The play opens on plebeian mutiny over a patrician denial of existential sustenance--hunger for bread (I,1 :22)--as instancing a dearth of societal sustenance to the plebs within the body politic . This craving is temporarily alleviated offstage by the appointment of five tribunes (I,1 :208-15), and onstage by Menenius's belly-fable . The result is a restored societal organism, but only superficially, for class divisions and contempt, one of the other class, remain, with Marcius at the helm of the restoration as successful war-leader, and now as provider to, as that which sustains, the organism . But the tribunes, Sicinius and Brutus, work assiduously to reactivate plebeian craving, and direct it towards an unwholesome Marcius--even more unwholesome now as 'Coriolanus'--seen as provender : The present wars devour him (I,1 :256) ; to devour him, as the hungry plebeians would (II,1 :8)--at which latter point Menenius participates in the 'provision' conception . Both parts of the organic whole would benefit if Coriolanus were made, or to make himself, more societally digestible .
Societal dearth is marked by a fairly thorough dearth both of imagination and of a figurative use of language, save in Volumnia and her exceptional creation, Marcius . Societal craving is marked by the profuse incidence of What...What ?--an impatient, often unnecessary inquisitiveness, and that across party lines . That the belly-fable aptly establishes the identity of this societal organism is marked by the pervasiveness of counterfeit, imitation, repetition, proceeding from a homonym of 'belly' : belie, to tell lies about, to misrepresent or counterfeit . Examples from a play-full are, concerning Rome :
(1) the citizens' antiphonal speak to Speak, speak ;
resolved to Resolved, resolved ;
know to know't, know't --in I,1 :1-11 ;
(2) the tribunes : Pass no further...no further (III,1 :24-6) ;
(3) Roman soldiers : This will I...And I this...I took this (I,5 :1-3) ;
(4) male and female patricians : II,1 :95-139 ;
and, concerning Corioles :
(1) the plebs : IV,5 :37-46 ;
(2) senators : I,2 :38-9 ;
(3) their war-leader, Aufidius : IV,5 :53-64 .
In terms of this homonym of 'belly', the belly-fable is in its linguistic particulars apt to both the societies for which Coriolanus must be made digestible . Coriolanus is not 'of the body'. His distinctive characteristics proceed existentially from his maternal upbringing, and proceed linguistically from another homonym of 'belly' : belie, to encompass, lie with an army round, beleaguer . In battle, Coriolanus validates his true self in thus beleaguering both Corioles and Rome . Out of battle, he must make himself more digestible to the bellies, and in so doing counterfeit himself . To palliate Corioles, he has to strip himself of his uniquely merited agnomen, 'Coriolanus' . To palliate the Roman plebs, he must practice the insinuating nod, and be off to them most counterfeitly (II, :101-3) at the behest and with the complicity of Roman patricians . That is, he doffs his 'belie' and dons their 'belie', to succour them while his essence is being consumed 'into the body' . His consumption is linguistically marked now by his participation in their 'belie'-mode of speech : II,1 :182-3 ; II,3 :55 ; II, :64-77 ; IV,5 :46-8 . This sort of excoriation and submission is unnatural to Coriolanus . What is natural is that achieved before his near, and archetypal, Roman family (V,3 :22ff) . Here old Roman pietas, both patriotism and devotion towards family, converge incarnate in Volumnia, eliciting a reciprocal pietas in and from Coriolanus, and this Titanic Roman sheds his desire for vengeance on his patria . He, his mother, Cominius and Lartius, all incarnate the old Roman values not now dominant in a body politic feeding off counterfeit . When Coriolanus counterfeits himself, he is more acceptable provender, and the belie-belly, the dominant organism, consumes him whole .
