coriolanus/aufidius?

(horny) enemies to (horny) lovers to enemies to aw shit he's really dead? what have i done?!

Sometimes there are roles that I want to play but I know it would be kind of impossible to be cast as them. Like I’d laugh at anyone who casts me in those kinds of roles because what are you talking about? I would be terrible at this. You know?

Anyway, shoutout to Aufidius from Coriolanus. He sure had one hell of a monologue.

Aufidius why was “naked” your first thought? 

coriolanus and aufidius are t4t <3

Aufidius: If you had to choose between Menenius and all the money I have in my wallet, which would you choose?

Coriolanus: That depends, how much money are we taking about?

Menenius: Coriolanus!

Aufidius: 63 cents.

Coriolanus: I'll take the money.

Menenius: CORIOLANUS!!!

this is my tumblr blog and if i want to subject you all to my 2 am brain rot there’s nothing you can do to stop me

so one of the things about me is I'm a massive Coriolanus apologist

and it never gets brought up enough when people start talking about homeoerotic Shakespeare plays.

So here's the set up. Disillusioned roman general Martius Coriolanus has left Rome to find his nemesis Aufidius, because Aufidius is the only person he feels any connection to or respects anymore. (Which is already such a good set up. my god.)

And this is what Aufidius says when they meet:

AUFIDIUS: Let me twine Mine arms about that body, whereagainst My grainèd ash an hundred times hath broke And scarred the moon with splinters.

(so at the VERY LEAST they embrace, and mOST productions have Coriolanius not wearing a shirt, so Aufidius can literally trace his scars, because Coriolanus having a lot of scars is v important plot point...)

AUFIDIUS: Here I clip The anvil of my sword and do contest As hotly and as nobly with thy love As ever in ambitious strength I did Contend against thy valor. Know thou first, I loved the maid I married; never man Sighed truer breath. But that I see thee here, Thou noble thing, more dances my rapt heart Than when I first my wedded mistress saw Bestride my threshold. (...) Thou hast beat me out Twelve several times, and I have nightly since Dreamt of encounters ’twixt thyself and me; We have been down together in my sleep, Unbuckling helms, fisting each other’s throat, And waked half dead with nothing.

(At then Aufidius just makes him co-captain of his forces.)

(it's honestly one of the reasons I think this play is kind of C-squad, it's been harder to teach historically because like what could the non-homoerotic interpretation of that speech even be?)

I still think about Coriolanus and Aufidius' intense, twisted, homoerotic, obsessive, love-hate relationship sometimes. God. Those two are on another level. Shakespeare invented something when he wrote that play. It wasn't love, but it was certainly something.

Most Shakespeare plays are made worse by romance but man, if Coriolanus and Aufidius would just make out already…

Just finished coriolanus and I.....hngngng something about violence as a metaphor for queer love and the way that this play is so focused on masculine identity through violence.....

yeah, yeah. i feel you. on returning to the play for a seminar paper, i was so struck by how in some ways, coriolanus himself is a figure of that ideal of masculinity-as-defined-by-violence taken too far. so far that it completely disfigures him. i was fascinated by how often he is imagined by others as disjointed wounded body parts. menenius and volumnia meticulously recount each of his wounds and where they sit on him—one on the shoulder, the left arm, on the neck, two on the thigh. twenty-seven in total following the taking of corioles. cominius calls him "a thing of blood" (2.2.104), whatever the hell that means. menenius even claims "the wounds become him" (2.1.120). he's engulfed by wounds—unique in the sense that they represent something physical—the literal scarred tissue on the body—but also something lacking. a cut is an empty space. i don't even know what to say about the citizen who claims they should stick their tongue in his wounds and speak for them—a weirdly specific violation. god and when he's told to sit put in the senate to hear the stories of his wounds recounted once again for political points, and has to plead to be let leave to try to heal, to become whole again. and all this because he's so good at being the pinnacle of violent masculinity—but really, it's that he's not allowed to be anything more than that at all. and it's all good until it's a threat to rome!

and the queer intimacy. the homoeroticism present is almost so weirdly blatant that it feels like there isn't much to say about it. i remember reading it last year for class and we all just laughed through my professor reading aufidius recounting his gay ass dreams about coriolanus because like. what the hell. shakespeare's most marlowe moment of all time honestly. and i mean, soldiers on the battlefield enter into a space where they're surrounded only by other men with the unique peril of the threat of violence that brings them together in comradery, and like, yeah, sometimes also gay sex i guess. certainly, violence is a part of it here too. coriolanus's use of the wedding bed metaphor comes with the elation of seeing comunius on the battlefield. but the moment with aufidius in 4.5 feels different to me because it's almost like a moment where the homoeroticism is off the battlefield, i am always struck by how coriolanus is essentially like "you can slit my throat and i'd completely understand." he expects aufidius to enact violence on him. but aufidius embraces him ("here i clip the anvil of my sword." clip means to embrace. but the anvil and sword kinda problematize my point here i guess, they're image of war, too). maybe the violence can never be escaped actually, wait maybe that's why their intimacy fails too. anyway. literally had that revelation while rereading this to post it.

listen i respect the hunger games. a lot. I’d go as far as to say it’s my favourite YA. but you can’t imagine the frustration that all I’m trying to find is Prime Content about willy shakes’ gayest of army gays and all I’m actually seeing is gifsets of that one evil blonde twink. I am personally victimised by suzanne collins

The gays are not okay

ok but nothing will ever convince me that aufidius didn’t immediately recognize coriolanus and then play dumb bc he didn’t want things 2 be awkward except coriolanus ruined it bc he has no concept of subtlety. 

it was just like

Coriolanus: don’t you recognize me? 

Aufidius: why no. handsome stranger. I definitely do not recognize you. but why don’t you come in-

Coriolanus: it’s me. C- 

Aufidius *louder*: --and then we can get you some new clothes and get better acquainted. I would never forget such a handsome face after all and--

Coriolanus: But you must know me. I’m Caius Marcius-- 

Aufidius: Ah. a stranger from out of town. and with such a common name. well. then we couldn’t possibly have met. But I am very much looking forward to getting to know you much better soon. now if you will just-

Coriolanus: I’m Coriolanus.

Aufidius: ... damnit. 

Coriolanus: so are you going to kill me now or are we still hooking up?

Aufidius: ... 

Aufidius: definitely still hooking up. 

hey can you stop moaning when we fight. i'm trying to be violent and ferocious over here and honestly it's a little off putting

Coriolanus is so funny bc it really is a play about two men viewing each other as equals and wanting to (at least) fuck each other so bad, and because they are equals and are Roman, one of them has to be the penetrator and the one penetrated and bc of the patriarchal society they live in, if one of them is being penetrated then they are no longer equals and are viewed as lesser than.

Then the ending really is Aufidius essentially teabagging his lover he killed and thus officially dominating Coriolanus.

So people really weren’t kidding when they said Coriolanus was gay, huh?