The Belly and the Members

The Belly and the Members is one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 130 in the Perry Index. It has been various interpreted in different political contexts over the centuries.

The Fable and its applications

Wenceslas Hollar's illustration from John Ogilby's version of the fables, 1668

There are several versions of the fable. In early Greek sources it concerns a dispute between the stomach and the feet, or between it and the hands and feet in later Latin versions. These grumble because the stomach gets all of the food; refusing to supply it with nourishment, they see sense when they realise that they are weakening themselves. In Mediaeval versions the rest of the body becomes so weakened that it dies and later illustrations almost monotonously portray an enfeebled man expiring on the ground. The present understanding is that the tale's moral supports team effort and recognition of the vital part that all members play in it. In more authoritarian times, however, the fable was taken to affirm direction from the centre.

Research points to early Eastern fables dealing with similar disputes. Most notably there is a fragmentary Egyptian papyrus going back to the 2nd millennium BCE that belongs to the Near Eastern genre of debate poems; in this case the dispute is between the Belly and the Head. It is thus among the first known examples of the body politic metaphor.

The historian Livy recounts the story in the context of a revolt in the 6th century BCE, which a member of the Roman senate calms by telling the story. It was later repeated in Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus.

"It once happened," Menenius Agrippa said, "that all the other members of a man mutinied against the stomach, which they accused as the only idle, uncontributing part the whole body, while the rest were put to hardships and the expense of much labour to supply and minister to its appetites. The stomach, however, merely ridiculed the silliness of the members, who appeared not to be aware that the stomach certainly does receive the general nourishment, but only to return it again, and redistribute it amongst the rest. Such is the case," he said, "ye citizens, between you and the senate. The counsels and plans that are there duly digested, convey and secure to all of you your proper benefit and support."

From this source it was taken by William Shakespeare and dramatised in the opening scene of his play Coriolanus.

There is also a scriptural reference by Paul of Tarsus, who was educated in both Hebrew and Hellenic thought, in his first letter to the Corinthians. This represents a shift away from the fable's political application. In the spiritual context of the body of the Church, the fable is used to argue that it represents a multiplicity of talents co-operating together. While there may still be a hierarchy within it, all are to be equally valued for the part they play:

For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body, is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary. And those members of the body which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour. (Authorised Version 12.14-23)

Kawanabe Kyosai's Aesopic satire, The lazy one in the middle, 1870-80

In France the fable was to receive a lengthy treatment by Jean de la Fontaine (III.2). Reversing the order of the historians, he begins with the fable, draws a lengthy moral and only then gives the context in which it was first told. For him the royal power is central to and the sustainer of the state. This was so too for John Ogilby's earlier politicised version of Aesop's fable. The only member on view in Wenceslas Hollar's illustration there (see above) is the broken head of a statue damaged by the blind, sword-wielding belly. The reference to the Parliamentary beheading of King Charles I and the breakdown of government during the subsequent republican period could not be clearer. La Fontaine's English translator, John Matthews, expands the fable to even greater length. Beginning with the Roman context, he pictures the social strife in more or less contemporary terms, and so hints that the fable supports the power of the aristocratic parliament of his day without needing to say so outright.

Ambrose Bierce applies the fable to labour disputes in his Fantastic Fables (1899). When the workers at a shoe factory go on strike for better conditions, in his satirical rewriting, the owner sets it on fire in order to collect the insurance and so leaves them workless. A slightly earlier Japanese woodblock print by Kawanabe Kyosai in his Isoho Monogotari series (1870-80) had also given the fable a commercial application. Titled "The lazy one in the middle", it shows the seated belly smoking a pipe while the disjointed bodily members crawl on the floor about him. His broad tie is labelled 'Financier' in western lettering to drive home the point. In both these cases the argument of the centre as sustainer is turned around. Far from keeping the members alive, the belly's selfish concerns and greedy demands sap them of energy.