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Our Duty: Find our Place, Do Our Duty (Shakespeare’s Coriolanus)

Our Duty: Find our Place, Do Our Duty (Shakespeare’s Coriolanus)

Last updated on: April 26, 2016 at 12:35 am by John Mark N. Reynolds

Our Duty: Find our Place, Do Our Duty (Shakespeare’s Coriolanus) 2016-04-26T00:35:57-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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1280px-FirstFolioCoriolanus_opt Nothing is worse than when the rich oppress the poor except, perhaps, when the poor revolt and murder for justice. Oppression and revolution are both ugly. America has a ruling oligarchy too content in power, but also a rising underclass full of envy and ill considered anger. Nobody is right and everybody is wrong.

We are in a dangerous moment.

The poor are restrained by the state, eaten up by our wars, corrupted by the libertine morals of the upper class. They deserve better than they receive, but are incapable of knowing what they need. The rich and powerful are smart enough to contain a diversity of answers, but moderation is too little too late for the put upone poor.

Shakespeare foresaw all of this in his tragedy Coriolanus. The rich in this imaginary Rome that Shakespeare creates are starving the poor, but the poor are ignorant and so harm their own good by their rebellion. Coriolanus defends Rome in battle, but is upset with the people, because he knows they have do not merely want what is due but:

who desires most that Which would increase his evil.

Coriolanus is a great man in battle, but not a loving man. The danger to a republic is when love and competence, integrity and the multitude are separated. He is no grifter, refusing cash prizes for his service in war:

I thank you, general;
But cannot make my heart consent to take
A bribe to pay my sword: I do refuse it;
And stand upon my common part with those
That have beheld the doing. . He loves Rome and wins great honor for his state. He has courage and honor, but not tact or love for his people.

He loves Rome, but not Romans. He has tools to be a great leader, but not the personality. He needs to be bear to the enemies of Rome, but a lamb to her people Instead, he is a bear to everyone. The people turn to demagogues with less integrity, but more facile tongues. The great danger to a republic is when people love flattery more than integrity. In Christian ministry this happens when the leader tells the people what they wish to hear (“tickling ears“) rather than the Word of God. The Christian leader who will not speak the truth in difficult days will leave his people sheep for the slaughter by the wolves of this age.

Coriolanus has integrity, but in their pain the people no longer want integrity. They want what they want and Coriolanus tells his mother:

Know, good mother,
I had rather be their servant in my way,
Than sway with them in theirs.

The demagogues and the corrupt leaders know that integrity cannot last if it lacks humility. The elite plan Corilolanus downfall so they can keep exploiting the people:

This, as you say, suggested
At some time when his soaring insolence
Shall touch the people—which time shall not want,
If he be put upon ‘t; and that’s as easy
As to set dogs on sheep—will be his fire 1205
To kindle their dry stubble; and their blaze
Shall darken him for ever

Coriolanus will not flatter the people, even to win office.

I will counterfeit the
bewitchment of some popular man and give it
bountiful to the desirers. Therefore, beseech you,
I may be consul.

A man of accomplishments can forget humanity:

You speak o’ the people,
As if you were a god to punish, not
A man of their infirmity

Politics cannot survive when the mob are manipulated by smooth talking and the best men cannot win them.

This double worship,
Where one part does disdain with cause, the other
Insult without all reason, where gentry, title, wisdom, 1905
Cannot conclude but by the yea and no
Of general ignorance,—it must omit
Real necessities, and give way the while
To unstable slightness: purpose so barr’d,
it follows, 1910
Nothing is done to purpose.

Almost as bad is when the good men cannot speak kindly to the people:

His nature is too noble for the world: 2055
He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,
Or Jove for’s power to thunder. His heart’s his mouth:
What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent;
And, being angry, does forget that ever
He heard the name of death.

Parties in a Republic can become vehicles for demagoguery. Washington feared political parties, because he understood the dangers:

Proceed by process;
Lest parties, as he is beloved, break out,
And sack great Rome with Romans.

Shakespeare fears a condition in a country where the best men cannot win, because the people long for flattery, entertainment, and lies more than deeds and integrity. Coriolanus understands that honor and tact must go together in a republic (ancient or modern:

You are too absolute;
Though therein you can never be too noble,
But when extremities speak. I have heard you say,
Honour and policy, like unsever’d friends,
I’ the war do grow together: grant that, and tell me,
In peace what each of them by the other lose,
That they combine not there.

Yet Coriolanus will not play the game. He will not show his wounds or defend his record. Arrogance destroys him.

Revenge is one of the worst things any human can seek. Coriolanus is banished by the foolish Romans, but he is worse in his reactio. He seeks out the enemies of Rome to get revenge and dies far from home..

We cannot create who we are or defy our duty to God, our family, the church, or our community. Corialanus warns those in the leadership class to listen, learn, and evolve. For the rest of us, we must choose the best man and not the man who tells what we long to hear.

———————————————–

William Shakespeare went to God four hundred years ago. To recollect his death, I am writing a personal reflection on a few of his plays. The Winter’s Tale started things off, followed by As You Like It. Romeo and Juliet still matter, Lady Macbeth rebukes the lust for power, and Henry V is a hero. Richard II shows us not to presume on the grace of God or rebel against authority too easily. Coriolanus reminds us that our leaders need integrity and humility.

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