Enter a Company of mutinous Citizens, with

staves, clubs, and other weapons.

1 Cr. Before we proceed any further, hear me speak.

CITIZENS. Speak, speak!

1 CIT. You are all resolved rather to die than to famish?

CITIZENS. Resolved, resolved!

1 Cır. First, you know Caius Marcius is chief enemy to the people.

CITIZENS. We know we know 't!

1 CIT. Let us kill him, and we'll have corn at our own price. Is 't a verdict?

CITIZENS. No more talking on 't; let it be done away, away!

2 CIT. One word, good citizens.

1 CIT. 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 particularize 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.

2 CIT. Would you proceed especially against Caius Marcius?

CITIZENS. Against him first: he's a very dog to the commonalty.

2 CIT. Consider you what services he has done for his country?

1 CIT. Very well; and could be content to give him good report for 't, but that he pays himself with being proud.

2 Crr. Nay, but speak not maliciously.

1 CIT. I say unto you, what he hath done famously, he did it to that end: though softconscienced 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 to the altitude of his virtue.

2 CIT. What he cannot help in his nature, you account a vice in him. You must in no way say he is covetous.

1 CIT. If I must not, I need not be barren of accusations; he hath faults, with surplus, to tire in repetition. [Shouts without.] What shouts are these? The other side o' the city is risen: why stay we prating here? to the Capitol !

CITIZENS. Come, come!

1 CIT. Soft! who comes here?

2 CIT. Worthy Menenius Agrippa; one that hath always loved the people.

1 CIT. He's one honest enough; would, all the rest were so !

a the patricians good.] Good is here used in the commercial sense, of substance; as in "The Merchant of Venice," Act I. Sc. 3,

"Antonio is a good man."

bere we become rakes:] "As lean as a rake" is a very ancient proverb; it is found in Chaucer's Cant. Tales, 1. 289,

"Al so lene was his hors as is a rake;"

and Spenser has it in his "Faerie Queene," B. II. c. 11,"His body leane and meagre as a rake.”

Nay, but speak not maliciously.] In the old text this speech has the prefix "All" to it, as if spoken by a body of the citizens, but it unquestionably belongs to the second Citizen.

Enter MENENIUS AGRIPPA.

MEN. What work's, my countrymen, in hand? Where go you with bats and clubs? The matter Speak, I pray you.

1 CIT. 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.

MEN. Why, masters, my good friends, mine honest neighbours,

Will you undo yourselves?

1 ČIT. 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 you; and you slander The helms o' the state, who care for you like fathers,

When you curse them as enemies.

1 CIT. 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; (1) 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 accus'd 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.

1 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.

dto please his mother, and to be partly proud;] This may mean, "-partly to please his mother, and because he wa. proud;" but we believe the genuine text would give us, "—and to be portly proud."

Our business is not unknown to the senate;] This and the subsequent speeches of the civic interlocutor, are in the old copy assigned to the second Citizen. Capell originally gave them to the first Citizen (though Malone, more suo, takes credit for it), and the previous dialogue very clearly shows the necessity of the change.

f To stale't a little more.] The folio has "To scale't," for which Theobald substituted stale't, no doubt the genuine word. See Massinger's "Unnatural Combat," Act IV. Sc. 2,

"I'll not stale the jest By my relation,"

and Gifford's note on that passage.

MEN. There was a time, when all the body's
members

Rebell'd against the belly; thus accus'd 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 in

struments

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,-

1 Crr. Well, sir, what answer made the belly?
MEN. 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.—

1 CIT.
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

MEN.

What then?—

'Fore me, this fellow speaks !-what then? what

then? [strain'd, 1 CIT.-Should by the cormorant belly be reWho is the sink o' the body,

MEN. Well, what then? 1 CIT.-The former agents, if they did complain, What could the belly answer?

MEN.

I will tell you; If you'll bestow a small (of what you have little) Patience, a while, you'll hear the belly's answer. 1 CIT. You're long about it. MEN.

Note me this, good friend; Your most grave belly was deliberate, Not rash like his accusers, and thus answered :— 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;

And, through the cranks and offices of man,
The strongest nerves and small inferior veins,
From me receive that natural competency
Whereby they live: and though that all at once,
You, my good friends,-this says the belly, mark

me,

1 Crr. Ay, sir; well, well. MEN.

Though all at once cannot See what I do deliver out to each, Yet I can make my audit up, that all From me do back receive the flour of all, And leave me but the bran.(2)-What say you to't?

1 CIT. It was an answer: how apply you this? MEN. The senators of Rome are this good belly,

And you the mutinous members: for, examine Their counsels and their cares; digest things rightly,

Touching the weal o' the common; you shall find, 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?—

1 CIT. I the great toe! Why the great toe? MEN. For that, being one o' the lowest, basest,

the way." Yet, if nothing better can be extracted from these words in their metaphorical sense, we would rather understand them literally, and believe "worst" to be a misprint, as it might easily be, for last. The passage then becomes perfectly intelligible, and in character with the speaker:

"Thou rascal, that art last in blood [that is, into bloodshed] to run, Lead'st first to win some vantage."

bbale:-] That is, hurt, injury, calamity.

K

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,
To make him worthy whose offence subdues him,
And curse that justice did it. Who deserves
greatness,

Deserves your hate; and your affections are
A sick man's appetite, who desires most that
Which would increase his evil. He that depends
Upon your favours, swims with fins of lead,
And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang yo!
Trust ye!

With every minute you do change a mind;
And call him noble that was now your hate,
Him vile that was your garland.

matter,

What's the

You cry against the noble senate, who,
Under the gods, keep you in awe, which else
Would feed on one another?-What's their

seeking?

MEN. For corn at their own rates; whereof, they say, The city is well stor❜d.

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"

Aquarry," in the language of the forest, meant a pile of slaughtered game.