Coriolanus

This is the most perfectly shaped of Shakespeare's tragedies according to the scholar Marchette Chute. In addition it is highly contemporary in its depiction of famine, democracy & maternal obedience.

When the play opens, Rome is in the grip of a famine & people are hungry & angry. But Coriolanus, their bravest warrior has no sympathy for them. Their enemies, the Volscians, also want to attack them. This is gleefully welcomed by Coriolanus, who rushes off to war. He is egged on by his fierce mother Volumnia, who has trained him to be a fighter but tearfully sent off by his wife Virgilia, who is fearful of his safety.

After routing the Volscians, Coriolanus returns triumphantly, where his mother wants him to be Consul to become which,  the candidate should stand in the market place, in a gown of humility, to explain his qualifications & beg the Romans for votes, which is deeply abhorrent to him. But he reluctantly agrees & goes to the marketplace, where his enemies irritate him so much that he ends up displaying his contempt for the people, who exile him.

Furious at what he considers as the ingratitude of the Romans for saving them from the Volscian invasion, he goes & joins the Volscians to invade Rome. When Volumnia learns this, fearful of the certain destruction of Rome, she goes with Virgilia & her grandson to beg Coriolanus to spare Rome, kneeling on her knees for the first time. Coriolanus cannot refuse her & in consequence, is assasinated by the Volscians.