Learn More about the Book
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: i Citizen. Should by the cormorant belly be restrain'd, Who is the sink o' the body, Menenius. Well, what then ? i Citizen. The former agents, if they did complain, What could the belly answer? Menenius. I will tell you; If you '11 bestow a smallof what you have little Patience awhile, you '11 hear the belly's answer. i Citizen. Ye 're long about it. Menenius. Note me this, good friend; Your most grave belly was deliberate, i Not rash like his accusers, and thus answer'd: ' 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, 130 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, i Citizen. Ay, sir; well, well. Menenius. ' 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.' What say you to 't ? i Citizen. It was an answer; how apply you this? 140 Menenius. 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? i Citizen. I the great toe ! why the great toe ? Menenius. For th..."
