In the second Act of the play, Coriolanus stands as the favored candidate for the consulship of Rome. Cominius, who has pushed Coriolanus to get involved in politics despite his clear disinterest, uses a number of literary devices, including simile, imagery, and hyperbole, in a flattering speech that presents Coriolanus to the Roman masses in heavily idealized language. Describing Coriolanus’s heroic actions in the battle against the Volscians, Cominius states:
He stopped the flyers
And by his rare example made the coward
Turn terror into sport. As weeds before
A vessel under sail, so men obeyed
And fell below his stem. His sword, Death’s stamp,
Where it did mark, it took; from face to foot
He was a thing of blood, whose every motion
Was timed with dying cries. Alone he entered
The mortal gate o’ th’ city, which he painted
With shunless destiny; aidless came off
And with a sudden reinforcement struck
Corioles like a planet.
In a simile, Cominius notes that the soldiers of the Roman army moved around Coriolanus “as weeds” (that is, seaweed) move around a “vessel under sail.” Using vivid imagery, Cominius depicts Coriolanus as a cyclone of death, a “thing of blood” whose every movement is accompanied by “dying cries” of his enemies. Hyperbolically, Cominius claims that Coriolanus was an army of one, moving through the gates of Corioli alone, painting the walls of the city with blood, and striking the enemy capital forcefully, “like a planet.” Cominius’s grand if exaggerated speech is calculated to impress the Roman masses and win the consulship for Coriolanus.
