William Shakespeare: The Tragedy of Coriolanus

ACT I. 1. SCENE I. Rome. A street. (continued)

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'll hear the belly's answer.

FIRST CITIZEN.
You are long about it.

MENENIUS.
Note me this, good friend;
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 storehouse 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.--What do you think,
You, the great toe of this assembly?

FIRST CITIZEN.
I the great toe? why the great toe?