…but
thou wilt frame
Thyself,
forsooth, hereafter theirs, so far
As
thou hast power and person.
-Volumnia
Coriolanus Act III, scene ii Line 86
Lots of interesting things here. First off, how about the
name Volumnia. That’s Coriolanus’s mother and she’s giving Coriolanus some
advice of how to appear to be more likeable to the masses so as to win their
approval. But what about that name, Volumnia. All I can think of when I see
that name is volume. So it seems like a good name for a person with a lot of
volume. That is to say, a large person. In other words, it doesn’t seem like a
name that any woman would want. I’m just saying. And what about this thing
where mom is telling him what he has to do? He’s a general who kicks butt on
the battlefield, and he’s ascended to the leadership of the country, and now
mom is telling him what he’s gotta do. And she’s not making a suggestion here. It’s
not ‘Well, maybe you should consider
framing yourself.’ No, it's ‘Thou wilt frame thyself’. And Coriolanus listens. He listens to his mother and at least
tries to act the part. He can’t quite pull it off, but he tries.
Next, we’ve managed to sneak that word ‘forsooth’ in here. I
looked this one up in the Shakespeare glossary that’s in my Shakespeare I phone
app. We’ve all heard that word used in old stuff, but I wanted to see what the
real definition was. It’s an adverb meaning ‘in truth, certainly, truly,
indeed.’ So it really has little meaning, it’s just a sort of minor
exclamation. I say ‘indeed’ a lot when I’m responding to something that someone
says and I don’t really have anything to say.
‘Dad, I saw a guy today who had two heads.’
‘Indeed.’
And it seems to work. But it really doesn’t add much. If we
took ‘forsooth’ out of today’s Totally Random line it wouldn’t really change
the line much, would it. In fact, I think it might make it slightly more
understandable for us twenty first centurians. Yes, I realize that centurian is
not a word, but what else do you call someone living in the twenty first
century? Anyway, Will put ‘forsooth’ there, so I guess it belongs.
So the question is, will Coriolanus have the power and
the person to pull this off. Will he be able to go in front of the masses and
appear civil, as opposed to condescending? Well, if you’ve been reading these
posts you’ll know that he does indeed end up getting the boot. So I guess the
answer is no. And I’m personally still left with the question: Is Coriolanus a
better man for being true to what he is, even if that's a guy who thinks
he’s much better than the common folk. Or would he be a better man if he was
able to swallow his pride a bit and act more humble so as to be a more
effective leader? It’s a tricky question, forsooth.
This is me and my mom. I'm not sure, but I think I probably stopped doing what she told me not too long after this picture was taken. And you can see by the tight grip she's go on me that I'm probably even trying to go against her here and fall on my head. I definitely didn't give her the respect she deserved. Not like that Coriolanus guy. Now there was a good son!
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