Coriolanus: Satire 2 key examples

While Menenius attempts to placate the angry Roman crowds with his parable of the belly, which emphasizes the necessity of cooperation among classes, Coriolanus arrives, and his harsh language throws fuel on the fire of the conflict. Addressing the Roman citizens, Coriolanus refuses to moderate his position, and he harshly satirizes the plebeian class: 

What would you have, you curs,
That like nor peace nor war? The one affrights you;
The other makes you proud. He that trusts to you,
Where he should find you lions, finds you hares;
Where foxes, geese. You are no surer, no
Than is the coal of fire upon the ice
Or hailstone in the sun. Your virtue is
To make him worthy whose offense subdues him,
And curse that justice did it. Who deserves greatness
Deserves your hate; and your affections are
A sick man’s appetite, who desires most that
Which would increase his evil. 

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After the battle between the Volscians and Romans, Menenius approaches Brutus and Sicinius, the two tribunes of the plebeians, who represent their interests in Roman politics. Menenius mocks them in a speech that satirizes the poor from an elitist perspective:  

You know neither me, yourselves, nor anything.
You are ambitious for poor knaves’ caps and legs.
You wear out a good wholesome forenoon
in hearing a cause between an orange-wife
and a faucet-seller, and then rejourn the controversy
of threepence to a second day of audience.
When you are hearing a matter between party and
party, if you chance to be pinched with the colic,
you make faces like mummers, set up the bloody
flag against all patience, and, in roaring for a
chamber pot, dismiss the controversy bleeding,
the more entangled by your hearing.

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