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
Rebelled against the belly, thus accused it:
That only like a gulf it did remain
I’ th’ midst o’ th’ body, idle and unactive,
Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing
Like labour with the rest, where th’ 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 answered—
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 th’ 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
Is 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 restrained,
Who is the sink o’ th’ 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’st hear the belly’s answer.