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 instru-
ments

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 Cit. Well, sir, what answer made the belly?
Men. Sir, I shall tell you. With a kind of smile,

Which ne'er came from the lungs, but even thus,

98. o' the] o' th' F4; a th' F; so in other places. 102. And,] Malone; no comma Ff.

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 Cit.

Men.

Your belly's answer?
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

In this our fabric, if that they

What!

What then?

'Fore me, this fellow speaks! What then? what
then ?

First Cit. Should by the cormorant belly be restrain'd,
Who is the sink o' the body,-

109. tauntingly] F 4; tantingly F 2;
Warburton; Kingly crown'd Ff.
they... speakes then? in Ff.

...

108. I may smile] Malone quotes North's Plutarch, "And so the belly, all this notwithstanding, laughed at their folly and sayed," etc.

III. his receipt] his prerogative of receiving, or else, what he received, which agrees with a frequent sense. Compare Richard II. 1. i. 126: "Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais." Mr. Deighton quotes Lucrece, 703: "Drunken desire must vomit his [i.e. its] receipt."

112. for that] because, on the ground that. See The Merchant of Venice, 1. iii. 44:

66

"I hate him for he is a Christian, But more for that in low simplicity

He lends out money gratis," etc. 114. kingly-crowned] The expression a kingly crown is in Julius Cæsar, III. ii. IOI: "I thrice presented him a kingly crown"; also in Milton, Paradise Lost, 11. 673: "The likeness of a kingly crown.'

115. The counsellor heart] Malone notes that "the heart was considered by Shakespeare as the seat of the understanding." See, e.g. Sonnet

CXIII:

"For it [my eye] no form delivers to the heart

taintingly F. 114. kingly-crowned] 118, 119. As Capell; three lines ending 121. o' the] o' th' F 4; a th' F.

and

14:

Of bird, of flower, or shape, which it doth latch";

Much Ado about Nothing, III. ii. "for what his heart thinks, his tongue speaks." Compare the passage from Camden in the note on line 135 post.

66

117. muniments] The New Eng. Dict. quotes this passage under the sense: Things with which a person or place is provided: furnishings," and also cites among other references, Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV. viii. 6: "By chance he certain muniments forthdrew, Which yet with him as relickes did abide.' The frequent sense "defences," 66 supports" would not be inappropriate here.

119. 'Fore me] (Fore me F). Explained as "by my soul," perhaps a euphemism for "Before God." Dyce explains, "God before me," "in the presence of God." Compare All's Well that Ends Well, 11. iii. 31: "'fore me, speak in respect-"; and Middleton and Rowley, A Fair Quarrell, 1617, 1. i. 42 (ed. Bullen, Iv. 181): "fore me, and thou look'st half-ill indeed." We have also afore me, as in Romeo and Juliet, III. iv. 34, and before me several times: see Twelfth Night, II. iii. 194: 'Before me, she's a good wench."

66

Men.

Well, what then?

First Cit. The former agents, if they did complain,

Men.

What could the belly answer?

I will tell you;

If you'll bestow a small-of what you have little-
Patience awhile, you'st hear the belly's answer.

First Cit. Y'are long about it.

Men.

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 store-house and the shop

Of the whole body: but, if you do remember,

I send it through the rivers of your blood,

125

130

Even to the court, the heart, to the seat o' the brain; 135
And, through the cranks and offices of man,

125. you 'st] F; you'll Rowe (ed. 2). 125. you 'st] A provincial corruption or contraction of you shalt, apparently. Schmidt gives it among his examples of shall corrupted to 's: Romeo and Juliet, 1. iii. 9: nurse, come back again I have remember'd me, thou's hear our counsell"; King Lear, IV. vi. 246: "ise try whether your costard or my ballow be the harder"; etc. Wright refers to Webster and Marston's The Malcontent for examples, e.g. v. 3. (Marston, ed. Halliwell, II. p. 287): "nay, if youle dooes no good, Youst dooes no harme."

126. me] Dativus ethicus: see Abbott, Shakes. Gram., § 220.

127. Your] Your in line 113 from the First Cit. to Menenius, who was the belly's advocate, might be so used today, but the case is different here and comes under the colloquial use of your, 66 to appropriate an object to a person addressed"; see Abbott, Shakes. Gram. § 221.

grave] a term of respect implying seriousness and importance; compare Othello, 1. iii. 76: "Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors," and Chapman, Homer's Odysseys, VIII. 22-26:

"Pallas... Enlarged him with a height, and goodliness

128. answer'd] Rowe; answered F.

In breast and shoulders, that he might appear

Gracious, and grave, and reverend."

129. incorporate] belonging to one and the same body; compare Venus and Adonis, 540: "Incorporate then they seem.'

135. Even . . . brain;] Malone says brain" is here used for reason or understanding" and that "the seat of the brain is put in apposition with the heart, and is descriptive_of it." He quotes the story of the Belly and the Members as it appears in Camden's Remaines, 1605, "p. 109," really p. 199, which Shakespeare probably had before him (see on gulf, line 97 ante) :

66

. . . Therefore they all with one accord desired the advise of the Heart. There Reason laid open before them," etc. The confusion between two different bodily organs, and awkwardness of understanding one literally and the other figuratively, disposes one to reject this view, but it certainly receives some support from the use of the two words court and seat, both equivalent to "royal residence."

136. cranks] winding passages; referring to the meandering ducts of the

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 Cit. Ay, sir; well, well.

Men.

140

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."
First Cit. It was an answer.
Men. The senators of Rome are this good belly,

What say you to 't? 145 How apply you this?

And you the mutinous members; for examine
Their counsels and their cares, disgest 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.

150

What do you think,

155

You, the great toe of this assembly?

First Cit. I the great toe? Why the great toe?

Men. For that, being one o' the lowest, basest, poorest,

Of this most wise rebellion, thou go'st foremost :
Thou rascal, that art worst in blood to run,

144. flour] Knight; flowre F; flowr F 3.

human body. Verity compares North's Plutarch, Life of Theseus (Skeat's ed., p. 283): "She (Ariadne) 'did give him a clue of thread, by the help whereof she taught him, how he might easily wind out of the turnings and crancks of the labyrinth ""; and reminds us of the figurative use in Milton's L'Allegro, 27, Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles." In Shakespeare only the verb is found elsewhere, as in Venus and Adonis, 682: "He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles."

66

136. offices] Thus defined in the New Eng. Dict.: "The parts of a house or buildings attached to a house, specially devoted to household work or service; the kitchen and rooms connected with it, as pantry, scullery, cellars, larder, and the like." See Timon of Athens, II. ii. 167: "When all our offices have been oppress'd with riotious feeders."

137. nerves] sinews, as usually in

Elizabethan
writers. Compare the
common expression to-day, "to strain
every nerve,' to exert one's entire
force; and see on nervy, II. i. 157 post.

143. audit] Short for " accounts, or balance sheet prepared for the audit." Compare Macbeth, I. vi. 27: "To make their audit at your highness' pleasure, Still to return your own."

149. disgest] A common spelling: disgest and disgestion are used passim

in the works of Thomas Nash.

156. For that] See line 112 ante.

158. rascal] A rascal is a lean deer, not fit to be hunted; and hence, as applied to men, "one belonging to the rabble or common herd" (The New Eng. Dict. which quotes, e.g. Fabyan, Chronicle, VII. 326: "The personys whiche entendyd this conspiracy, were but of the rascallys of the cytie," and 1561, T. Norton, Calvin's Inst., Table of Script. Quot.: "Hee

made

Lead'st first to win some vantage.

But make you ready your stiff bats and clubs :
Rome and her rats are at the point of battle;
The one side must have bale.

Enter CAIUS MARCIUS.

160

Mar. He that will give good words to thee will flatter
Beneath abhorring. What would you have, you curs,

writers, is not found elsewhere in Shakespeare, who, however, has baleful, the adjective, pretty often. It is frequently contrasted with bliss: see Gascoyne, Flowers (Works, ed. Hazlitt), I. 40: "Amid my bale I bathe in blisse"; Greene, Mammilia (Works, ed. Grosart), II. 170: 'her weale to woe, her bale to bliss."

162. bale] Theobald; baile F; bail F 3. priests of the rascals of the people.") Mr. Verity refers to Mr. Justice Madden's Diary of Master William Silence, p. 60, for a useful illustration from Puttenham, The Arte of English Poesie (1589) [Book III. Chap. xvi. [i], ed. Arber, p. 191]: "as one should in reproch say to a poore man, thou raskall knave, where raskall is properly the hunters terme giuen to young deere, leane and out of season, and not to people." See also next note, and As You Like It, III. iii. 58: "the noblest deer hath them (i.e. horns) as huge as the rascal."

158. in blood] "to be in blood was a term of forestry, meaning to be in good condition, full of vigour and spirit: see IV. v. 217 post, and 1 Henry VI, IV. ii. 48:

"If we be English deer, be then in
blood;

Not rascal-like to fall down with
a pinch,

But rather moody, mad, and des-
perate stags," etc.

Also notes on Love's Labour's Lost,
IV. ii. 3, and Antony and Cleopatra,
III. xiii. 174, both in this series.

159. Lead'st vantage] Takest the lead in this rabble rout solely out of the hope of gaining some personal advantage.

160. stiff bats] stout cudgels. See line 55 and note, ante.

162. bale] though a every common word in earlier and in other Elizabethan

66

164-165. That . . . scabs] Menenius contemptuously compares any views the rabble may have to a comparatively harmless and inconsiderable itch which its owner may irritate into a troublesome sore. The sense of " Make yourselves scabs" could syntactically be, make scabs for yourselves, but is more likely = turn yourselves into scabs, i.e. disgusting and offensive rascals. Compare Cartwright, The Ordinary, v. iv. (Hazlitt's Dodsley, XII. 313): “Go, you are a gibing scab"; and see Twelfth Night, 11. v. 82; Much Ado about Nothing, III. iii. 107, etc. Geo. Herbert's collection of proverbs (Facula Prudentum) occurs: "The itch of disputing is the scab of the Church": see Works, ed. Grosart, 1874, iii. 371.

In

167. Beneath abhorring] i.e. ín a degree to excite something worse than abhorrence. For the noun compare Antony and Cleopatra, v. ii. 60: "let the water-flies Blow me into abhorring!" and Isaiah, lxvi. 24: "and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh."