_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. _1 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---- _Men._ What then?---- 'Fore me this fellow speaks!--what then? what then? _1 Cit._ Should by the cormorant Belly be restrained, Who is the sink o' the body---- _Men._ Well, what then? _1 Cit._ The former agents, if they did complain, What could the Belly answer? _Men._ I will tell you, If you'll bestow a small--of what you have little-- Patience awhile, you'll hear the Belly's answer. _1 Cit._ Ye're long about it. _Men._ Note me this, good friend, 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, 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; and though that all at once, You, my good friends----' This says the Belly, mark me. _1 Cit._ Ay, sir; well, well. _Men._ '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? _1 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 No public benefit which you receive But it proceeds or comes from them to you, And no way from yourselves. What do you think? The oldest fable in Holy Scripture, having been spoken or written about six centuries before the time of Æsop, is that of _The Trees in Search of a King_, recounted by Jotham to the men of Shechem, and directed against Abimelech,[45] wherein it is shown that the most worthless persons are generally the most presuming: