They say poor suitors have strong breaths; they shall know we have strong

arms too.

MEN. Why, masters, my good friends, mine honest neighbours,

Will you undo yourselves?

2 CIT. We cannot, sir, we are undone already.
MEN. I tell you, friends, most charitable care

Have the patricians of you. For your wants,
Your suffering in this dearth, you may as well
Strike at the heaven with your staves, as lift them
Against the Roman state; whose course will on
The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs
Of more strong link asunder than can ever
Appear in your impediment: For the dearth,
The gods, not the patricians, make it; and
Your knees to them, not arms, must help. Alack,
You are transported by calamity

Thither where more attends

you; and you slander The helms o' the state, who care for you like fathers,

When you curse them as enemies.

2 CIT. Care for us!-True, indeed!—They ne'er cared for us yet. Suffer us to famish, and their storehouses crammed with grain1; make edicts for usury, to support usurers 2; 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.

66

a To stale 't. The original has "to scale 't," which is the general reading. We adopted it in previous editions, in the sense of weight. Menenius will venture to weigh, to try the value, of the "pretty tale," a little more; though they may have heard it, he will again scale it. But Steevens says, to scale is to disperse: though some of you have heard the story, I will spread it still wider, and diffuse it among the rest." Horne Tooke's explanation appears to us somewhat fanciful. To scale, he says, is derived from the Anglo-Saxon scylan, to divide. The tale of Menenius is scaled by being divided into particulars. But Mr. Dyce has referred to a note by Gifford, on a passage in Massinger,

"I'll not stale the jest

By my relation."

Gifford gives this explanation of stale: "render it flat, deprive it of zest by previous intimation;" and then notices the passage of the text: "This is one of a thousand instances which might be brought to prove that the true reading in Coriolanus, Act I., Scene 1, is

"To stale 't a little more."

The old copies have scale, for which Theobald judiciously proposed stale. To this Warburton objects, petulantly enough, it must be confessed, because to scale signifies to weigh; so, indeed, it does, and many other things; none of which, however, bear any relation to the text. Steevens,

2 CIT. 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.

MEN. There was a time when all the body's members

Rebell'd against the belly; thus accus'd 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 a
Unto the appetite and affection common

Of the whole body. The belly answered,-
2 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,
(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.

2 CIT.

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

In this our fabric, if that they

'Fore me, this fellow speaks!-what then? what then? 2 CIT. Should by the cormorant belly be restrain'd,

Who is the sink o' the body,—

too, prefers scale, which he proves, from a variety of authorities, to mean "scatter, disperse, spread." Mr. Dyce adds, "There indeed no end of passages in our early dramatists where stale occurs in the sense of 'make stale, familiar,'" &c. Upon these authorities we adopt stale 't. a This is usually pointed thus:

"And, mutually participate, did minister," &c.

Malone tells us that participate is participant (the participle). The modern mode of pointing the line, which is not that of the original, appears to us to destroy the freedom and euphony of the whole passage.

2 CIT. You are long about it. ΜΕΝ.

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 a: And though that all at once,

You, my good friends," (this says the belly,) mark me,— 2 CIT. Ay, sir; well, well.

MEN.

66

'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?
2 CIT. It was an answer: How apply you this?
MEN. 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,

a The usual punctuation of this passage is,—

"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," &c.

This arrangement of the passage involves a difficulty. The "heart" is metaphorically "the court," the centre to which all tends: but the punctuation also makes it "the seat of the brain." This, Malone and Douce tell us, is right: the "brain" is here put for the understanding, and according to the old philosophy the "heart" was the seat of the understanding. Now, we do not believe that Shakspere's judgment would have permitted him to use "heart" in a physical sense, and "brain" in a metaphysical; nor do we see why the belly should not claim the merit of supplying the head as well as the heart. The obvious meaning of the passage without any of this forced punctuation (the original uses no point but the comma) appears to us to be,-I send the general food through the rivers of your blood, to the court, the heart; I send it to the seat of the brain, and through the cranks and offices (obscure parts) of the whole body. By this means "The strongest nerves, and small inferior veins, From me receive that natural competency Whereby they live."

Flour. This is certainly the flour of corn opposed to "the bran." The word in the text is usually spelt flower, which, though correct in the original sense of flour, may give an erroneous impression to the reader.

2 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,

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 balea.-Hail, noble Marcius!

Enter CAIUS MARCIUS.

MAR. Thanks.-What 's the matter, you dissensious rogues,
That, rubbing the poor itch of your opinion,

Make yourselves scabs?

2 CIT. .
We have ever your good word.
MAR. 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: and your affections are

A sick man's appetite, who desires most that

Which would increase his evil. He that depends

Upon your favours swims with fins of lead,

And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye! Trust ye?
With every minute you do change a mind;

And call him noble that was now your hate,

Him vile that was your garland. 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?

a Bale-ruin. This is the only instance in which Shakspere uses the substantive bale; though we have frequently baleful. Malone tells us the word was obsolete in Shakspere's time: but it is one of Shakspere's merits to cling to our fine old language, not ostentatiously, but with a full knowledge of its powers.

To is omitted in all modern editions.

r

MEN. For corn at their own rates; whereof, they say,

The city is well stor❜d.

MAR.

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!
Would the nobility lay aside their rutha,

And let me use my sword, I 'd make a quarry

With thousands of these quarter'd slaves, as high

b

As I could pick my lance.

MEN. Nay, these are almost thoroughly persuaded;
For though abundantly they lack discretion,

Yet are they passing cowardly. But, I beseech you,
What says the other troop?

MAR.

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.

MEN.
What is granted them?
MAR. 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.