With bats and clubs? the matter you. -speak, I pray Cit. Our bufinefs is not unknown to the Senate; they have had inkling this fortnight what we intend to do, which now we'll fhew 'em in deeds: they fay, poor fuitors have ftrong breaths; they fhall know we have ftrong arms too. Men. Why, mafters, my good friends, mine honeft neighbours, Will you undo yourselves? 2 Cit. We cannot, Sir, we are undone already. Men. I tell you, friends, moft charitable care Have the patricians of you. For your wants, Your fufferings in this dearth, you may as well Strike at the heaven with your ftaves, as lift them Against the Roman State; whose course will on The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs Of more strong links afunder, than can ever Appear in your impediment. For the dearth, The gods, not the patricians, make it; and Your knees to them (not arms) muft help. Alack, You are tranfported by calamity Thither, where more attends you; and you flander The helms o' th' ftate, who care for you, like fathers, When you curfe them as enemies. 2 Cit. Care for us !-true, indeed!—they ne'er cared for us yet. Suffer us to famith, and their ftore-houfes crammed with grain: make edicts for ufury, to fupport ufurers; repeal daily any wholefome act established against the rich, and provide more piercing ftatutes daily to chain up ftrain the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and there's all the love they bear us. Men. Either you must Confefs yourselves wondrous malicious, and re A pretty tale, it may be you have heard it; But fince it ferves my purpose, I will venture (1) To ftale't a little more. 2 Cit. Well, I'll hear it, Sir-yet you must not think 66 (1) To feale't a little more.] Thus all the editions, but without any manner of fenfe, that I can find out. The Poet must have wrote, as I have corrected the text: and then the meaning will be plainly this. "Perhaps you may have heard my tale already, but for all that, I'll venture to make it more ftale and familiar to you, by "telling it over again." And nothing is more common than the verb in this fenfe, with our three capital dramatic poets. To begin with our own Author. Ant. and Cleop Age cannot wither her, nor cuftom fiale Her infinite variety. Jul. Caf. Were I a common laugher, or did ufe and imitations, Which out of ufe, and ftaled by other men, So B. Johnfon, in his Every Man in his Humour : -and not content To fale himself in all focieties, He makes my house here common as a mart. Cynthia's Revels: I'll go tell all the argument of his play aforehand, and fo ftale his invention to the auditory before it come forth. And fo Beaumont and Fletcher, in their Beggar's "Bush : But I fhould lofe myself to speak him further, And fale, in my relation, the much good You may be witnefs of. Queen of Corinth : ---I'll not ftale 'em, By giving up their characters; but leave you Wit at feveral Weapons: You fhall not be feen yet, we'll fale your friend first, But, and't please you, deliver. [members · Men. There was a time when all the body's Rebelled against the belly; thus accufed it; That only, like a gulf, it did remain I' th' midst o' th' body, idle and unactive, Like labour with the reft; where th' other inftru ments Did fee, and hear, devife, inftruct, walk, feel, 2 Cit. Well, Sir, what anfwer made the belly? Which ne'er came from the lungs, but even thus- To th' difcontented members, th' mutinous parts, 2 Cit. Your belly's anfwer---what! The kingly crowned head, the vigilant eye, In this our fabric, if that they Men. What then?---'Fore me, this fellow speaks; What then? what then? 2 Git. Should by the cormorant belly be reftrained, Who is the ink o' th' body,-- (2) Sir, I shall tell you with a kind of fmile, Which ne'er came from the lungs,] Thus all the editors, moft ftupidly, hitherto; as if Menenius were to file in telling his fory, though the lines, which immediately follow, make it evident that the belly was meant to smile. Men. Well,---what then? 2 Cit. The former agents, if they did complain, What could the belly anfwer? Men. I will tell you, If you'll beftow a fmall (of what you have little) Patience a while; you'll hear the belly's anfwer." 2 Git. Y' are long about it. Men. Note me this, good friend; Not rafh, like his accufers; and thus answered; Men. Though all at once cannot Yet I can make my audit up, that all But it proceeds, or comes, from them to you, 2 Cit. I the great toe! why, the great toe? Of this most wife rebellion, thou goest foremost: But make you ready your stiff bats and clubs, Rome and her rats are at the point of battle: (3) The one fide must have bale. (3) The one fide must have bail.] It must be the vanquished fide, fure, that could want it; and who were likely to be their bail? but it is endless to question with negligence and Rupidity. The Poet undoubtedly wrote, as I have restored; The one fide muft have bale. i. e. Sorrow, misfortune; must have the worst of it, be difcomfited. I have reftored this word in fome other paffages of our Author; and we meet with it in a play attributed to him, called Locrine: -Yea, with these eyes thou haft seen her, and therefore pull them out, for they will work thy bale. Mr Rowe, indeed, in his editions of our Poet, has errone oully printed bail too in this paffage; but in the old Quarto which I have of Locrine, printed in 1595, we find the word fpelt as it ought. And it was a term familiar both with authors prior in time, and contemporaries with Shakespeare. --and eke her fingirs long and fmale She wrong full oft, and bade God on her rue, Chaucer's Troil. and Grefeide. Book IV. ver. 738. And again, Spenter's Tranflation of Virgil's Gnat. Said he, what have I wretch deferved, that thus Thus greateft blifs is prone to greatest bale. Idem ibid. First Chorus of Hercules Oetaus from Seneca; printed in 1581. And left my foe, falfe Promos here, Do interrupt my tale; Grant, gracious King, that uncontrouled, I may report my bale. Promes and Caffandra, (a play,) printed in 1578. |