Page 2776 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

Should by the cormorant belly be restrained
Who is the sink o’th’body −

MENENIUS
Well, what then? [120]

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’st hear the belly’s answer.

FIRST CITIZEN
Y’are long about it.

MENENIUS
Note me this, good friend − [125]

Your most grave belly was deliberate,
Not rash like his accusers, and thus answered.
‘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, [130]

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 th’seat o’th’brain;
And, through the cranks and offices of man, [135]
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.