Coriolanus: Similes 4 key examples

As Coriolanus continues to resist the attempts of the Roman generals to lavish honors upon him, Cominius, the commander-in-chief of the Roman army, becomes increasingly forceful in his demands that Coriolanus accept the praise and gifts that he feels are due to him. Frustrated, he threatens to use force against Coriolanus, comparing him in a simile to a man who has been locked in an asylum: 

Too modest are you, 
More cruel to your good report than grateful 
To us that give you truly. By your patience, 
If ’gainst yourself you be incensed, we’ll put you, 
Like one that means his proper harm, in manacles, 
Then reason safely with you. Therefore be it known, 
As to us to all the world, that Caius Martius 
Wears this war’s garland, in token of the which 
My noble steed, known to the camp, I give him, 
With all his trim belonging. 

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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.

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When Coriolanus returns home after his disastrous attempt to court the public vote in the marketplace of Rome, his mother and wife respond with alarm to news that the plebeians have called for his execution. Volumnia employs logos in her attempt to persuade her son to return to the marketplace and placate the crowds with gentle, compromising speech: 

VOLUMNIA
I have heard you say ‘
Honor and policy, like unsevered friends, 
I’ th’ war do grow together. Grant that, and tell me 
In peace what each of them by th’ other lose 
That they combine not there? 

CORIOLANUS
Tush, tush! 

MENENIUS
A good demand. 

VOLUMNIA
If it be honor in your wars to seem 
The same you are not, which for your best ends 
You adopt your policy, how is it less or worse 
That it shall hold companionship in peace 
With honor as in war, since that to both 
It stands in like request?

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After his banishment from Rome, Coriolanus travels to Corioli, a Volscian city, where he finds the court of his former nemesis Aufidius and declares his loyalty to the Volscians, hoping to revenge himself upon Rome. Rather than turning Coriolanus away, Aufidius welcomes him with open arms, treating the Roman warrior with a high degree of honor, respect, and admiration. The Third Servingman, a commoner employed by Aufidius, uses simile, metaphor, and allusion in describing Coriolanus’s treatment in the Volscian court: 

Why, he is so made on here within
as if he were son and heir to Mars; set at upper end
o’ th’ table; no question asked him by any of the
senators but they stand bald before him. Our general
himself makes a mistress of him, sanctifies
himself with ’s hand, and turns up the white o’ th’
eye to his discourse. But the bottom of the news is,
our general is cut i’ th’ middle and but one half of
what he was yesterday, for the other has half,
by the entreaty and grant of the whole table. He’ll go,
he says, and sowl the porter of Rome gates by th’ears.

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