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 Martius 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 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.