Coriolanus

Amid the battle between Rome and the Volscians, Coriolanus fights with great skill and bravery, defeating many Volscian soldiers. As the Romans mount their final attack against the Volscians, hoping to confront the Volscian leader Aufidius, Coriolanus begs Cominius, council-in-chief of the army, to allow him to participate in the attack despite his injuries. He employs pathos and ethos in his argument, emphasizing his own extensive experience in combat and highlighting his own authority in battle: 

MARTIUS
I do beseech you,
By all the battles wherein we have fought,
By th’b lood we have shed together, by th’ vows we
Have made
To endure friends, that you directly set me
Against Aufidius and his Antiates
And that you do not delay the present, but,
Filling the air with swords advanced and darts,
We prove this very hour.
 
COMINIUS
Though I could wish
You were conducted to a gentle bath
And balms applied to you, yet dare I never
Deny your asking.

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While Coriolanus plans for war in the Volscian camps, his loved ones in Rome plan to weaken his resolve and earn mercy on behalf of their city. While Cominius and Menenius fail to move Coriolanus, his mother skillfully wields pathos in support of her argument for mercy: 

Should we be silent and not speak, our raiment
And state of bodies would bewray what life
We have led since thy exile. Think with thyself
How more unfortunate than all living women
Are we come hither; since that thy sight, which should
Make our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance with comforts,
Constrains them weep and shake with fear and sorrow,
Making the mother, wife, and child to see
The son, the husband, and the father tearing
His country’s bowels out. And to poor we
Thine enmity’s most capital.

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