A street. Enter a company of mutinous Citizens, with staves, clubs, and other weapons First Citizen Before we proceed any further, hear me speak. All Speak, speak. First Citizen You are all resolved rather to die than to famish? All Resolved. resolved. First Citizen First, you know Caius Marcius is chief enemy to the people. All We know't, we know't. First Citizen Let us kill him, and we'll have corn at our own price.
Is't a verdict? All No more talking on't; let it be done: away, away! Second Citizen One word, good citizens. First Citizen We are accounted poor citizens, the patricians good.
What authority surfeits on would relieve us: if they would yield us but the superfluity, while it were wholesome, we might guess they relieved us humanely; but they think we are too dear: the leanness that afflicts us, the object of our misery, is as an inventory to particularise their abundance; our sufferance is a gain to them Let us revenge this with our pikes, ere we become rakes: for the gods know I speak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge. Second Citizen Would you proceed especially against Caius Marcius? All Against him first: he's a very dog to the commonalty. Second Citizen Consider you what services he has done for his country? First Citizen Very well; and could be content to give him good report fort, but that he pays himself with being proud. Second Citizen Nay, but speak not maliciously. First Citizen I say unto you, what he hath done famously, he did it to that end: though soft-conscienced men can be content to say it was for his country he did it to please his mother and to be partly proud; which he is, even till the altitude of his virtue. Second Citizen What he cannot help in his nature, you account a vice in him. You must in no way say he is covetous. First Citizen If I must not, I need not be barren of accusations; he hath faults, with surplus, to tire in repetition.
Shouts within What shouts are these? The other side o' the city is risen: why stay we prating here? to the Capitol! All Come, come. First Citizen Soft! who comes here?
Enter MENENIUS AGRIPPA Second Citizen Worthy Menenius Agrippa; one that hath always loved the people. First Citizen He's one honest enough: would all the rest were so! MENENIUS What work's, my countrymen, in hand? where go you With bats and clubs? The matter? speak, I pray you. First Citizen Our business is not unknown to the senate; they have had inkling this fortnight what we intend to do, which now we'll show 'em in deeds. They say poor suitors have strong breaths: they shall know we have strong arms too. MENENIUS Why, masters, my good friends, mine honest neighbours, Will you undo yourselves? First Citizen We cannot, sir, we are undone already. MENENIUS I tell you, friends, most charitable care Have the patricians of you. For your wants, Your suffering in this dearth, you may as well Strike at the heaven with your staves as lift them Against the Roman state, whose course will on The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs Of more strong link asunder than can ever Appear in your impediment. For the dearth, The gods, not the patricians, make it, and Your knees to them, not arms, must help. Alack, You are transported by calamity Thither where more attends you, and you slander The helms o' the state, who care for you like fathers, When you curse them as enemies. First Citizen Care for us! True, indeed! They ne'er cared for us yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act established against the rich, and provide more piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and there's all the love they bear us. MENENIUS Either you must Confess yourselves wondrous malicious, Or be accused of folly. I shall tell you A pretty tale: it may be you have heard it;
But, since it serves my purpose, I will venture To stale 't a little more. First Citizen Well, I'll hear it, sir: yet you must not think to fob off our disgrace with a tale: but, an 't please you, deliver. MENENIUS There was a time when all the body's members Rebell'd against the belly, thus accused it:
That only like a gulf it did remain I' the midst o' the body, idle and unactive, Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing Like labour with the rest, where the other instruments Did see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel, And, mutually participate, did minister Unto the appetite and affection common Of the whole body. The belly answer'd-- First Citizen Well, sir, what answer made the belly? MENENIUS Sir, I shall tell you. With a kind of smile, Which ne'er came from the lungs, but even thus--For, look you, I may make the belly smile As well as speak--it tauntingly replied To the discontented members, the mutinous parts That envied his receipt; even so most fitly As you malign our senators for that They are not such as you. First Citizen Your belly's answer? What!
The kingly-crowned head, the vigilant eye, The counsellor heart, the arm our soldier, Our steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter.
With other muniments and petty helps In this our fabric, if that they-- MENENIUS What then?
'Fore me, this fellow speaks! What then? what then? First Citizen Should by the cormorant belly be restrain'd, Who is the sink o' the body,-- MENENIUS Well, what then? First Citizen The former agents, if they did complain, What could the belly answer? MENENIUS I will tell you If you'll bestow a small--of what you have little--Patience awhile, you'll hear the belly's answer. First Citizen Ye're long about it. MENENIUS Note me this, good friend;
Your most grave belly was deliberate, Not rash like his accusers, and thus answer'd:
'True is it, my incorporate friends,' quoth he, 'That I receive the general food at first, Which you do live upon; and fit it is, Because I am the store-house and the shop Of the whole body: but, if you do remember, I send it through the rivers of your blood, Even to the court, the heart, to the seat o' the brain;
