FIRST CITIZEN. We are accounted poor citizens, the patricians good. What authority surfeits on would relieve us. If they would yield us but the superfluity while it were wholesome, we might guess they relieved us humanely. But they think we are too dear. The leanness that afflicts us, the object of our misery, is as an inventory to particularize their abundance; our sufferance is a gain to them. Let us revenge this with our pikes ere we become rakes; for the gods know I speak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge. SECOND CITIZEN. Would you proceed especially against Caius Martius? FIRST CITIZEN. Against him first. He’s a very dog to the commonalty. SECOND CITIZEN. Consider you what services he has done for his country? FIRST CITIZEN. Very well, and could be content to give him good report for’t, but that he pays himself with being proud. SECOND CITIZEN. Nay, but speak not maliciously. FIRST CITIZEN. I say unto you, what he hath done famously he did it to that end. Though soft-conscienced men can be content to say it was for his country, he did it to please his mother and to be partly proud, which he is, even to the altitude of his virtue. SECOND CITIZEN. What he cannot help in his nature you account a vice in him. You must in no way say he is covetous. FIRST CITIZEN. If I must not, I need not be barren of accusations. He hath faults, with surplus, to tire in repetition. [_Shouts within_.] What shouts are these? The other side o’ th’ city is risen. Why stay we prating here? To th’ Capitol! ALL. Come, come! Enter Menenius Agrippa. FIRST CITIZEN. Soft, who comes here? SECOND CITIZEN. Worthy Menenius Agrippa, one that hath always loved the people. FIRST CITIZEN. He’s one honest enough. Would all the rest were so! MENENIUS. What work’s, my countrymen, in hand? Where go you With bats and clubs? The matter? Speak, I pray you. FIRST CITIZEN. Our business is not unknown to th’ Senate. They have had inkling this fortnight what we intend to do, which now we’ll show ’em in deeds. They say poor suitors have strong breaths; they shall know we have strong arms too. MENENIUS. Why, masters, my good friends, mine honest neighbours, Will you undo yourselves? FIRST CITIZEN. We cannot, sir; we are undone already. MENENIUS. 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’ th’ state, who care for you like fathers, When you curse them as enemies.