William Shakespeare, Critical Commentary of The Tragedie of Coriolanus
Horace Howard Furness, Jr., A. B.; Litt. D., Ed.

What say you too't Beeching (Falcon Sh.): Menenius gives his apologue an unexpected turn, not asserting that the belly gave up all it should, but only that whatever the limbs did receive came from the belly, which, while putting the parable beside the mark, makes it for the moment unanswerable. However, he has got the mob into better humour, and so, before the First Citizen has time to discover the non sequitur, takes up the safer weapon of ridicule [l. 164].

158, 159. For examine . . . their Cares; disgest, etc.] A. E. Brae (Notes & Queries, 10 July, 1852, p. 27), If this reading were correct it would doubtless afford an example of the use of ‘digest’ in the abstract sense; but it is, in reality, a gross misprision of the true meaning of the passage, and is only another proof of how far we are still from possessing a correctly printed edition of Shakespeare. The proper punctuation would be this: ‘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,’ &c.

‘For examine’ is introduced merely to diversify the discourse and to fix the attention of the listeners; it might be wholly omitted without injury to the sense, but in the passage, as it now stands, ‘examine’ is made an effective verb, having for its objects the counsels and the cares of the senators, while ‘digest’ is made auxiliary to and synonymous with ‘examine,’ and, like it, is in the imperative mood, as though addressed to the people, instead of being, as it ought to be, in the indicative, with ‘counsels’ and ‘cares’ for its agents. It is a curious instance of how completely the true sense of a passage may be distorted by the misapplication of a few commas. ‘Digest,’ therefore, in this passage, as elsewhere, is in direct allusion to the animal function. The very essence and pith of the parable of ‘the belly and the members’ is to place in opposition the digestive function of the belly with the more active offices of the members; and the application of the parable is that ‘the senators are this good belly,’ their counsels and their cares digest for the general good, and distribute the resulting benefits throughout the whole community. This is the true reading; and no person who duly considers it, or who has compared it with the original in Plutarch, but must be satisfied that it is so. [See also note by A. E. Brae on III, i, 158.]