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.

FIRST CITIZEN.
Care for us! True, indeed! They ne'er cared for us yet. Suffer us
to famish, and their storehouses crammed with grain; make edicts
for usury, to support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more piercing statutes
daily to chain up and restrain the poor. If the wars eat us not
up, they will; and there's all the love they bear us.

MENENIUS.
Either you must
Confess yourselves wondrous malicious,
Or be accus'd of folly. I shall tell you
A pretty tale: it may be you have heard it;
But, since it serves my purpose, I will venture
To stale't a little more.