Resistance is futile...

I've meant to write a lot, but with the escalating job, the stamina just hasn't been there.

I'm working on the scene where Menenius begs Coriolanus to spare Rome. I'm trying to figure out exactly what is going on between him and the guards that are blocking his way.

Menenius flips into prose in the middle of the argument with the guards. One of the guards flips into prose first, and essentially calls Menenius a liar. From that point on, the poor guy just can't get his verse groove back.

I think, too, that there's something physical going on in that scene that really sets M. off. Here he is, begging the guy who is stomping all over Rome, for mercy, even if it's a guy he's known since he was a little baby, and probably dangled on Menenius's knees and all that stuff, and he spends half his speech time lighting into the guards, or asking Coriolanus to light into the guards...

Still pondering Virgilia's silence, too. Virgilia's silence still is shouting at me, and it strikes me as coming from a place of strength rather than a place of submissiveness. On the surface, it would seem that Volumnia rules Virgilia like she does everything else, but is it really that simple? Because in the one scene where there is a contest of wills (Get out of the house with your friend, girl!) it is Virgilia who quietly wins her way.

Both Volumnia and Viriglia have an incredibly strong sense of "duty above all else," but it seems that Volumnia sees her duty as being to Rome first and then family (a more masculine sense of duty), while Virgilia sees her duty is to her family first, and then Rome (a more feminine sense of duty).