1st Cit. Your belly’s answer? What! The kingly-crown’d 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 * * * Should, by the cormorant belly be restrain’d, Who is the sink o’ the body.
Men. True it is, quoth the belly, 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. Act I., Sc. I.
For your digestion’s sake An after-dinner speech. Troilus and Cressida, Act II., Sc. III.
To make our appetites more keen, With eager compounds we our palate urge. Sonnets, CXVIII.
My cheese, my digestion. Troilus and Cressida, Act II., Sc. III.
I say, whatever you maintain Of Alma in the heart or brain, The plainest man alive may tell ye Her seat of empire is the belly. From hence she sends out those supplies Which make us either stout or wise; Your stomach makes the fabric roll Just as the bias rules the bowl. The great Achilles might employ The strength designed to ruin Troy; He dined on lion’s marrow, spread On toast of ammunition bread; But by his mother sent away Amongst the Thracian girls to play, Effeminate he sat and quiet— Strange product of a cheese-cake diet! Was ever Tartar fierce or cruel Upon the strength of water-gruel? But who shall stand his rage or force If first he rides, then eats his horse? Salads and eggs, and lighter fare, Tunes the Italian spark’s guitar; And, if I take Dan Congrieve right, Pudding and beef make Britons fight. Tokay and coffee cause this work Between the German and the Turk: And both, as they provisions want, Chicane, avoid, retire, and faint.
But, spoil the organ of digestion, And you entirely change the question: Alma’s affairs no power can mend; The jest, alas! is at an end. * * * Prior.