With bats and clubs? The matter: speak, I pray Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing Like labor with the rest: where the other instruments

you.

1st Cit. Our business is not unknown to the senate they have had inkling this fortnight what we intend to do, which now we'll shew 'em in deeds. They say, poor suitors have strong breaths: they shall know we have strong arms too.

Men. Why, masters! my good friends, mine honest neighbors,

Will you undo yourselves?

1st Cit. We cannot, sir; we are undone already.
Men. 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

and you;

you

slander

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 answered,-

1st Cit. Well, sir, what answer made the belly?
Men. 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.

The helms o'the state, who care for you like 'Fore me this fellow speaks?-what then; what

fathers,

When you curse them as enemies.

1st Cit. Care for us!-True, indeed! - They ne'er cared for us yet. Suffer us to famish, and their storehouses 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. Men. 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 scale 't a little more.

1st Cit. 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.

Men.

:

Note me this, good friend:
Your most grave belly was deliberate,
Not rash like his accusers, and thus answered:
"True it is, 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 storehouse and the shop
Of the whole body. But if you do remember,

Men. There was a time when all the body's I send it through the rivers of your blood,

members

Rebelled against the belly; thus accused it:
That only like a gulf it did remain
I' the midst o' the body, idle and inactive,

Even to the court, the heart, the Senate, brain;
And through the ranks and offices of man,
The strongest nerves, and small inferior veins,
From me receive that natural competency

Touching the weal o' the common; you shall find, Under the gods, keep you in awe, which else

No public benefit which you receive

But it proceeds or comes from them to you,

And no way from yourselves. What do you

think:

You, the great toe of this assembly?

1st Cit. I the great toe! Why the great toe?
Men. For that, being one o' the lowest, basest,

poorest,
Of this most wise rebellion, thou goest foremost:
Thou rascal, thou art worst in blood to run,
Lead'st first to win some vantage!

But make you ready your stiff bats and clubs:
Rome and her rats are at the point of battle;
The one side must have bale. - Hail, noble
Marcius!

Enter CAIUS MARCIUS.

Mar. Thanks.

Mar. Hang 'em! they say?
They 'll sit by the fire, and presume to know
What's done i' the Capitol: who's like to rise,
Who thrives, and who declines: side factions, and
give out

Conjectural marriages: making parties strong,
And feebling such as stand not in their liking,
Below their cobbled shoes. They say there's
grain enough!

Would the nobility lay aside their ruth,

And let me use my sword, I'd make a quarry
With thousands of these quartered slaves, as high

- What's the matter, you dis- As I could pick my lance.
sentious rogues,

That rubbing the poor itch of your opinion,

Make yourselves scabs?

Men. Nay, these are all most thoroughly per-
suaded;

For though abundantly they lack discretion,
Yet are they passing cowardly. But, I beseech
you,
What says the other troop?

Mar.

They are dissolved. Hang 'em! They said they were an hungry: sighed forth proverbs:

That like nor peace nor war? the one affrights you,
The other makes you proud. He that trusts you, That hunger broke stone walls: that dogs must

Where he should find you lions, finds you hares;
Where foxes, geese: you are no surer, no,
Than is the coal of fire upon the ice,
Or hailstone in the sun. Your virtue is

eat:

That meat was made for mouths; that the gods

sent not

Corn for the rich men only with these shreds

They vented their complainings; which being an- And I am constant.-Titus Lartius, thou

swered,

And a petition granted them, a strange one

(To break the heart of generosity,

Shalt see me once more strike at Tullus' face:
What, art thou stiff? stand'st out!

Tit. No, Caius Marcius:

And make bold power look pale), they threw their I'll lean upon one crutch, and fight with the other,

caps

As they would hang them on the horns o' the moon,
Shouting their exultation.

Men.

What is granted them?

1st Sen. Your company to the Capitol where I know

Mar. Five tributes, to defend their vulgar wis- Our greatest friends attend us.

How the despatch is made; and in what fashion, And only hitherward. I leave your honors.