From the movie Coriolanus, what does this sentence mean?
TL;DR: He's meant to be asking a question, something like Are you making a sword out of me? (I have no idea whether the actor in the movie says the line this way, but that's the way the script should be parsed.)
In the text of the play it is fairly clear that this quote is actually a question1:
Make you a sword of me?2
In this context, the odd-looking word inversion (you is the subject, which we would typically expect to see before the verb make) is a little more understandable.
In modern speech we invert declarative "helping" verbs when phrasing as a question:
- They did want fries with that → Did they want fries with that?
- He's crazy! → Is he crazy?
- I should go → Should I go?
- They have been here → Have they been here?
- She'll be coming 'round the mountain → Will she be coming 'round the mountain?
- You may have some more → Please, sir, may I have some more?
Typically, we don't see this inversion with verbs like make on their own.3 Rather, they require one of those auxiliaries to express the inversion, as with other shades of meaning. Thus for the imperative
(You will) Make me a sandwich!
we invert the omitted "You will" to form the question
Will you make me a sandwich?"
rather than inverting directly to get
Make you me a sandwich?
In Shakespeare's English, however, the auxiliary verb isn't needed, and the main verb can be inverted on its own. So, for example, in Julius Caesar3 the declarative "You think to walk forth" becomes the question "Think you to walk forth?" rather than the more modern "Do you think to walk forth?"
This quote can therefore be parsed4 as asking
Do you make a sword [out] of me?
Or possibly
Are you making a sword [out] of me?
1Act I, Scene 6, Line 707, via OpenSourceShakespeare. There appears to be some uncertainty about the text (is the previous sentence in that line "Come along" or "Oh me, alone" or "Of me alone", etc.), but not that it is a question. For more discussion of the textual dispute and literary analysis rather than pure grammar parsing, see note in Classic Books' The Tragedie of Coriolanus.
2 Or, by some reckonings, "Of me alone make you a sword? Of me?" See note above.
3 The closest we still have might be with the verb to have when not used as an auxiliary, e.g. "Baa, baa, Black Sheep, have you any wool?". In some places I believe it is still acceptable to say something like "Excuse me, have you a light?" although in my own dialect this would shift to either "have you got a light?", demoting the have to an auxiliary position, or else "do you have a light?", leaving have as the main verb but tacking on a different helper.
4Act II, Scene 2, Line 983, via OpenSourceShakespeare. Examples of "think you?" questions abound in Shakespeare; in that same scene alone there are two additional examples, at lines 924-25 (Think you I am no stronger than my sex,/Being so father'd and so husbanded? and 2402 (When think you that the sword goes up again?)
5 As for why he's asking that, exactly...that gets into literary criticism, and is off topic here (but might be on-topic at the Literature SE).
The context is that Marcius, looking for a few volunteers for a dangerous mission, gives a stirring speech in which he asks his men to wave [their swords] if they wish to volunteer.
The stage directions then read [They all shout and wave their swords, take him up in their arms and cast up their caps]
They lift Marcius up above their shoulders.
Marcius then says O, me alone! Make you a sword of me?
This is a lighthearted remark as he is pleased with the response from his men: it can be understood as “Oh my! Are you waving me like a sword? i.e. What a pleasant surprise! Are you all volunteering?
The scene continues as Marcius apologises that he can only take four men with him.