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 interpreted in varying political contexts over the centuries.

The Fable

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 them 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.

Later applications

There is a scriptural use of the concept of co-operation between the various parts of the body by Paul of Tarsus, who was educated in both Hebrew and Hellenic thought. In his first letter to the Corinthians, he shifts away from the fable's political application and gives it the spiritual context of the body of the Church. The metaphor is used to argue that this body 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:
The Latin historian Livy leads the way in applying the fable to civil unrest. It is recounted in the context of a revolt in the 6th century BCE, which a member of the Roman senate is said to have calmed by telling the story. The same fable was later repeated in Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus.
From this source it was taken by William Shakespeare and dramatised in the opening scene of his play Coriolanus.
In French sources the story was similarly applied. The late 12th century version by Marie de France concludes with the feudal reflection that 'no one has honour who shames his lord, nor has the sire unless he honours his men'. Near the end of the 14th century, Eustache Deschamps deplored civil war in a ballade titled Comment le chief et les membres doyvent amer l'un l'autre. This used the fable to argue that the land is weakened when feudal obligations are transgressed. The head should not oppress those under him and in turn should be obeyed. Three centuries later La Fontaine interpreted the fable in terms of the absolute monarchy of his time. Reversing the order of the ancient historians, he starts 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.
's Aesopic satire, The lazy one in the middle, 1870-80
This was so too for John Ogilby in the context of the troubled history of 17th century England. The only member on view in Wenceslas Hollar's illustration of the fable 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. At the start of the 19th century, La Fontaine's English translator, John Matthews, was to expand 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 applied the fable to labour disputes in his Fantastic Fables. 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 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.