Negative Liberties & RWE

Wed Dec 7 08:12:49 CST 2011

Not knowing my Livy, I had forgotten that it is Menenius talking to citizens
that Shakespeare has given the extended, particularized, body politic metaphor
in Coriolanus. Here it is in its extended ingenuity, if interested:

MENENIUS 
There was a time when all the body's members
>Rebell'd against the belly, thus accused it:
>That only like a gulf it did remain
>I' the midst o' the body, idle and unactive,
>Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing
>Like labour with the rest, where the other instruments
>Did see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel,
>And, mutually participate, did minister
>Unto the appetite and affection common
>Of the whole body. The belly answer'd--
>
First Citizen 
Well, sir, what answer made the belly?
>
MENENIUS 
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.
>
First Citizen 
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--
>
MENENIUS 
What then?
>'Fore me, this fellow speaks! What then? what then?
>
First Citizen 
Should by the cormorant belly be restrain'd,
>Who is the sink o' the body,--
>
MENENIUS 
Well, what then?
>
First Citizen 
The former agents, if they did complain,
>What could the belly answer?
>
MENENIUS 
I will tell you
>If you'll bestow a small--of what you have little--
>Patience awhile, you'll hear the belly's answer.
>
First Citizen 
Ye're long about it.
>
MENENIUS 
Note me this, good friend;
>Your most grave belly was deliberate,
>Not rash like his accusers, and thus answer'd:
>'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 store-house 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,--
>
First Citizen 
Ay, sir; well, well.
>
MENENIUS 
'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?
>
First Citizen 
It was an answer: how apply you this?
>
MENENIUS 
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,
>You, the great toe of this assembly?
>
First Citizen 

From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
To: jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>; Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> 
Cc: "pynchon-l at waste.org" <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Wednesday, December 7, 2011 7:06 AM
Subject: Re: Negative Liberties & RWE

shakespeare works the body as the body politic metaphor with his
usual ingenuity early in Coriolanus........

From: jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
To: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> 
Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org 
Sent: Wednesday, December 7, 2011 3:41 AM
Subject: Re: Negative Liberties & RWE

 mystics his rebirth each second
>> Businessmen his nervous system
>> No-hustle men his stomach
>> Astrologers his balance
>> Lovers his loins
>> His skin it is all patchy
>> But soon will reach one glowing hue
>> God is his soul
>> Infinity his goal
>> The mystery his source
>> And civilisation he leaves behind
>> Opinions are his fingernails
>>
>> Maya Maya
>> All this world is but a play
>> Be thou the joyful player
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 8:12 PM, alice wellintown
>> <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> The old fable covers a doctrine ever new and sublime; that there is
>>> One Man,--present to all particular men only partially, or through one
>>> faculty; and that you must take the whole society to find the whole
>>> man. Man is not a farmer, or a professor, or an engineer, but he is
>>> all. Man is priest, and scholar, and statesman, and producer, and
>>> soldier. In the divided or social state, these functions are parceled
>>> out to individuals, each of whom aims to do his stint of the joint
>>> work, whilst each other performs his. The fable implies, that the
>>> individual, to possess himself, must sometimes return from his own
>>> labor to embrace all the other laborers. But unfortunately, this
>>> original unit, this fountain of power, has been so distributed to
>>> multitudes, has been so minutely subdivided and peddled out, that it
>>> is spilled into drops, and cannot be gathered. The state of society is
>>> one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and
>>> strut about so many walking monsters,--a good finger, a neck, a
>>> stomach, an elbow, but never a man.
>>>
>>> Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing, into many things.
>

Livy says that Menenius told the soldiers a fable about the parts of
the human body and how each has its own purpose in the greater
function of the body. The rest of the body thought the stomach was
getting a free ride so the body decided to stop nourishing the
stomach. Soon, the other parts became fatigued and unable to function
so they realized that the stomach did serve a purpose and they were
nothing without it. In the story, the stomach represents the patrician
class and the other body parts represent the plebs. Eventually, Livy
concludes, the patricians conceded to some of the plebs' demands, such
as creating the tribunes of the people and establishing legal
protection for all citizens against arbitrary intervention from an
elected magistrate, and the soldiers returned to the city.

2011/12/7 Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>:
> The incredible String Band
> On Dec 6, 2011, at 9:25 PM, Michael Bailey wrote:
>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h2R86hZGKo
>>
>> The great man, the great man, historians his memory
>> Artists his senses, thinkers his brain
>> Labourers his growth
>> Explorers his limbs
>> And soldiers his death each second
>> And