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

And leave me but the bran.” What say you to 't? First Cit. It was an answer.

145

How apply you this?

And you the mutinous members; for examine

Men. The senators of Rome are this good belly,

Their counsels and their cares, disgest things rightly
Touching the weal o' the common, you shall find
No public benefit which you receive

150

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

155

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."

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.

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

143. audit] Short for "accounts, or balance sheet prepared for the audit.' Compare Macbeth, 1. 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

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

writers, is not found elsewhe
Shakespeare, who, however, has
ful, the adjective, pretty ofter
is frequently contrasted with
see Gascoyne, Flowers (Work
Hazlitt), I. 40:
"Amid my b
bathe in blisse"; Greene, Man
(Works, ed. Grosart), II. 170:
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 ad-
vantage.

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

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

164-165. That . . . scabs] Me contemptuously compares any the rabble may have to a compara harmless and inconsiderable itch its owner may irritate into a tr some sore. The sense of " Make selves scabs" could syntactical make scabs for yourselves, but i likely = turn yourselves into sca disgusting and offensive rascals. pare Cartwright, The Ordinary. (Hazlitt's Dodsley, XII. 313): you are a gibing scab"; Twelfth Night, II. v. 82; Muc about Nothing, III. iii. 107, e Geo. Herbert's collection of pr (Facula Prudentum) occurs: itch of disputing is the scab Church": see Works, ed. G 1874, iii. 371.

ar

167. Beneath abhorring] i.e. degree to excite something wors abhorrence. For the noun c Antony and Cleopatra, v. i "let the water-flies Blow m abhorring!" and Isaiah, lxvi. 24 they shall be an abhorring u flesh."

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,

170

And curse that Justice did it. Who deserves greatness 175
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?

180

With every minute you do change a mind,
And call him noble that was now your hate,

Him vilde that was your garland. What's the matter,
That in these several places of the city

185

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?
Men. For corn at their own rates: whereof, they say,
The city is well stor❜d.

form. Compare Antony and Cleopatra, IV. xiv. 22.

171. geese: you are no] Theobald; geese you are: No Ff. 172. the ice] In the great frost of January, 1607-1608, fires were lighted on the frozen Thames; some suppose this fact was the origin of this line. The suggestion was made by Professor Hales in The Academy, 10th May, 1878.

173-175. Your... did it] What you excel in is crying up the man whom his own faults have undone, and exclaiming against that Justice which decrees their punishment. The thought is similar in Antony and Cleopatra, 1. ii. 192-194 :

"our slippery people,

Whose love is never link'd to the deserver

Till his deserts are past"; and again (ibid, I. iv. 43), "the ebb'd man, ne'er loved till ne'er worth love."

176. affections] desires, inclinations, as in II. iii. 229 post, and, in the singular, line 103 ante.

183. vilde] An old and frequent

that was your garland] whom you were wont to speak of as the highest, the ornament of all praise. Compare Antony and Cleopatra, in this series, IV. xv. 64: "O, wither'd is the garland of the war," and see the note there. Also Willobie his Avisa, 1594 (ed. 1904, p. 15)::

"In Lavine land though Livie boast There hath beene seene a constant dame:

Though Rome lament that she hath lost

The garland of her rarest fame." 184. several] separate, various: see IV. V. 124, "Twelve several times"; IV. vi. 39, two several powers"; also The Tempest, III. i. 42: "for several virtues Have I liked several women. ,,

66

186. which] who; the use we retain in "Our father, which art," etc.

188-189. For ... stor'd] See North, Extracts, ante, p. xl.

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 grai
enough!

Would the nobility lay aside their ruth,
And let me use my sword,

191-192. who's . . . declines] Mr. Verity aptly compares King Lear, v. iii. 11-15:

er

st

8:

he

ed,

0:

of

de

om

ne:

ses,

are

dof

sby

IV.

These

ss to

With thousands of these quarter'd slaves, as high
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.

1

200

They are dissolv'd: hang 'em!
They said they were an-hungry; sigh'd forth proverbs:
That hunger broke stone walls; that dogs must eat; 205
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,

199. pick] pitch. In Henry VIII, v. iv. 94, in a part of the play in all probability not by Shakespeare, we read: "You i' the camlet, get up o' the rail: I'll peck you o'er the pales else"; compare Udall, Translation (1542) of the Apophthegmes of Erasmus, ed. 1564 (Roberts, p. 89): "He taught them to bend a bow and shoot in it, to whirle with a sling, and to picke or cast a dart"; also Philip Stubbes, Anatomy of Abuses, 1583 (ed. Furnivall, p. 184). Describing football he writes: "For dooth not every one lye in waight for his Adversarie, seeking to over throwe him and to picke him on his nose, though it be upon hard stones"; and, lower down on the same page," for they have the sleights

to hit him under the short ribbes with their griped fists, and with their knees to catch him upon the hip, and to pick him on his neck, with a hundred such murdering devices." reference to the Eng. Dial. Dict. will show that both peck and pick in the sense of pitch are alive in English dialects to-day.

which and in an-hungered, the prefix a represents of, an old intensive prefix. See Abbott, Shakes. Gram., § 24 (3).

205, 206. That . . . walls; etc.] For the first of these proverbial sayings, Mr. Hart supplies references to Olde Fortunatus, 1600 (Pearson's Dekker, 1. 115): "hunger is made of Gunpowder, or Gun-powder of hunger; for they both eate through stone walles "; Marston, Antonio's Revenge, 1602, v. ii. 2: 66

666

"They say hunger breakes thorough stone walles"; Eastward Hoe (Ben Jonson, etc.), 1605, v. i. (7th speech): Hunger,' they say, 'breakes stone wals.'" "Dogs must eat," reminds us of the parable in Matthew, xv. and the woman's answer, "Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table "; and "meat was made for mouths," contains the same thought

as

"All meats to be eaten, and all maids to be wed" (Heywood, Proverbs, pt. ii. chap. ii. Works, ed. Farmer, ii. 55).

207. shreds] Shakespeare only uses shreds once again, and in a different connection, Hamlet, III. iv. 102: "A king of shreds and patches." We might compare the expression odd ends, Richard III. 1. iii. 337: "old odd ends stolen out of holy writ."

208. vented their complainings] aired their grievances.

answer'd] i.e. not merely replied to, but met, in a way to satisfy them.