenius, and Cominius rejoins very doubtfully:
I think ’t will serve, if he
Can thereto frame his spirit.
(iII. ii. 95.)
That is just the point; and one wonders how anyone who knew Coriolanus could expect of him so impossible a feat. There remains the expedient of absence, which Cominius, from the third place he assigns to it, himself seems to prefer. And in the circumstances it is obviously the best. If only the accused had withdrawn for a time, he would soon have been recalled. It is inconceivable that when the new expedition of the Volscians, which he alone foresaw, broke into Roman territory, the state would not at once have had recourse to the great commander. Nor would there have been much difficulty in doing so, since he would merely have betaken himself to voluntary retirement; and even had he been exiled in default, the mutual exasperation on both sides, which the last collision was to produce, would have been avoided. But again it is Volumnia’s overbearing self-will that imposes on him the pernicious choice. And though, as I have said, this proposal is ideally the best, for in such cases management and compromise are legitimate enough and may be laudable, it is not only the worst in the present instance, but she gives it a turn that must have made it peculiarly revolting to her son. In her covetousness for the consular dignity she recommends such hypocrisy, trickery and base cringing as the self-respect of no honest man, much less of a Coriolanus, could tolerate:
I prithee now, my son,
Go to them, with this bonnet in thy hand;
And thus far having stretch’d it—here be with them—
Thy knee bussing the stones—for in such business