Rome. A street.
[Enter a company of mutinous Citizens,
with staves, clubs, and other weapons]
First Citizen
You are all resolved rather to die than to famish?
All Resolved. resolved.
First Citizen First, you know Caius Marcius
is chief enemy to the people.
Let us kill him, and we’ll have corn at our own price.
For the gods know I speak this in hunger for bread,
not in thirst for revenge. He’s a very dog to the commonalty.
Second Citizen
Consider you what services he has done for his country?
First Citizen Very well;
and could be content to give him good
report fort, but that he pays himself with being proud.
Second Citizen Nay, but speak not maliciously.
First Citizen I say unto you, what he hath done famously,
he did it to that end: though soft-conscienced 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 till the altitude of his virtue.
Second Citizen What he cannot help in his nature,
you account a vice in him.
[Shouts within]
First Citizen What shouts are these?
The other side o’ the city is risen:
Soft! who comes here?
[Enter MENENIUS AGRIPPA]
Second Citizen Worthy Menenius Agrippa;
one that hath always loved the people.
MENENIUS Where go you with bats and clubs?
The matter? speak, I pray you.
First Citizen 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.
MENENIUS Why, masters, my good friends,
mine honest neighbours,
Will you undo yourselves?
First Citizen We cannot, sir, we are undone already.
MENENIUS I tell you, friends, most charitable care
Have the patricians of you.
First Citizen 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; 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.
MENENIUS Either you must
Confess yourselves wondrous malicious,
Or be accused 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.
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
Rebell’d against the belly, thus accused 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 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 answer’d–
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 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.
First Citizen Your belly’s answer? What!
MENENIUS Your most grave belly was deliberate,
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,
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,–
First 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?
First Citizen It was an answer: how apply you this?
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.
MARCIUS What’s the matter, you dissentious rogues,
That, rubbing the poor itch of your opinion,
Make yourselves scabs?
First Citizen We have ever your good word.
MARCIUS He that will give good words to thee will flatter
Beneath abhorring. What would you have, you curs,
That like nor peace nor war? the one affrights you,
The other makes you proud. He that trusts to you,
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;
Trust Ye? Hang ye! What’s the matter,
That in these several places of the city
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?
MENENIUS For corn at their own rates;
whereof, they say,
The city is well stored.
MARCIUS 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!
MENENIUS What says the other troop?
MARCIUS They are dissolved: hang ’em!
They said they were an-hungry; sigh’d forth proverbs,
That hunger broke stone walls, that dogs must eat,
That meat was made for mouths, that the gods sent not
Corn for the rich men only: with these shreds
They vented their complainings; which being answer’d,
And a petition granted them, a strange one–
To break the heart of generosity,
And make bold power look pale–they threw their caps
As they would hang them on the horns o’ the moon,
Shouting their emulation.
MENENIUS What is granted them?
MARCIUS Five tribunes to defend their vulgar wisdoms,
Of their own choice: one’s Junius Brutus,
Sicinius Velutus, and I know not–‘Sdeath!
The rabble should have first unroof’d the city,
Ere so prevail’d with me: it will in time
Win upon power and throw forth greater themes
For insurrection’s arguing.
MENENIUS This is strange.
MARCIUS Go, get you home, you fragments!
[Enter a Messenger, hastily]
What’s the matter?
Messenger The news is, sir, the Volsces are in arms.
MARCIUS I am glad on ‘t: then we shall ha’ means to vent
Our musty superfluity. They have a leader,
Tullus Aufidius, that will put you to ‘t.
I sin in envying his nobility,
And were I any thing but what I am,
I would wish me only he.
COMINIUS You have fought together.
MARCIUS Were half to half the world by the ears and he.
Upon my party, I’ld revolt to make
Only my wars with him: he is a lion
That I am proud to hunt.
First Senator Then, worthy Marcius,
Attend upon Cominius to these wars.
COMINIUS It is your former promise.
MARCIUS Sir, it is;
And I am constant. Titus Lartius, thou
Shalt see me once more strike at Tullus’ face.
What, art thou stiff? stand’st out?
TITUS No, Caius Marcius;
I’ll lean upon one crutch and fight with t’other,
Ere stay behind this business.
MENENIUS O, true-bred!
SICINIUS Was ever man so proud as is this Marcius?
BRUTUS He has no equal.
SICINIUS When we were chosen tribunes for the people,–
BRUTUS Mark’d you his lip and eyes?
SICINIUS Nay. but his taunts.
BRUTUS Being moved, he will not spare to gird the gods.
SICINIUS Be-mock the modest moon.
BRUTUS The present wars devour him: he is grown
Too proud to be so valiant.
SICINIUS Such a nature,
Tickled with good success, disdains the shadow
Which he treads on at noon: but I do wonder
His insolence can brook to be commanded
Under Cominius.
BRUTUS Fame, at the which he aims,
In whom already he’s well graced, can not
Better be held nor more attain’d than by
A place below the first: for what miscarries
Shall be the general’s fault, though he perform
To the utmost of a man, and giddy censure
Will then cry out of Marcius ‘O if he
Had borne the business!’
SICINIUS Besides, if things go well,
Opinion that so sticks on Marcius shall
Of his demerits rob Cominius.
[Exeunt]
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