3836 lines
110 KiB
Plaintext
3836 lines
110 KiB
Plaintext
TIMON OF ATHENS
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DRAMATIS PERSONAE
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TIMON of Athens.
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LUCIUS |
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LUCULLUS | flattering lords.
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SEMPRONIUS |
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VENTIDIUS one of Timon's false friends.
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ALCIBIADES an Athenian captain.
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APEMANTUS a churlish philosopher.
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FLAVIUS steward to Timon.
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Poet, Painter, Jeweller, and Merchant. (Poet:)
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(Painter:)
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(Jeweller:)
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(Merchant:)
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An old Athenian. (Old Athenian:)
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FLAMINIUS |
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LUCILIUS | servants to Timon.
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SERVILIUS |
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CAPHIS |
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PHILOTUS |
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TITUS |
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| servants to Timon's creditors.
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LUCIUS |
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HORTENSIUS |
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And others |
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A Page. (Page:)
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A Fool. (Fool:)
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Three Strangers.
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(First Stranger:)
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(Second Stranger:)
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(Third Stranger:)
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PHRYNIA |
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| mistresses to Alcibiades.
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TIMANDRA |
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Cupid and Amazons in the mask. (Cupid:)
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Other Lords, Senators, Officers, Soldiers,
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Banditti, and Attendants.
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(First Lord:)
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(Second Lord:)
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(Third Lord:)
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(Fourth Lord:)
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(Senator:)
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(First Senator:)
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(Second Senator:)
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(Third Senator:)
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(Soldier:)
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(First Bandit:)
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(Second Bandit:)
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(Third Bandit:)
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(Messenger:)
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(Servant:)
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(First Servant:)
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(Second Servant:)
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(Third Servant:)
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(Varro's First Servant:)
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(Varro's Second Servant:)
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(Lucilius' Servant:)
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SCENE Athens, and the neighbouring woods.
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TIMON OF ATHENS
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ACT I
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SCENE I Athens. A hall in Timon's house.
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[Enter Poet, Painter, Jeweller, Merchant, and
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others, at several doors]
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Poet Good day, sir.
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Painter I am glad you're well.
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Poet I have not seen you long: how goes the world?
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Painter It wears, sir, as it grows.
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Poet Ay, that's well known:
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But what particular rarity? what strange,
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Which manifold record not matches? See,
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Magic of bounty! all these spirits thy power
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Hath conjured to attend. I know the merchant.
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Painter I know them both; th' other's a jeweller.
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Merchant O, 'tis a worthy lord.
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Jeweller Nay, that's most fix'd.
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Merchant A most incomparable man, breathed, as it were,
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To an untirable and continuate goodness:
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He passes.
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Jeweller: I have a jewel here--
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Merchant O, pray, let's see't: for the Lord Timon, sir?
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Jeweller: If he will touch the estimate: but, for that--
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Poet [Reciting to himself] 'When we for recompense have
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praised the vile,
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It stains the glory in that happy verse
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Which aptly sings the good.'
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Merchant 'Tis a good form.
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[Looking at the jewel]
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Jeweller And rich: here is a water, look ye.
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Painter You are rapt, sir, in some work, some dedication
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To the great lord.
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Poet A thing slipp'd idly from me.
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Our poesy is as a gum, which oozes
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From whence 'tis nourish'd: the fire i' the flint
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Shows not till it be struck; our gentle flame
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Provokes itself and like the current flies
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Each bound it chafes. What have you there?
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Painter A picture, sir. When comes your book forth?
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Poet Upon the heels of my presentment, sir.
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Let's see your piece.
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Painter 'Tis a good piece.
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Poet So 'tis: this comes off well and excellent.
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Painter Indifferent.
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Poet Admirable: how this grace
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Speaks his own standing! what a mental power
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This eye shoots forth! how big imagination
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Moves in this lip! to the dumbness of the gesture
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One might interpret.
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Painter It is a pretty mocking of the life.
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Here is a touch; is't good?
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Poet I will say of it,
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It tutors nature: artificial strife
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Lives in these touches, livelier than life.
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[Enter certain Senators, and pass over]
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Painter How this lord is follow'd!
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Poet The senators of Athens: happy man!
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Painter Look, more!
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Poet You see this confluence, this great flood
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of visitors.
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I have, in this rough work, shaped out a man,
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Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug
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With amplest entertainment: my free drift
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Halts not particularly, but moves itself
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In a wide sea of wax: no levell'd malice
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Infects one comma in the course I hold;
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But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on,
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Leaving no tract behind.
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Painter How shall I understand you?
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Poet I will unbolt to you.
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You see how all conditions, how all minds,
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As well of glib and slippery creatures as
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Of grave and austere quality, tender down
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Their services to Lord Timon: his large fortune
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Upon his good and gracious nature hanging
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Subdues and properties to his love and tendance
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All sorts of hearts; yea, from the glass-faced flatterer
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To Apemantus, that few things loves better
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Than to abhor himself: even he drops down
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The knee before him, and returns in peace
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Most rich in Timon's nod.
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Painter I saw them speak together.
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Poet Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill
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Feign'd Fortune to be throned: the base o' the mount
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Is rank'd with all deserts, all kind of natures,
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That labour on the bosom of this sphere
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To propagate their states: amongst them all,
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Whose eyes are on this sovereign lady fix'd,
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One do I personate of Lord Timon's frame,
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Whom Fortune with her ivory hand wafts to her;
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Whose present grace to present slaves and servants
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Translates his rivals.
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Painter 'Tis conceived to scope.
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This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks,
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With one man beckon'd from the rest below,
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Bowing his head against the sleepy mount
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To climb his happiness, would be well express'd
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In our condition.
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Poet Nay, sir, but hear me on.
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All those which were his fellows but of late,
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Some better than his value, on the moment
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Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tendance,
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Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear,
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Make sacred even his stirrup, and through him
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Drink the free air.
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Painter Ay, marry, what of these?
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Poet When Fortune in her shift and change of mood
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Spurns down her late beloved, all his dependants
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Which labour'd after him to the mountain's top
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Even on their knees and hands, let him slip down,
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Not one accompanying his declining foot.
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Painter 'Tis common:
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A thousand moral paintings I can show
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That shall demonstrate these quick blows of Fortune's
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More pregnantly than words. Yet you do well
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To show Lord Timon that mean eyes have seen
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The foot above the head.
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[Trumpets sound. Enter TIMON, addressing himself
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courteously to every suitor; a Messenger from
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VENTIDIUS talking with him; LUCILIUS and other
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servants following]
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TIMON Imprison'd is he, say you?
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Messenger Ay, my good lord: five talents is his debt,
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His means most short, his creditors most strait:
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Your honourable letter he desires
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To those have shut him up; which failing,
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Periods his comfort.
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TIMON Noble Ventidius! Well;
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I am not of that feather to shake off
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My friend when he must need me. I do know him
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A gentleman that well deserves a help:
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Which he shall have: I'll pay the debt,
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and free him.
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Messenger Your lordship ever binds him.
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TIMON Commend me to him: I will send his ransom;
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And being enfranchised, bid him come to me.
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'Tis not enough to help the feeble up,
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But to support him after. Fare you well.
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Messenger All happiness to your honour!
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[Exit]
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[Enter an old Athenian]
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Old Athenian Lord Timon, hear me speak.
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TIMON Freely, good father.
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Old Athenian Thou hast a servant named Lucilius.
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TIMON I have so: what of him?
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Old Athenian Most noble Timon, call the man before thee.
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TIMON Attends he here, or no? Lucilius!
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LUCILIUS Here, at your lordship's service.
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Old Athenian This fellow here, Lord Timon, this thy creature,
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By night frequents my house. I am a man
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That from my first have been inclined to thrift;
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And my estate deserves an heir more raised
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Than one which holds a trencher.
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TIMON Well; what further?
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Old Athenian One only daughter have I, no kin else,
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On whom I may confer what I have got:
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The maid is fair, o' the youngest for a bride,
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And I have bred her at my dearest cost
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In qualities of the best. This man of thine
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Attempts her love: I prithee, noble lord,
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Join with me to forbid him her resort;
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Myself have spoke in vain.
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TIMON The man is honest.
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Old Athenian Therefore he will be, Timon:
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His honesty rewards him in itself;
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It must not bear my daughter.
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TIMON Does she love him?
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Old Athenian She is young and apt:
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Our own precedent passions do instruct us
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What levity's in youth.
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TIMON [To LUCILIUS] Love you the maid?
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LUCILIUS Ay, my good lord, and she accepts of it.
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Old Athenian If in her marriage my consent be missing,
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I call the gods to witness, I will choose
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Mine heir from forth the beggars of the world,
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And dispossess her all.
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TIMON How shall she be endow'd,
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if she be mated with an equal husband?
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Old Athenian Three talents on the present; in future, all.
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TIMON This gentleman of mine hath served me long:
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To build his fortune I will strain a little,
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For 'tis a bond in men. Give him thy daughter:
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What you bestow, in him I'll counterpoise,
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And make him weigh with her.
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Old Athenian Most noble lord,
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Pawn me to this your honour, she is his.
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TIMON My hand to thee; mine honour on my promise.
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LUCILIUS Humbly I thank your lordship: never may
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The state or fortune fall into my keeping,
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Which is not owed to you!
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[Exeunt LUCILIUS and Old Athenian]
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Poet Vouchsafe my labour, and long live your lordship!
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TIMON I thank you; you shall hear from me anon:
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Go not away. What have you there, my friend?
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Painter A piece of painting, which I do beseech
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Your lordship to accept.
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TIMON Painting is welcome.
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The painting is almost the natural man;
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or since dishonour traffics with man's nature,
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He is but outside: these pencill'd figures are
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Even such as they give out. I like your work;
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And you shall find I like it: wait attendance
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Till you hear further from me.
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Painter The gods preserve ye!
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TIMON Well fare you, gentleman: give me your hand;
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We must needs dine together. Sir, your jewel
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Hath suffer'd under praise.
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Jeweller What, my lord! dispraise?
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TIMON A more satiety of commendations.
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If I should pay you for't as 'tis extoll'd,
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It would unclew me quite.
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Jeweller My lord, 'tis rated
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As those which sell would give: but you well know,
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Things of like value differing in the owners
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Are prized by their masters: believe't, dear lord,
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You mend the jewel by the wearing it.
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TIMON Well mock'd.
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Merchant No, my good lord; he speaks the common tongue,
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Which all men speak with him.
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TIMON Look, who comes here: will you be chid?
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[Enter APEMANTUS]
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Jeweller: We'll bear, with your lordship.
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Merchant He'll spare none.
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TIMON Good morrow to thee, gentle Apemantus!
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APEMANTUS Till I be gentle, stay thou for thy good morrow;
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When thou art Timon's dog, and these knaves honest.
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TIMON Why dost thou call them knaves? thou know'st them not.
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APEMANTUS Are they not Athenians?
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TIMON Yes.
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APEMANTUS Then I repent not.
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Jeweller: You know me, Apemantus?
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APEMANTUS Thou know'st I do: I call'd thee by thy name.
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TIMON Thou art proud, Apemantus.
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APEMANTUS Of nothing so much as that I am not like Timon.
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TIMON Whither art going?
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APEMANTUS To knock out an honest Athenian's brains.
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TIMON That's a deed thou'lt die for.
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APEMANTUS Right, if doing nothing be death by the law.
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TIMON How likest thou this picture, Apemantus?
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APEMANTUS The best, for the innocence.
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TIMON Wrought he not well that painted it?
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APEMANTUS He wrought better that made the painter; and yet
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he's but a filthy piece of work.
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Painter You're a dog.
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APEMANTUS Thy mother's of my generation: what's she, if I be a dog?
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TIMON Wilt dine with me, Apemantus?
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APEMANTUS No; I eat not lords.
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TIMON An thou shouldst, thou 'ldst anger ladies.
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APEMANTUS O, they eat lords; so they come by great bellies.
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TIMON That's a lascivious apprehension.
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APEMANTUS So thou apprehendest it: take it for thy labour.
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TIMON How dost thou like this jewel, Apemantus?
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APEMANTUS Not so well as plain-dealing, which will not cost a
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man a doit.
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TIMON What dost thou think 'tis worth?
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APEMANTUS Not worth my thinking. How now, poet!
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Poet How now, philosopher!
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APEMANTUS Thou liest.
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Poet Art not one?
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APEMANTUS Yes.
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Poet Then I lie not.
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APEMANTUS Art not a poet?
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Poet Yes.
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APEMANTUS Then thou liest: look in thy last work, where thou
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hast feigned him a worthy fellow.
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Poet That's not feigned; he is so.
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APEMANTUS Yes, he is worthy of thee, and to pay thee for thy
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labour: he that loves to be flattered is worthy o'
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the flatterer. Heavens, that I were a lord!
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TIMON What wouldst do then, Apemantus?
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APEMANTUS E'en as Apemantus does now; hate a lord with my heart.
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TIMON What, thyself?
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APEMANTUS Ay.
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TIMON Wherefore?
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APEMANTUS That I had no angry wit to be a lord.
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Art not thou a merchant?
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Merchant Ay, Apemantus.
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APEMANTUS Traffic confound thee, if the gods will not!
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Merchant If traffic do it, the gods do it.
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APEMANTUS Traffic's thy god; and thy god confound thee!
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[Trumpet sounds. Enter a Messenger]
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TIMON What trumpet's that?
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Messenger 'Tis Alcibiades, and some twenty horse,
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All of companionship.
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TIMON Pray, entertain them; give them guide to us.
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[Exeunt some Attendants]
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You must needs dine with me: go not you hence
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Till I have thank'd you: when dinner's done,
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Show me this piece. I am joyful of your sights.
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[Enter ALCIBIADES, with the rest]
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Most welcome, sir!
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APEMANTUS So, so, there!
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Aches contract and starve your supple joints!
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That there should be small love 'mongst these
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sweet knaves,
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And all this courtesy! The strain of man's bred out
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Into baboon and monkey.
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ALCIBIADES Sir, you have saved my longing, and I feed
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Most hungerly on your sight.
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TIMON Right welcome, sir!
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Ere we depart, we'll share a bounteous time
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In different pleasures. Pray you, let us in.
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[Exeunt all except APEMANTUS]
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[Enter two Lords]
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First Lord What time o' day is't, Apemantus?
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APEMANTUS Time to be honest.
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First Lord That time serves still.
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APEMANTUS The more accursed thou, that still omitt'st it.
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Second Lord Thou art going to Lord Timon's feast?
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APEMANTUS Ay, to see meat fill knaves and wine heat fools.
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Second Lord Fare thee well, fare thee well.
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APEMANTUS Thou art a fool to bid me farewell twice.
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Second Lord Why, Apemantus?
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APEMANTUS Shouldst have kept one to thyself, for I mean to
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give thee none.
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First Lord Hang thyself!
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APEMANTUS No, I will do nothing at thy bidding: make thy
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requests to thy friend.
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Second Lord Away, unpeaceable dog, or I'll spurn thee hence!
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APEMANTUS I will fly, like a dog, the heels o' the ass.
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[Exit]
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First Lord He's opposite to humanity. Come, shall we in,
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And taste Lord Timon's bounty? he outgoes
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The very heart of kindness.
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Second Lord He pours it out; Plutus, the god of gold,
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Is but his steward: no meed, but he repays
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Sevenfold above itself; no gift to him,
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But breeds the giver a return exceeding
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All use of quittance.
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First Lord The noblest mind he carries
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That ever govern'd man.
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|
Second Lord Long may he live in fortunes! Shall we in?
|
|
|
|
First Lord I'll keep you company.
|
|
|
|
[Exeunt]
|
|
|
|
TIMON OF ATHENS
|
|
|
|
ACT I
|
|
|
|
SCENE II A banqueting-room in Timon's house.
|
|
|
|
[Hautboys playing loud music. A great banquet
|
|
served in; FLAVIUS and others attending; then enter
|
|
TIMON, ALCIBIADES, Lords, Senators, and VENTIDIUS.
|
|
Then comes, dropping, after all, APEMANTUS,
|
|
discontentedly, like himself]
|
|
|
|
VENTIDIUS Most honour'd Timon,
|
|
It hath pleased the gods to remember my father's age,
|
|
And call him to long peace.
|
|
He is gone happy, and has left me rich:
|
|
Then, as in grateful virtue I am bound
|
|
To your free heart, I do return those talents,
|
|
Doubled with thanks and service, from whose help
|
|
I derived liberty.
|
|
|
|
TIMON O, by no means,
|
|
Honest Ventidius; you mistake my love:
|
|
I gave it freely ever; and there's none
|
|
Can truly say he gives, if he receives:
|
|
If our betters play at that game, we must not dare
|
|
To imitate them; faults that are rich are fair.
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|
|
|
VENTIDIUS A noble spirit!
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|
TIMON Nay, my lords,
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|
[They all stand ceremoniously looking on TIMON]
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|
|
|
Ceremony was but devised at first
|
|
To set a gloss on faint deeds, hollow welcomes,
|
|
Recanting goodness, sorry ere 'tis shown;
|
|
But where there is true friendship, there needs none.
|
|
Pray, sit; more welcome are ye to my fortunes
|
|
Than my fortunes to me.
|
|
|
|
[They sit]
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|
|
|
First Lord My lord, we always have confess'd it.
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|
APEMANTUS Ho, ho, confess'd it! hang'd it, have you not?
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|
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|
TIMON O, Apemantus, you are welcome.
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|
|
|
APEMANTUS No;
|
|
You shall not make me welcome:
|
|
I come to have thee thrust me out of doors.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Fie, thou'rt a churl; ye've got a humour there
|
|
Does not become a man: 'tis much to blame.
|
|
They say, my lords, 'ira furor brevis est;' but yond
|
|
man is ever angry. Go, let him have a table by
|
|
himself, for he does neither affect company, nor is
|
|
he fit for't, indeed.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Let me stay at thine apperil, Timon: I come to
|
|
observe; I give thee warning on't.
|
|
|
|
TIMON I take no heed of thee; thou'rt an Athenian,
|
|
therefore welcome: I myself would have no power;
|
|
prithee, let my meat make thee silent.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS I scorn thy meat; 'twould choke me, for I should
|
|
ne'er flatter thee. O you gods, what a number of
|
|
men eat Timon, and he sees 'em not! It grieves me
|
|
to see so many dip their meat in one man's blood;
|
|
and all the madness is, he cheers them up too.
|
|
I wonder men dare trust themselves with men:
|
|
Methinks they should invite them without knives;
|
|
Good for their meat, and safer for their lives.
|
|
There's much example for't; the fellow that sits
|
|
next him now, parts bread with him, pledges the
|
|
breath of him in a divided draught, is the readiest
|
|
man to kill him: 't has been proved. If I were a
|
|
huge man, I should fear to drink at meals;
|
|
Lest they should spy my windpipe's dangerous notes:
|
|
Great men should drink with harness on their throats.
|
|
|
|
TIMON My lord, in heart; and let the health go round.
|
|
|
|
Second Lord Let it flow this way, my good lord.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Flow this way! A brave fellow! he keeps his tides
|
|
well. Those healths will make thee and thy state
|
|
look ill, Timon. Here's that which is too weak to
|
|
be a sinner, honest water, which ne'er left man i' the mire:
|
|
This and my food are equals; there's no odds:
|
|
Feasts are too proud to give thanks to the gods.
|
|
|
|
Apemantus' grace.
|
|
|
|
Immortal gods, I crave no pelf;
|
|
I pray for no man but myself:
|
|
Grant I may never prove so fond,
|
|
To trust man on his oath or bond;
|
|
Or a harlot, for her weeping;
|
|
Or a dog, that seems a-sleeping:
|
|
Or a keeper with my freedom;
|
|
Or my friends, if I should need 'em.
|
|
Amen. So fall to't:
|
|
Rich men sin, and I eat root.
|
|
|
|
[Eats and drinks]
|
|
|
|
Much good dich thy good heart, Apemantus!
|
|
|
|
TIMON Captain Alcibiades, your heart's in the field now.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES My heart is ever at your service, my lord.
|
|
|
|
TIMON You had rather be at a breakfast of enemies than a
|
|
dinner of friends.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES So the were bleeding-new, my lord, there's no meat
|
|
like 'em: I could wish my best friend at such a feast.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Would all those fatterers were thine enemies then,
|
|
that then thou mightst kill 'em and bid me to 'em!
|
|
|
|
First Lord Might we but have that happiness, my lord, that you
|
|
would once use our hearts, whereby we might express
|
|
some part of our zeals, we should think ourselves
|
|
for ever perfect.
|
|
|
|
TIMON O, no doubt, my good friends, but the gods
|
|
themselves have provided that I shall have much help
|
|
from you: how had you been my friends else? why
|
|
have you that charitable title from thousands, did
|
|
not you chiefly belong to my heart? I have told
|
|
more of you to myself than you can with modesty
|
|
speak in your own behalf; and thus far I confirm
|
|
you. O you gods, think I, what need we have any
|
|
friends, if we should ne'er have need of 'em? they
|
|
were the most needless creatures living, should we
|
|
ne'er have use for 'em, and would most resemble
|
|
sweet instruments hung up in cases that keep their
|
|
sounds to themselves. Why, I have often wished
|
|
myself poorer, that I might come nearer to you. We
|
|
are born to do benefits: and what better or
|
|
properer can we can our own than the riches of our
|
|
friends? O, what a precious comfort 'tis, to have
|
|
so many, like brothers, commanding one another's
|
|
fortunes! O joy, e'en made away ere 't can be born!
|
|
Mine eyes cannot hold out water, methinks: to
|
|
forget their faults, I drink to you.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Thou weepest to make them drink, Timon.
|
|
|
|
Second Lord Joy had the like conception in our eyes
|
|
And at that instant like a babe sprung up.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Ho, ho! I laugh to think that babe a bastard.
|
|
|
|
Third Lord I promise you, my lord, you moved me much.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Much!
|
|
|
|
[Tucket, within]
|
|
|
|
TIMON What means that trump?
|
|
|
|
[Enter a Servant]
|
|
|
|
How now?
|
|
|
|
Servant Please you, my lord, there are certain
|
|
ladies most desirous of admittance.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Ladies! what are their wills?
|
|
|
|
Servant There comes with them a forerunner, my lord, which
|
|
bears that office, to signify their pleasures.
|
|
|
|
TIMON I pray, let them be admitted.
|
|
|
|
[Enter Cupid]
|
|
|
|
Cupid Hail to thee, worthy Timon, and to all
|
|
That of his bounties taste! The five best senses
|
|
Acknowledge thee their patron; and come freely
|
|
To gratulate thy plenteous bosom: th' ear,
|
|
Taste, touch and smell, pleased from thy tale rise;
|
|
They only now come but to feast thine eyes.
|
|
|
|
TIMON They're welcome all; let 'em have kind admittance:
|
|
Music, make their welcome!
|
|
|
|
[Exit Cupid]
|
|
|
|
First Lord You see, my lord, how ample you're beloved.
|
|
|
|
[Music. Re-enter Cupid with a mask of Ladies
|
|
as Amazons, with lutes in their hands,
|
|
dancing and playing]
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Hoy-day, what a sweep of vanity comes this way!
|
|
They dance! they are mad women.
|
|
Like madness is the glory of this life.
|
|
As this pomp shows to a little oil and root.
|
|
We make ourselves fools, to disport ourselves;
|
|
And spend our flatteries, to drink those men
|
|
Upon whose age we void it up again,
|
|
With poisonous spite and envy.
|
|
Who lives that's not depraved or depraves?
|
|
Who dies, that bears not one spurn to their graves
|
|
Of their friends' gift?
|
|
I should fear those that dance before me now
|
|
Would one day stamp upon me: 't has been done;
|
|
Men shut their doors against a setting sun.
|
|
|
|
[The Lords rise from table, with much adoring of
|
|
TIMON; and to show their loves, each singles out an
|
|
Amazon, and all dance, men with women, a lofty
|
|
strain or two to the hautboys, and cease]
|
|
|
|
TIMON You have done our pleasures much grace, fair ladies,
|
|
Set a fair fashion on our entertainment,
|
|
Which was not half so beautiful and kind;
|
|
You have added worth unto 't and lustre,
|
|
And entertain'd me with mine own device;
|
|
I am to thank you for 't.
|
|
|
|
First Lady My lord, you take us even at the best.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS 'Faith, for the worst is filthy; and would not hold
|
|
taking, I doubt me.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Ladies, there is an idle banquet attends you:
|
|
Please you to dispose yourselves.
|
|
|
|
All Ladies Most thankfully, my lord.
|
|
|
|
[Exeunt Cupid and Ladies]
|
|
|
|
TIMON Flavius.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS My lord?
|
|
|
|
TIMON The little casket bring me hither.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS Yes, my lord. More jewels yet!
|
|
There is no crossing him in 's humour;
|
|
|
|
[Aside]
|
|
|
|
Else I should tell him,--well, i' faith I should,
|
|
When all's spent, he 'ld be cross'd then, an he could.
|
|
'Tis pity bounty had not eyes behind,
|
|
That man might ne'er be wretched for his mind.
|
|
|
|
[Exit]
|
|
|
|
First Lord Where be our men?
|
|
|
|
Servant Here, my lord, in readiness.
|
|
|
|
Second Lord Our horses!
|
|
|
|
[Re-enter FLAVIUS, with the casket]
|
|
|
|
TIMON O my friends,
|
|
I have one word to say to you: look you, my good lord,
|
|
I must entreat you, honour me so much
|
|
As to advance this jewel; accept it and wear it,
|
|
Kind my lord.
|
|
|
|
First Lord I am so far already in your gifts,--
|
|
|
|
All So are we all.
|
|
|
|
[Enter a Servant]
|
|
|
|
Servant My lord, there are certain nobles of the senate
|
|
Newly alighted, and come to visit you.
|
|
|
|
TIMON They are fairly welcome.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS I beseech your honour,
|
|
Vouchsafe me a word; it does concern you near.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Near! why then, another time I'll hear thee:
|
|
I prithee, let's be provided to show them
|
|
entertainment.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS [Aside] I scarce know how.
|
|
|
|
[Enter a Second Servant]
|
|
|
|
Second Servant May it please your honour, Lord Lucius,
|
|
Out of his free love, hath presented to you
|
|
Four milk-white horses, trapp'd in silver.
|
|
|
|
TIMON I shall accept them fairly; let the presents
|
|
Be worthily entertain'd.
|
|
|
|
[Enter a third Servant]
|
|
|
|
How now! what news?
|
|
|
|
Third Servant Please you, my lord, that honourable
|
|
gentleman, Lord Lucullus, entreats your company
|
|
to-morrow to hunt with him, and has sent your honour
|
|
two brace of greyhounds.
|
|
|
|
TIMON I'll hunt with him; and let them be received,
|
|
Not without fair reward.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS [Aside] What will this come to?
|
|
He commands us to provide, and give great gifts,
|
|
And all out of an empty coffer:
|
|
Nor will he know his purse, or yield me this,
|
|
To show him what a beggar his heart is,
|
|
Being of no power to make his wishes good:
|
|
His promises fly so beyond his state
|
|
That what he speaks is all in debt; he owes
|
|
For every word: he is so kind that he now
|
|
Pays interest for 't; his land's put to their books.
|
|
Well, would I were gently put out of office
|
|
Before I were forced out!
|
|
Happier is he that has no friend to feed
|
|
Than such that do e'en enemies exceed.
|
|
I bleed inwardly for my lord.
|
|
|
|
[Exit]
|
|
|
|
TIMON You do yourselves
|
|
Much wrong, you bate too much of your own merits:
|
|
Here, my lord, a trifle of our love.
|
|
|
|
Second Lord With more than common thanks I will receive it.
|
|
|
|
Third Lord O, he's the very soul of bounty!
|
|
|
|
TIMON And now I remember, my lord, you gave
|
|
Good words the other day of a bay courser
|
|
I rode on: it is yours, because you liked it.
|
|
|
|
Second Lord O, I beseech you, pardon me, my lord, in that.
|
|
|
|
TIMON You may take my word, my lord; I know, no man
|
|
Can justly praise but what he does affect:
|
|
I weigh my friend's affection with mine own;
|
|
I'll tell you true. I'll call to you.
|
|
|
|
All Lords O, none so welcome.
|
|
|
|
TIMON I take all and your several visitations
|
|
So kind to heart, 'tis not enough to give;
|
|
Methinks, I could deal kingdoms to my friends,
|
|
And ne'er be weary. Alcibiades,
|
|
Thou art a soldier, therefore seldom rich;
|
|
It comes in charity to thee: for all thy living
|
|
Is 'mongst the dead, and all the lands thou hast
|
|
Lie in a pitch'd field.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES Ay, defiled land, my lord.
|
|
|
|
First Lord We are so virtuously bound--
|
|
|
|
TIMON And so
|
|
Am I to you.
|
|
|
|
Second Lord So infinitely endear'd--
|
|
|
|
TIMON All to you. Lights, more lights!
|
|
|
|
First Lord The best of happiness,
|
|
Honour and fortunes, keep with you, Lord Timon!
|
|
|
|
TIMON Ready for his friends.
|
|
|
|
[Exeunt all but APEMANTUS and TIMON]
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS What a coil's here!
|
|
Serving of becks and jutting-out of bums!
|
|
I doubt whether their legs be worth the sums
|
|
That are given for 'em. Friendship's full of dregs:
|
|
Methinks, false hearts should never have sound legs,
|
|
Thus honest fools lay out their wealth on court'sies.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Now, Apemantus, if thou wert not sullen, I would be
|
|
good to thee.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS No, I'll nothing: for if I should be bribed too,
|
|
there would be none left to rail upon thee, and then
|
|
thou wouldst sin the faster. Thou givest so long,
|
|
Timon, I fear me thou wilt give away thyself in
|
|
paper shortly: what need these feasts, pomps and
|
|
vain-glories?
|
|
|
|
TIMON Nay, an you begin to rail on society once, I am
|
|
sworn not to give regard to you. Farewell; and come
|
|
with better music.
|
|
|
|
[Exit]
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS So:
|
|
Thou wilt not hear me now; thou shalt not then:
|
|
I'll lock thy heaven from thee.
|
|
O, that men's ears should be
|
|
To counsel deaf, but not to flattery!
|
|
|
|
[Exit]
|
|
|
|
TIMON OF ATHENS
|
|
|
|
ACT II
|
|
|
|
SCENE I A Senator's house.
|
|
|
|
[Enter Senator, with papers in his hand]
|
|
|
|
Senator And late, five thousand: to Varro and to Isidore
|
|
He owes nine thousand; besides my former sum,
|
|
Which makes it five and twenty. Still in motion
|
|
Of raging waste? It cannot hold; it will not.
|
|
If I want gold, steal but a beggar's dog,
|
|
And give it Timon, why, the dog coins gold.
|
|
If I would sell my horse, and buy twenty more
|
|
Better than he, why, give my horse to Timon,
|
|
Ask nothing, give it him, it foals me, straight,
|
|
And able horses. No porter at his gate,
|
|
But rather one that smiles and still invites
|
|
All that pass by. It cannot hold: no reason
|
|
Can found his state in safety. Caphis, ho!
|
|
Caphis, I say!
|
|
|
|
[Enter CAPHIS]
|
|
|
|
CAPHIS Here, sir; what is your pleasure?
|
|
|
|
Senator Get on your cloak, and haste you to Lord Timon;
|
|
Importune him for my moneys; be not ceased
|
|
With slight denial, nor then silenced when--
|
|
'Commend me to your master'--and the cap
|
|
Plays in the right hand, thus: but tell him,
|
|
My uses cry to me, I must serve my turn
|
|
Out of mine own; his days and times are past
|
|
And my reliances on his fracted dates
|
|
Have smit my credit: I love and honour him,
|
|
But must not break my back to heal his finger;
|
|
Immediate are my needs, and my relief
|
|
Must not be toss'd and turn'd to me in words,
|
|
But find supply immediate. Get you gone:
|
|
Put on a most importunate aspect,
|
|
A visage of demand; for, I do fear,
|
|
When every feather sticks in his own wing,
|
|
Lord Timon will be left a naked gull,
|
|
Which flashes now a phoenix. Get you gone.
|
|
|
|
CAPHIS I go, sir.
|
|
|
|
Senator 'I go, sir!'--Take the bonds along with you,
|
|
And have the dates in contempt.
|
|
|
|
CAPHIS I will, sir.
|
|
|
|
Senator Go.
|
|
|
|
[Exeunt]
|
|
|
|
TIMON OF ATHENS
|
|
|
|
ACT II
|
|
|
|
SCENE II The same. A hall in Timon's house.
|
|
|
|
[Enter FLAVIUS, with many bills in his hand]
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS No care, no stop! so senseless of expense,
|
|
That he will neither know how to maintain it,
|
|
Nor cease his flow of riot: takes no account
|
|
How things go from him, nor resumes no care
|
|
Of what is to continue: never mind
|
|
Was to be so unwise, to be so kind.
|
|
What shall be done? he will not hear, till feel:
|
|
I must be round with him, now he comes from hunting.
|
|
Fie, fie, fie, fie!
|
|
|
|
[Enter CAPHIS, and the Servants of Isidore and Varro]
|
|
|
|
CAPHIS Good even, Varro: what,
|
|
You come for money?
|
|
|
|
Varro's Servant Is't not your business too?
|
|
|
|
CAPHIS It is: and yours too, Isidore?
|
|
|
|
Isidore's Servant It is so.
|
|
|
|
CAPHIS Would we were all discharged!
|
|
|
|
Varro's Servant I fear it.
|
|
|
|
CAPHIS Here comes the lord.
|
|
|
|
[Enter TIMON, ALCIBIADES, and Lords, &c]
|
|
|
|
TIMON So soon as dinner's done, we'll forth again,
|
|
My Alcibiades. With me? what is your will?
|
|
|
|
CAPHIS My lord, here is a note of certain dues.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Dues! Whence are you?
|
|
|
|
CAPHIS Of Athens here, my lord.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Go to my steward.
|
|
|
|
CAPHIS Please it your lordship, he hath put me off
|
|
To the succession of new days this month:
|
|
My master is awaked by great occasion
|
|
To call upon his own, and humbly prays you
|
|
That with your other noble parts you'll suit
|
|
In giving him his right.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Mine honest friend,
|
|
I prithee, but repair to me next morning.
|
|
|
|
CAPHIS Nay, good my lord,--
|
|
|
|
TIMON Contain thyself, good friend.
|
|
|
|
Varro's Servant One Varro's servant, my good lord,--
|
|
|
|
Isidore's Servant From Isidore;
|
|
He humbly prays your speedy payment.
|
|
|
|
CAPHIS If you did know, my lord, my master's wants--
|
|
|
|
Varro's Servant 'Twas due on forfeiture, my lord, six weeks And past.
|
|
|
|
Isidore's Servant Your steward puts me off, my lord;
|
|
And I am sent expressly to your lordship.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Give me breath.
|
|
I do beseech you, good my lords, keep on;
|
|
I'll wait upon you instantly.
|
|
|
|
[Exeunt ALCIBIADES and Lords]
|
|
|
|
[To FLAVIUS]
|
|
|
|
Come hither: pray you,
|
|
How goes the world, that I am thus encounter'd
|
|
With clamourous demands of date-broke bonds,
|
|
And the detention of long-since-due debts,
|
|
Against my honour?
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS Please you, gentlemen,
|
|
The time is unagreeable to this business:
|
|
Your importunacy cease till after dinner,
|
|
That I may make his lordship understand
|
|
Wherefore you are not paid.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Do so, my friends. See them well entertain'd.
|
|
|
|
[Exit]
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS Pray, draw near.
|
|
|
|
[Exit]
|
|
|
|
[Enter APEMANTUS and Fool]
|
|
|
|
CAPHIS Stay, stay, here comes the fool with Apemantus:
|
|
let's ha' some sport with 'em.
|
|
|
|
Varro's Servant Hang him, he'll abuse us.
|
|
|
|
Isidore's Servant A plague upon him, dog!
|
|
|
|
Varro's Servant How dost, fool?
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Dost dialogue with thy shadow?
|
|
|
|
Varro's Servant I speak not to thee.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS No,'tis to thyself.
|
|
|
|
[To the Fool]
|
|
|
|
Come away.
|
|
|
|
Isidore's Servant There's the fool hangs on your back already.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS No, thou stand'st single, thou'rt not on him yet.
|
|
|
|
CAPHIS Where's the fool now?
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS He last asked the question. Poor rogues, and
|
|
usurers' men! bawds between gold and want!
|
|
|
|
All Servants What are we, Apemantus?
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Asses.
|
|
|
|
All Servants Why?
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS That you ask me what you are, and do not know
|
|
yourselves. Speak to 'em, fool.
|
|
|
|
Fool How do you, gentlemen?
|
|
|
|
All Servants Gramercies, good fool: how does your mistress?
|
|
|
|
Fool She's e'en setting on water to scald such chickens
|
|
as you are. Would we could see you at Corinth!
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Good! gramercy.
|
|
|
|
[Enter Page]
|
|
|
|
Fool Look you, here comes my mistress' page.
|
|
|
|
Page [To the Fool] Why, how now, captain! what do you
|
|
in this wise company? How dost thou, Apemantus?
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Would I had a rod in my mouth, that I might answer
|
|
thee profitably.
|
|
|
|
Page Prithee, Apemantus, read me the superscription of
|
|
these letters: I know not which is which.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Canst not read?
|
|
|
|
Page No.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS There will little learning die then, that day thou
|
|
art hanged. This is to Lord Timon; this to
|
|
Alcibiades. Go; thou wast born a bastard, and thou't
|
|
die a bawd.
|
|
|
|
Page Thou wast whelped a dog, and thou shalt famish a
|
|
dog's death. Answer not; I am gone.
|
|
|
|
[Exit]
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS E'en so thou outrunnest grace. Fool, I will go with
|
|
you to Lord Timon's.
|
|
|
|
Fool Will you leave me there?
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS If Timon stay at home. You three serve three usurers?
|
|
|
|
All Servants Ay; would they served us!
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS So would I,--as good a trick as ever hangman served thief.
|
|
|
|
Fool Are you three usurers' men?
|
|
|
|
All Servants Ay, fool.
|
|
|
|
Fool I think no usurer but has a fool to his servant: my
|
|
mistress is one, and I am her fool. When men come
|
|
to borrow of your masters, they approach sadly, and
|
|
go away merry; but they enter my mistress' house
|
|
merrily, and go away sadly: the reason of this?
|
|
|
|
Varro's Servant I could render one.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Do it then, that we may account thee a whoremaster
|
|
and a knave; which not-withstanding, thou shalt be
|
|
no less esteemed.
|
|
|
|
Varro's Servant What is a whoremaster, fool?
|
|
|
|
Fool A fool in good clothes, and something like thee.
|
|
'Tis a spirit: sometime't appears like a lord;
|
|
sometime like a lawyer; sometime like a philosopher,
|
|
with two stones moe than's artificial one: he is
|
|
very often like a knight; and, generally, in all
|
|
shapes that man goes up and down in from fourscore
|
|
to thirteen, this spirit walks in.
|
|
|
|
Varro's Servant Thou art not altogether a fool.
|
|
|
|
Fool Nor thou altogether a wise man: as much foolery as
|
|
I have, so much wit thou lackest.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS That answer might have become Apemantus.
|
|
|
|
All Servants Aside, aside; here comes Lord Timon.
|
|
|
|
[Re-enter TIMON and FLAVIUS]
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Come with me, fool, come.
|
|
|
|
Fool I do not always follow lover, elder brother and
|
|
woman; sometime the philosopher.
|
|
|
|
[Exeunt APEMANTUS and Fool]
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS Pray you, walk near: I'll speak with you anon.
|
|
|
|
[Exeunt Servants]
|
|
|
|
TIMON You make me marvel: wherefore ere this time
|
|
Had you not fully laid my state before me,
|
|
That I might so have rated my expense,
|
|
As I had leave of means?
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS You would not hear me,
|
|
At many leisures I proposed.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Go to:
|
|
Perchance some single vantages you took.
|
|
When my indisposition put you back:
|
|
And that unaptness made your minister,
|
|
Thus to excuse yourself.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS O my good lord,
|
|
At many times I brought in my accounts,
|
|
Laid them before you; you would throw them off,
|
|
And say, you found them in mine honesty.
|
|
When, for some trifling present, you have bid me
|
|
Return so much, I have shook my head and wept;
|
|
Yea, 'gainst the authority of manners, pray'd you
|
|
To hold your hand more close: I did endure
|
|
Not seldom, nor no slight cheques, when I have
|
|
Prompted you in the ebb of your estate
|
|
And your great flow of debts. My loved lord,
|
|
Though you hear now, too late--yet now's a time--
|
|
The greatest of your having lacks a half
|
|
To pay your present debts.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Let all my land be sold.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS 'Tis all engaged, some forfeited and gone;
|
|
And what remains will hardly stop the mouth
|
|
Of present dues: the future comes apace:
|
|
What shall defend the interim? and at length
|
|
How goes our reckoning?
|
|
|
|
TIMON To Lacedaemon did my land extend.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS O my good lord, the world is but a word:
|
|
Were it all yours to give it in a breath,
|
|
How quickly were it gone!
|
|
|
|
TIMON You tell me true.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS If you suspect my husbandry or falsehood,
|
|
Call me before the exactest auditors
|
|
And set me on the proof. So the gods bless me,
|
|
When all our offices have been oppress'd
|
|
With riotous feeders, when our vaults have wept
|
|
With drunken spilth of wine, when every room
|
|
Hath blazed with lights and bray'd with minstrelsy,
|
|
I have retired me to a wasteful cock,
|
|
And set mine eyes at flow.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Prithee, no more.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS Heavens, have I said, the bounty of this lord!
|
|
How many prodigal bits have slaves and peasants
|
|
This night englutted! Who is not Timon's?
|
|
What heart, head, sword, force, means, but is
|
|
Lord Timon's?
|
|
Great Timon, noble, worthy, royal Timon!
|
|
Ah, when the means are gone that buy this praise,
|
|
The breath is gone whereof this praise is made:
|
|
Feast-won, fast-lost; one cloud of winter showers,
|
|
These flies are couch'd.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Come, sermon me no further:
|
|
No villanous bounty yet hath pass'd my heart;
|
|
Unwisely, not ignobly, have I given.
|
|
Why dost thou weep? Canst thou the conscience lack,
|
|
To think I shall lack friends? Secure thy heart;
|
|
If I would broach the vessels of my love,
|
|
And try the argument of hearts by borrowing,
|
|
Men and men's fortunes could I frankly use
|
|
As I can bid thee speak.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS Assurance bless your thoughts!
|
|
|
|
TIMON And, in some sort, these wants of mine are crown'd,
|
|
That I account them blessings; for by these
|
|
Shall I try friends: you shall perceive how you
|
|
Mistake my fortunes; I am wealthy in my friends.
|
|
Within there! Flaminius! Servilius!
|
|
|
|
[Enter FLAMINIUS, SERVILIUS, and other Servants]
|
|
|
|
Servants My lord? my lord?
|
|
|
|
TIMON I will dispatch you severally; you to Lord Lucius;
|
|
to Lord Lucullus you: I hunted with his honour
|
|
to-day: you, to Sempronius: commend me to their
|
|
loves, and, I am proud, say, that my occasions have
|
|
found time to use 'em toward a supply of money: let
|
|
the request be fifty talents.
|
|
|
|
FLAMINIUS As you have said, my lord.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS [Aside] Lord Lucius and Lucullus? hum!
|
|
|
|
TIMON Go you, sir, to the senators--
|
|
Of whom, even to the state's best health, I have
|
|
Deserved this hearing--bid 'em send o' the instant
|
|
A thousand talents to me.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS I have been bold--
|
|
For that I knew it the most general way--
|
|
To them to use your signet and your name;
|
|
But they do shake their heads, and I am here
|
|
No richer in return.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Is't true? can't be?
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS They answer, in a joint and corporate voice,
|
|
That now they are at fall, want treasure, cannot
|
|
Do what they would; are sorry--you are honourable,--
|
|
But yet they could have wish'd--they know not--
|
|
Something hath been amiss--a noble nature
|
|
May catch a wrench--would all were well--'tis pity;--
|
|
And so, intending other serious matters,
|
|
After distasteful looks and these hard fractions,
|
|
With certain half-caps and cold-moving nods
|
|
They froze me into silence.
|
|
|
|
TIMON You gods, reward them!
|
|
Prithee, man, look cheerly. These old fellows
|
|
Have their ingratitude in them hereditary:
|
|
Their blood is caked, 'tis cold, it seldom flows;
|
|
'Tis lack of kindly warmth they are not kind;
|
|
And nature, as it grows again toward earth,
|
|
Is fashion'd for the journey, dull and heavy.
|
|
|
|
[To a Servant]
|
|
|
|
Go to Ventidius.
|
|
|
|
[To FLAVIUS]
|
|
|
|
Prithee, be not sad,
|
|
Thou art true and honest; ingeniously I speak.
|
|
No blame belongs to thee.
|
|
|
|
[To Servant]
|
|
|
|
Ventidius lately
|
|
Buried his father; by whose death he's stepp'd
|
|
Into a great estate: when he was poor,
|
|
Imprison'd and in scarcity of friends,
|
|
I clear'd him with five talents: greet him from me;
|
|
Bid him suppose some good necessity
|
|
Touches his friend, which craves to be remember'd
|
|
With those five talents.
|
|
|
|
[Exit Servant]
|
|
|
|
[To FLAVIUS]
|
|
|
|
That had, give't these fellows
|
|
To whom 'tis instant due. Ne'er speak, or think,
|
|
That Timon's fortunes 'mong his friends can sink.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS I would I could not think it: that thought is
|
|
bounty's foe;
|
|
Being free itself, it thinks all others so.
|
|
|
|
[Exeunt]
|
|
|
|
TIMON OF ATHENS
|
|
|
|
ACT III
|
|
|
|
SCENE I A room in Lucullus' house.
|
|
|
|
[FLAMINIUS waiting. Enter a Servant to him]
|
|
|
|
Servant I have told my lord of you; he is coming down to you.
|
|
|
|
FLAMINIUS I thank you, sir.
|
|
|
|
[Enter LUCULLUS]
|
|
|
|
Servant Here's my lord.
|
|
|
|
LUCULLUS [Aside] One of Lord Timon's men? a gift, I
|
|
warrant. Why, this hits right; I dreamt of a silver
|
|
basin and ewer to-night. Flaminius, honest
|
|
Flaminius; you are very respectively welcome, sir.
|
|
Fill me some wine.
|
|
|
|
[Exit Servants]
|
|
|
|
And how does that honourable, complete, free-hearted
|
|
gentleman of Athens, thy very bountiful good lord
|
|
and master?
|
|
|
|
FLAMINIUS His health is well sir.
|
|
|
|
LUCULLUS I am right glad that his health is well, sir: and
|
|
what hast thou there under thy cloak, pretty Flaminius?
|
|
|
|
FLAMINIUS 'Faith, nothing but an empty box, sir; which, in my
|
|
lord's behalf, I come to entreat your honour to
|
|
supply; who, having great and instant occasion to
|
|
use fifty talents, hath sent to your lordship to
|
|
furnish him, nothing doubting your present
|
|
assistance therein.
|
|
|
|
LUCULLUS La, la, la, la! 'nothing doubting,' says he? Alas,
|
|
good lord! a noble gentleman 'tis, if he would not
|
|
keep so good a house. Many a time and often I ha'
|
|
dined with him, and told him on't, and come again to
|
|
supper to him, of purpose to have him spend less,
|
|
and yet he would embrace no counsel, take no warning
|
|
by my coming. Every man has his fault, and honesty
|
|
is his: I ha' told him on't, but I could ne'er get
|
|
him from't.
|
|
|
|
[Re-enter Servant, with wine]
|
|
|
|
Servant Please your lordship, here is the wine.
|
|
|
|
LUCULLUS Flaminius, I have noted thee always wise. Here's to thee.
|
|
|
|
FLAMINIUS Your lordship speaks your pleasure.
|
|
|
|
LUCULLUS I have observed thee always for a towardly prompt
|
|
spirit--give thee thy due--and one that knows what
|
|
belongs to reason; and canst use the time well, if
|
|
the time use thee well: good parts in thee.
|
|
|
|
[To Servant]
|
|
|
|
Get you gone, sirrah.
|
|
|
|
[Exit Servant]
|
|
|
|
Draw nearer, honest Flaminius. Thy lord's a
|
|
bountiful gentleman: but thou art wise; and thou
|
|
knowest well enough, although thou comest to me,
|
|
that this is no time to lend money, especially upon
|
|
bare friendship, without security. Here's three
|
|
solidares for thee: good boy, wink at me, and say
|
|
thou sawest me not. Fare thee well.
|
|
|
|
FLAMINIUS Is't possible the world should so much differ,
|
|
And we alive that lived? Fly, damned baseness,
|
|
To him that worships thee!
|
|
|
|
[Throwing the money back]
|
|
|
|
LUCULLUS Ha! now I see thou art a fool, and fit for thy master.
|
|
|
|
[Exit]
|
|
|
|
FLAMINIUS May these add to the number that may scald thee!
|
|
Let moulten coin be thy damnation,
|
|
Thou disease of a friend, and not himself!
|
|
Has friendship such a faint and milky heart,
|
|
It turns in less than two nights? O you gods,
|
|
I feel master's passion! this slave,
|
|
Unto his honour, has my lord's meat in him:
|
|
Why should it thrive and turn to nutriment,
|
|
When he is turn'd to poison?
|
|
O, may diseases only work upon't!
|
|
And, when he's sick to death, let not that part of nature
|
|
Which my lord paid for, be of any power
|
|
To expel sickness, but prolong his hour!
|
|
|
|
[Exit]
|
|
|
|
TIMON OF ATHENS
|
|
|
|
ACT III
|
|
|
|
SCENE II A public place.
|
|
|
|
[Enter LUCILIUS, with three Strangers]
|
|
|
|
LUCILIUS Who, the Lord Timon? he is my very good friend, and
|
|
an honourable gentleman.
|
|
|
|
First Stranger We know him for no less, though we are but strangers
|
|
to him. But I can tell you one thing, my lord, and
|
|
which I hear from common rumours: now Lord Timon's
|
|
happy hours are done and past, and his estate
|
|
shrinks from him.
|
|
|
|
LUCILIUS Fie, no, do not believe it; he cannot want for money.
|
|
|
|
Second Stranger But believe you this, my lord, that, not long ago,
|
|
one of his men was with the Lord Lucullus to borrow
|
|
so many talents, nay, urged extremely for't and
|
|
showed what necessity belonged to't, and yet was denied.
|
|
|
|
LUCILIUS How!
|
|
|
|
Second Stranger I tell you, denied, my lord.
|
|
|
|
LUCILIUS What a strange case was that! now, before the gods,
|
|
I am ashamed on't. Denied that honourable man!
|
|
there was very little honour showed in't. For my own
|
|
part, I must needs confess, I have received some
|
|
small kindnesses from him, as money, plate, jewels
|
|
and such-like trifles, nothing comparing to his;
|
|
yet, had he mistook him and sent to me, I should
|
|
ne'er have denied his occasion so many talents.
|
|
|
|
[Enter SERVILIUS]
|
|
|
|
SERVILIUS See, by good hap, yonder's my lord;
|
|
I have sweat to see his honour. My honoured lord,--
|
|
|
|
[To LUCIUS]
|
|
|
|
LUCILIUS Servilius! you are kindly met, sir. Fare thee well:
|
|
commend me to thy honourable virtuous lord, my very
|
|
exquisite friend.
|
|
|
|
SERVILIUS May it please your honour, my lord hath sent--
|
|
|
|
LUCILIUS Ha! what has he sent? I am so much endeared to
|
|
that lord; he's ever sending: how shall I thank
|
|
him, thinkest thou? And what has he sent now?
|
|
|
|
SERVILIUS Has only sent his present occasion now, my lord;
|
|
requesting your lordship to supply his instant use
|
|
with so many talents.
|
|
|
|
LUCILIUS I know his lordship is but merry with me;
|
|
He cannot want fifty five hundred talents.
|
|
|
|
SERVILIUS But in the mean time he wants less, my lord.
|
|
If his occasion were not virtuous,
|
|
I should not urge it half so faithfully.
|
|
|
|
LUCILIUS Dost thou speak seriously, Servilius?
|
|
|
|
SERVILIUS Upon my soul,'tis true, sir.
|
|
|
|
LUCILIUS What a wicked beast was I to disfurnish myself
|
|
against such a good time, when I might ha' shown
|
|
myself honourable! how unluckily it happened, that I
|
|
should purchase the day before for a little part,
|
|
and undo a great deal of honoured! Servilius, now,
|
|
before the gods, I am not able to do,--the more
|
|
beast, I say:--I was sending to use Lord Timon
|
|
myself, these gentlemen can witness! but I would
|
|
not, for the wealth of Athens, I had done't now.
|
|
Commend me bountifully to his good lordship; and I
|
|
hope his honour will conceive the fairest of me,
|
|
because I have no power to be kind: and tell him
|
|
this from me, I count it one of my greatest
|
|
afflictions, say, that I cannot pleasure such an
|
|
honourable gentleman. Good Servilius, will you
|
|
befriend me so far, as to use mine own words to him?
|
|
|
|
SERVILIUS Yes, sir, I shall.
|
|
|
|
LUCILIUS I'll look you out a good turn, Servilius.
|
|
|
|
[Exit SERVILIUS]
|
|
|
|
True as you said, Timon is shrunk indeed;
|
|
And he that's once denied will hardly speed.
|
|
|
|
[Exit]
|
|
|
|
First Stranger Do you observe this, Hostilius?
|
|
|
|
Second Stranger Ay, too well.
|
|
|
|
First Stranger Why, this is the world's soul; and just of the
|
|
same piece
|
|
Is every flatterer's spirit. Who can call him
|
|
His friend that dips in the same dish? for, in
|
|
My knowing, Timon has been this lord's father,
|
|
And kept his credit with his purse,
|
|
Supported his estate; nay, Timon's money
|
|
Has paid his men their wages: he ne'er drinks,
|
|
But Timon's silver treads upon his lip;
|
|
And yet--O, see the monstrousness of man
|
|
When he looks out in an ungrateful shape!--
|
|
He does deny him, in respect of his,
|
|
What charitable men afford to beggars.
|
|
|
|
Third Stranger Religion groans at it.
|
|
|
|
First Stranger For mine own part,
|
|
I never tasted Timon in my life,
|
|
Nor came any of his bounties over me,
|
|
To mark me for his friend; yet, I protest,
|
|
For his right noble mind, illustrious virtue
|
|
And honourable carriage,
|
|
Had his necessity made use of me,
|
|
I would have put my wealth into donation,
|
|
And the best half should have return'd to him,
|
|
So much I love his heart: but, I perceive,
|
|
Men must learn now with pity to dispense;
|
|
For policy sits above conscience.
|
|
|
|
[Exeunt]
|
|
|
|
TIMON OF ATHENS
|
|
|
|
ACT III
|
|
|
|
SCENE III A room in Sempronius' house.
|
|
|
|
[Enter SEMPRONIUS, and a Servant of TIMON's]
|
|
|
|
SEMPRONIUS Must he needs trouble me in 't,--hum!--'bove
|
|
all others?
|
|
He might have tried Lord Lucius or Lucullus;
|
|
And now Ventidius is wealthy too,
|
|
Whom he redeem'd from prison: all these
|
|
Owe their estates unto him.
|
|
|
|
Servant My lord,
|
|
They have all been touch'd and found base metal, for
|
|
They have au denied him.
|
|
|
|
SEMPRONIUS How! have they denied him?
|
|
Has Ventidius and Lucullus denied him?
|
|
And does he send to me? Three? hum!
|
|
It shows but little love or judgment in him:
|
|
Must I be his last refuge! His friends, like
|
|
physicians,
|
|
Thrive, give him over: must I take the cure upon me?
|
|
Has much disgraced me in't; I'm angry at him,
|
|
That might have known my place: I see no sense for't,
|
|
But his occasion might have woo'd me first;
|
|
For, in my conscience, I was the first man
|
|
That e'er received gift from him:
|
|
And does he think so backwardly of me now,
|
|
That I'll requite its last? No:
|
|
So it may prove an argument of laughter
|
|
To the rest, and 'mongst lords I be thought a fool.
|
|
I'ld rather than the worth of thrice the sum,
|
|
Had sent to me first, but for my mind's sake;
|
|
I'd such a courage to do him good. But now return,
|
|
And with their faint reply this answer join;
|
|
Who bates mine honour shall not know my coin.
|
|
|
|
[Exit]
|
|
|
|
Servant Excellent! Your lordship's a goodly villain. The
|
|
devil knew not what he did when he made man
|
|
politic; he crossed himself by 't: and I cannot
|
|
think but, in the end, the villainies of man will
|
|
set him clear. How fairly this lord strives to
|
|
appear foul! takes virtuous copies to be wicked,
|
|
like those that under hot ardent zeal would set
|
|
whole realms on fire: Of such a nature is his
|
|
politic love.
|
|
This was my lord's best hope; now all are fled,
|
|
Save only the gods: now his friends are dead,
|
|
Doors, that were ne'er acquainted with their wards
|
|
Many a bounteous year must be employ'd
|
|
Now to guard sure their master.
|
|
And this is all a liberal course allows;
|
|
Who cannot keep his wealth must keep his house.
|
|
|
|
[Exit]
|
|
|
|
TIMON OF ATHENS
|
|
|
|
ACT III
|
|
|
|
SCENE IV The same. A hall in Timon's house.
|
|
|
|
[Enter two Servants of Varro, and the Servant of
|
|
LUCIUS, meeting TITUS, HORTENSIUS, and other
|
|
Servants of TIMON's creditors, waiting his coming out]
|
|
|
|
Varro's
|
|
First Servant Well met; good morrow, Titus and Hortensius.
|
|
|
|
TITUS The like to you kind Varro.
|
|
|
|
HORTENSIUS Lucius!
|
|
What, do we meet together?
|
|
|
|
Lucilius' Servant Ay, and I think
|
|
One business does command us all; for mine Is money.
|
|
|
|
TITUS So is theirs and ours.
|
|
|
|
[Enter PHILOTUS]
|
|
|
|
Lucilius' Servant And Sir Philotus too!
|
|
|
|
PHILOTUS Good day at once.
|
|
|
|
Lucilius' Servant Welcome, good brother.
|
|
What do you think the hour?
|
|
|
|
PHILOTUS Labouring for nine.
|
|
|
|
Lucilius' Servant So much?
|
|
|
|
PHILOTUS Is not my lord seen yet?
|
|
|
|
Lucilius' Servant Not yet.
|
|
|
|
PHILOTUS I wonder on't; he was wont to shine at seven.
|
|
|
|
Lucilius' Servant Ay, but the days are wax'd shorter with him:
|
|
You must consider that a prodigal course
|
|
Is like the sun's; but not, like his, recoverable.
|
|
I fear 'tis deepest winter in Lord Timon's purse;
|
|
That is one may reach deep enough, and yet
|
|
Find little.
|
|
|
|
PHILOTUS I am of your fear for that.
|
|
|
|
TITUS I'll show you how to observe a strange event.
|
|
Your lord sends now for money.
|
|
|
|
HORTENSIUS Most true, he does.
|
|
|
|
TITUS And he wears jewels now of Timon's gift,
|
|
For which I wait for money.
|
|
|
|
HORTENSIUS It is against my heart.
|
|
|
|
Lucilius' Servant Mark, how strange it shows,
|
|
Timon in this should pay more than he owes:
|
|
And e'en as if your lord should wear rich jewels,
|
|
And send for money for 'em.
|
|
|
|
HORTENSIUS I'm weary of this charge, the gods can witness:
|
|
I know my lord hath spent of Timon's wealth,
|
|
And now ingratitude makes it worse than stealth.
|
|
|
|
Varro's
|
|
First Servant Yes, mine's three thousand crowns: what's yours?
|
|
|
|
Lucilius' Servant Five thousand mine.
|
|
|
|
Varro's
|
|
First Servant 'Tis much deep: and it should seem by the sun,
|
|
Your master's confidence was above mine;
|
|
Else, surely, his had equall'd.
|
|
|
|
Enter FLAMINIUS.
|
|
|
|
TITUS One of Lord Timon's men.
|
|
|
|
Lucilius' Servant Flaminius! Sir, a word: pray, is my lord ready to
|
|
come forth?
|
|
|
|
FLAMINIUS No, indeed, he is not.
|
|
|
|
TITUS We attend his lordship; pray, signify so much.
|
|
|
|
FLAMINIUS I need not tell him that; he knows you are too diligent.
|
|
|
|
[Exit]
|
|
|
|
[Enter FLAVIUS in a cloak, muffled]
|
|
|
|
Lucilius' Servant Ha! is not that his steward muffled so?
|
|
He goes away in a cloud: call him, call him.
|
|
|
|
TITUS Do you hear, sir?
|
|
|
|
Varro's
|
|
Second Servant By your leave, sir,--
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS What do ye ask of me, my friend?
|
|
|
|
TITUS We wait for certain money here, sir.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS Ay,
|
|
If money were as certain as your waiting,
|
|
'Twere sure enough.
|
|
Why then preferr'd you not your sums and bills,
|
|
When your false masters eat of my lord's meat?
|
|
Then they could smile and fawn upon his debts
|
|
And take down the interest into their
|
|
gluttonous maws.
|
|
You do yourselves but wrong to stir me up;
|
|
Let me pass quietly:
|
|
Believe 't, my lord and I have made an end;
|
|
I have no more to reckon, he to spend.
|
|
|
|
Lucilius' Servant Ay, but this answer will not serve.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS If 'twill not serve,'tis not so base as you;
|
|
For you serve knaves.
|
|
|
|
[Exit]
|
|
|
|
Varro's
|
|
First Servant How! what does his cashiered worship mutter?
|
|
|
|
Varro's
|
|
Second Servant No matter what; he's poor, and that's revenge
|
|
enough. Who can speak broader than he that has no
|
|
house to put his head in? such may rail against
|
|
great buildings.
|
|
|
|
[Enter SERVILIUS]
|
|
|
|
TITUS O, here's Servilius; now we shall know some answer.
|
|
|
|
SERVILIUS If I might beseech you, gentlemen, to repair some
|
|
other hour, I should derive much from't; for,
|
|
take't of my soul, my lord leans wondrously to
|
|
discontent: his comfortable temper has forsook him;
|
|
he's much out of health, and keeps his chamber.
|
|
|
|
Lucilius' Servant: Many do keep their chambers are not sick:
|
|
And, if it be so far beyond his health,
|
|
Methinks he should the sooner pay his debts,
|
|
And make a clear way to the gods.
|
|
|
|
SERVILIUS Good gods!
|
|
|
|
TITUS We cannot take this for answer, sir.
|
|
|
|
FLAMINIUS [Within] Servilius, help! My lord! my lord!
|
|
|
|
[Enter TIMON, in a rage, FLAMINIUS following]
|
|
|
|
TIMON What, are my doors opposed against my passage?
|
|
Have I been ever free, and must my house
|
|
Be my retentive enemy, my gaol?
|
|
The place which I have feasted, does it now,
|
|
Like all mankind, show me an iron heart?
|
|
|
|
Lucilius' Servant Put in now, Titus.
|
|
|
|
TITUS My lord, here is my bill.
|
|
|
|
Lucilius' Servant Here's mine.
|
|
|
|
HORTENSIUS And mine, my lord.
|
|
|
|
Both
|
|
Varro's Servants And ours, my lord.
|
|
|
|
PHILOTUS All our bills.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Knock me down with 'em: cleave me to the girdle.
|
|
|
|
Lucilius' Servant Alas, my lord,-
|
|
|
|
TIMON Cut my heart in sums.
|
|
|
|
TITUS Mine, fifty talents.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Tell out my blood.
|
|
|
|
Lucilius' Servant Five thousand crowns, my lord.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Five thousand drops pays that.
|
|
What yours?--and yours?
|
|
|
|
Varro's
|
|
First Servant My lord,--
|
|
|
|
Varro's
|
|
Second Servant My lord,--
|
|
|
|
TIMON Tear me, take me, and the gods fall upon you!
|
|
|
|
[Exit]
|
|
|
|
HORTENSIUS 'Faith, I perceive our masters may throw their caps
|
|
at their money: these debts may well be called
|
|
desperate ones, for a madman owes 'em.
|
|
|
|
[Exeunt]
|
|
|
|
[Re-enter TIMON and FLAVIUS]
|
|
|
|
TIMON They have e'en put my breath from me, the slaves.
|
|
Creditors? devils!
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS My dear lord,--
|
|
|
|
TIMON What if it should be so?
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS My lord,--
|
|
|
|
TIMON I'll have it so. My steward!
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS Here, my lord.
|
|
|
|
TIMON So fitly? Go, bid all my friends again,
|
|
Lucius, Lucullus, and Sempronius:
|
|
All, sirrah, all:
|
|
I'll once more feast the rascals.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS O my lord,
|
|
You only speak from your distracted soul;
|
|
There is not so much left, to furnish out
|
|
A moderate table.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Be't not in thy care; go,
|
|
I charge thee, invite them all: let in the tide
|
|
Of knaves once more; my cook and I'll provide.
|
|
|
|
[Exeunt]
|
|
|
|
TIMON OF ATHENS
|
|
|
|
ACT III
|
|
|
|
SCENE V The same. The senate-house. The Senate sitting.
|
|
|
|
First Senator My lord, you have my voice to it; the fault's
|
|
Bloody; 'tis necessary he should die:
|
|
Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.
|
|
|
|
Second Senator Most true; the law shall bruise him.
|
|
|
|
[Enter ALCIBIADES, with Attendants]
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES Honour, health, and compassion to the senate!
|
|
|
|
First Senator Now, captain?
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES I am an humble suitor to your virtues;
|
|
For pity is the virtue of the law,
|
|
And none but tyrants use it cruelly.
|
|
It pleases time and fortune to lie heavy
|
|
Upon a friend of mine, who, in hot blood,
|
|
Hath stepp'd into the law, which is past depth
|
|
To those that, without heed, do plunge into 't.
|
|
He is a man, setting his fate aside,
|
|
Of comely virtues:
|
|
Nor did he soil the fact with cowardice--
|
|
An honour in him which buys out his fault--
|
|
But with a noble fury and fair spirit,
|
|
Seeing his reputation touch'd to death,
|
|
He did oppose his foe:
|
|
And with such sober and unnoted passion
|
|
He did behave his anger, ere 'twas spent,
|
|
As if he had but proved an argument.
|
|
|
|
First Senator You undergo too strict a paradox,
|
|
Striving to make an ugly deed look fair:
|
|
Your words have took such pains as if they labour'd
|
|
To bring manslaughter into form and set quarrelling
|
|
Upon the head of valour; which indeed
|
|
Is valour misbegot and came into the world
|
|
When sects and factions were newly born:
|
|
He's truly valiant that can wisely suffer
|
|
The worst that man can breathe, and make his wrongs
|
|
His outsides, to wear them like his raiment,
|
|
carelessly,
|
|
And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart,
|
|
To bring it into danger.
|
|
If wrongs be evils and enforce us kill,
|
|
What folly 'tis to hazard life for ill!
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES My lord,--
|
|
|
|
First Senator You cannot make gross sins look clear:
|
|
To revenge is no valour, but to bear.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES My lords, then, under favour, pardon me,
|
|
If I speak like a captain.
|
|
Why do fond men expose themselves to battle,
|
|
And not endure all threats? sleep upon't,
|
|
And let the foes quietly cut their throats,
|
|
Without repugnancy? If there be
|
|
Such valour in the bearing, what make we
|
|
Abroad? why then, women are more valiant
|
|
That stay at home, if bearing carry it,
|
|
And the ass more captain than the lion, the felon
|
|
Loaden with irons wiser than the judge,
|
|
If wisdom be in suffering. O my lords,
|
|
As you are great, be pitifully good:
|
|
Who cannot condemn rashness in cold blood?
|
|
To kill, I grant, is sin's extremest gust;
|
|
But, in defence, by mercy, 'tis most just.
|
|
To be in anger is impiety;
|
|
But who is man that is not angry?
|
|
Weigh but the crime with this.
|
|
|
|
Second Senator You breathe in vain.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES In vain! his service done
|
|
At Lacedaemon and Byzantium
|
|
Were a sufficient briber for his life.
|
|
|
|
First Senator What's that?
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES I say, my lords, he has done fair service,
|
|
And slain in fight many of your enemies:
|
|
How full of valour did he bear himself
|
|
In the last conflict, and made plenteous wounds!
|
|
|
|
Second Senator He has made too much plenty with 'em;
|
|
He's a sworn rioter: he has a sin that often
|
|
Drowns him, and takes his valour prisoner:
|
|
If there were no foes, that were enough
|
|
To overcome him: in that beastly fury
|
|
He has been known to commit outrages,
|
|
And cherish factions: 'tis inferr'd to us,
|
|
His days are foul and his drink dangerous.
|
|
|
|
First Senator He dies.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES Hard fate! he might have died in war.
|
|
My lords, if not for any parts in him--
|
|
Though his right arm might purchase his own time
|
|
And be in debt to none--yet, more to move you,
|
|
Take my deserts to his, and join 'em both:
|
|
And, for I know your reverend ages love
|
|
Security, I'll pawn my victories, all
|
|
My honours to you, upon his good returns.
|
|
If by this crime he owes the law his life,
|
|
Why, let the war receive 't in valiant gore
|
|
For law is strict, and war is nothing more.
|
|
|
|
First Senator We are for law: he dies; urge it no more,
|
|
On height of our displeasure: friend or brother,
|
|
He forfeits his own blood that spills another.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES Must it be so? it must not be. My lords,
|
|
I do beseech you, know me.
|
|
|
|
Second Senator How!
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES Call me to your remembrances.
|
|
|
|
Third Senator What!
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES I cannot think but your age has forgot me;
|
|
It could not else be, I should prove so base,
|
|
To sue, and be denied such common grace:
|
|
My wounds ache at you.
|
|
|
|
First Senator Do you dare our anger?
|
|
'Tis in few words, but spacious in effect;
|
|
We banish thee for ever.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES Banish me!
|
|
Banish your dotage; banish usury,
|
|
That makes the senate ugly.
|
|
|
|
First Senator If, after two days' shine, Athens contain thee,
|
|
Attend our weightier judgment. And, not to swell
|
|
our spirit,
|
|
He shall be executed presently.
|
|
|
|
[Exeunt Senators]
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES Now the gods keep you old enough; that you may live
|
|
Only in bone, that none may look on you!
|
|
I'm worse than mad: I have kept back their foes,
|
|
While they have told their money and let out
|
|
Their coin upon large interest, I myself
|
|
Rich only in large hurts. All those for this?
|
|
Is this the balsam that the usuring senate
|
|
Pours into captains' wounds? Banishment!
|
|
It comes not ill; I hate not to be banish'd;
|
|
It is a cause worthy my spleen and fury,
|
|
That I may strike at Athens. I'll cheer up
|
|
My discontented troops, and lay for hearts.
|
|
'Tis honour with most lands to be at odds;
|
|
Soldiers should brook as little wrongs as gods.
|
|
|
|
[Exit]
|
|
|
|
TIMON OF ATHENS
|
|
|
|
ACT III
|
|
|
|
SCENE VI The same. A banqueting-room in Timon's house.
|
|
|
|
[Music. Tables set out: Servants attending.
|
|
Enter divers Lords, Senators and others, at
|
|
several doors]
|
|
|
|
First Lord The good time of day to you, sir.
|
|
|
|
Second Lord I also wish it to you. I think this honourable lord
|
|
did but try us this other day.
|
|
|
|
First Lord Upon that were my thoughts tiring, when we
|
|
encountered: I hope it is not so low with him as
|
|
he made it seem in the trial of his several friends.
|
|
|
|
Second Lord It should not be, by the persuasion of his new feasting.
|
|
|
|
First Lord I should think so: he hath sent me an earnest
|
|
inviting, which many my near occasions did urge me
|
|
to put off; but he hath conjured me beyond them, and
|
|
I must needs appear.
|
|
|
|
Second Lord In like manner was I in debt to my importunate
|
|
business, but he would not hear my excuse. I am
|
|
sorry, when he sent to borrow of me, that my
|
|
provision was out.
|
|
|
|
First Lord I am sick of that grief too, as I understand how all
|
|
things go.
|
|
|
|
Second Lord Every man here's so. What would he have borrowed of
|
|
you?
|
|
|
|
First Lord A thousand pieces.
|
|
|
|
Second Lord A thousand pieces!
|
|
|
|
First Lord What of you?
|
|
|
|
Second Lord He sent to me, sir,--Here he comes.
|
|
|
|
[Enter TIMON and Attendants]
|
|
|
|
TIMON With all my heart, gentlemen both; and how fare you?
|
|
|
|
First Lord Ever at the best, hearing well of your lordship.
|
|
|
|
Second Lord The swallow follows not summer more willing than we
|
|
your lordship.
|
|
|
|
TIMON [Aside] Nor more willingly leaves winter; such
|
|
summer-birds are men. Gentlemen, our dinner will not
|
|
recompense this long stay: feast your ears with the
|
|
music awhile, if they will fare so harshly o' the
|
|
trumpet's sound; we shall to 't presently.
|
|
|
|
First Lord I hope it remains not unkindly with your lordship
|
|
that I returned you an empty messenger.
|
|
|
|
TIMON O, sir, let it not trouble you.
|
|
|
|
Second Lord My noble lord,--
|
|
|
|
TIMON Ah, my good friend, what cheer?
|
|
|
|
Second Lord My most honourable lord, I am e'en sick of shame,
|
|
that, when your lordship this other day sent to me,
|
|
I was so unfortunate a beggar.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Think not on 't, sir.
|
|
|
|
Second Lord If you had sent but two hours before,--
|
|
|
|
TIMON Let it not cumber your better remembrance.
|
|
|
|
[The banquet brought in]
|
|
|
|
Come, bring in all together.
|
|
|
|
Second Lord All covered dishes!
|
|
|
|
First Lord Royal cheer, I warrant you.
|
|
|
|
Third Lord Doubt not that, if money and the season can yield
|
|
it.
|
|
|
|
First Lord How do you? What's the news?
|
|
|
|
Third Lord Alcibiades is banished: hear you of it?
|
|
|
|
First Lord |
|
|
| Alcibiades banished!
|
|
Second Lord |
|
|
|
|
Third Lord 'Tis so, be sure of it.
|
|
|
|
First Lord How! how!
|
|
|
|
Second Lord I pray you, upon what?
|
|
|
|
TIMON My worthy friends, will you draw near?
|
|
|
|
Third Lord I'll tell you more anon. Here's a noble feast toward.
|
|
|
|
Second Lord This is the old man still.
|
|
|
|
Third Lord Will 't hold? will 't hold?
|
|
|
|
Second Lord It does: but time will--and so--
|
|
|
|
Third Lord I do conceive.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Each man to his stool, with that spur as he would to
|
|
the lip of his mistress: your diet shall be in all
|
|
places alike. Make not a city feast of it, to let
|
|
the meat cool ere we can agree upon the first place:
|
|
sit, sit. The gods require our thanks.
|
|
|
|
You great benefactors, sprinkle our society with
|
|
thankfulness. For your own gifts, make yourselves
|
|
praised: but reserve still to give, lest your
|
|
deities be despised. Lend to each man enough, that
|
|
one need not lend to another; for, were your
|
|
godheads to borrow of men, men would forsake the
|
|
gods. Make the meat be beloved more than the man
|
|
that gives it. Let no assembly of twenty be without
|
|
a score of villains: if there sit twelve women at
|
|
the table, let a dozen of them be--as they are. The
|
|
rest of your fees, O gods--the senators of Athens,
|
|
together with the common lag of people--what is
|
|
amiss in them, you gods, make suitable for
|
|
destruction. For these my present friends, as they
|
|
are to me nothing, so in nothing bless them, and to
|
|
nothing are they welcome.
|
|
|
|
Uncover, dogs, and lap.
|
|
|
|
[The dishes are uncovered and seen to be full of
|
|
warm water]
|
|
|
|
Some Speak What does his lordship mean?
|
|
|
|
Some Others I know not.
|
|
|
|
TIMON May you a better feast never behold,
|
|
You knot of mouth-friends I smoke and lukewarm water
|
|
Is your perfection. This is Timon's last;
|
|
Who, stuck and spangled with your flatteries,
|
|
Washes it off, and sprinkles in your faces
|
|
Your reeking villany.
|
|
|
|
[Throwing the water in their faces]
|
|
|
|
Live loathed and long,
|
|
Most smiling, smooth, detested parasites,
|
|
Courteous destroyers, affable wolves, meek bears,
|
|
You fools of fortune, trencher-friends, time's flies,
|
|
Cap and knee slaves, vapours, and minute-jacks!
|
|
Of man and beast the infinite malady
|
|
Crust you quite o'er! What, dost thou go?
|
|
Soft! take thy physic first--thou too--and thou;--
|
|
Stay, I will lend thee money, borrow none.
|
|
|
|
[Throws the dishes at them, and drives them out]
|
|
|
|
What, all in motion? Henceforth be no feast,
|
|
Whereat a villain's not a welcome guest.
|
|
Burn, house! sink, Athens! henceforth hated be
|
|
Of Timon man and all humanity!
|
|
|
|
[Exit]
|
|
|
|
[Re-enter the Lords, Senators, &c]
|
|
|
|
First Lord How now, my lords!
|
|
|
|
Second Lord Know you the quality of Lord Timon's fury?
|
|
|
|
Third Lord Push! did you see my cap?
|
|
|
|
Fourth Lord I have lost my gown.
|
|
|
|
First Lord He's but a mad lord, and nought but humour sways him.
|
|
He gave me a jewel th' other day, and now he has
|
|
beat it out of my hat: did you see my jewel?
|
|
|
|
Third Lord Did you see my cap?
|
|
|
|
Second Lord Here 'tis.
|
|
|
|
Fourth Lord Here lies my gown.
|
|
|
|
First Lord Let's make no stay.
|
|
|
|
Second Lord Lord Timon's mad.
|
|
|
|
Third Lord I feel 't upon my bones.
|
|
|
|
Fourth Lord One day he gives us diamonds, next day stones.
|
|
|
|
[Exeunt]
|
|
|
|
TIMON OF ATHENS
|
|
|
|
ACT IV
|
|
|
|
SCENE I Without the walls of Athens.
|
|
|
|
[Enter TIMON]
|
|
|
|
TIMON Let me look back upon thee. O thou wall,
|
|
That girdlest in those wolves, dive in the earth,
|
|
And fence not Athens! Matrons, turn incontinent!
|
|
Obedience fail in children! slaves and fools,
|
|
Pluck the grave wrinkled senate from the bench,
|
|
And minister in their steads! to general filths
|
|
Convert o' the instant, green virginity,
|
|
Do 't in your parents' eyes! bankrupts, hold fast;
|
|
Rather than render back, out with your knives,
|
|
And cut your trusters' throats! bound servants, steal!
|
|
Large-handed robbers your grave masters are,
|
|
And pill by law. Maid, to thy master's bed;
|
|
Thy mistress is o' the brothel! Son of sixteen,
|
|
pluck the lined crutch from thy old limping sire,
|
|
With it beat out his brains! Piety, and fear,
|
|
Religion to the gods, peace, justice, truth,
|
|
Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighbourhood,
|
|
Instruction, manners, mysteries, and trades,
|
|
Degrees, observances, customs, and laws,
|
|
Decline to your confounding contraries,
|
|
And let confusion live! Plagues, incident to men,
|
|
Your potent and infectious fevers heap
|
|
On Athens, ripe for stroke! Thou cold sciatica,
|
|
Cripple our senators, that their limbs may halt
|
|
As lamely as their manners. Lust and liberty
|
|
Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth,
|
|
That 'gainst the stream of virtue they may strive,
|
|
And drown themselves in riot! Itches, blains,
|
|
Sow all the Athenian bosoms; and their crop
|
|
Be general leprosy! Breath infect breath,
|
|
at their society, as their friendship, may
|
|
merely poison! Nothing I'll bear from thee,
|
|
But nakedness, thou detestable town!
|
|
Take thou that too, with multiplying bans!
|
|
Timon will to the woods; where he shall find
|
|
The unkindest beast more kinder than mankind.
|
|
The gods confound--hear me, you good gods all--
|
|
The Athenians both within and out that wall!
|
|
And grant, as Timon grows, his hate may grow
|
|
To the whole race of mankind, high and low! Amen.
|
|
|
|
[Exit]
|
|
|
|
TIMON OF ATHENS
|
|
|
|
ACT IV
|
|
|
|
SCENE II Athens. A room in Timon's house.
|
|
|
|
[Enter FLAVIUS, with two or three Servants]
|
|
|
|
First Servant Hear you, master steward, where's our master?
|
|
Are we undone? cast off? nothing remaining?
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS Alack, my fellows, what should I say to you?
|
|
Let me be recorded by the righteous gods,
|
|
I am as poor as you.
|
|
|
|
First Servant Such a house broke!
|
|
So noble a master fall'n! All gone! and not
|
|
One friend to take his fortune by the arm,
|
|
And go along with him!
|
|
|
|
Second Servant As we do turn our backs
|
|
From our companion thrown into his grave,
|
|
So his familiars to his buried fortunes
|
|
Slink all away, leave their false vows with him,
|
|
Like empty purses pick'd; and his poor self,
|
|
A dedicated beggar to the air,
|
|
With his disease of all-shunn'd poverty,
|
|
Walks, like contempt, alone. More of our fellows.
|
|
|
|
[Enter other Servants]
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS All broken implements of a ruin'd house.
|
|
|
|
Third Servant Yet do our hearts wear Timon's livery;
|
|
That see I by our faces; we are fellows still,
|
|
Serving alike in sorrow: leak'd is our bark,
|
|
And we, poor mates, stand on the dying deck,
|
|
Hearing the surges threat: we must all part
|
|
Into this sea of air.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS Good fellows all,
|
|
The latest of my wealth I'll share amongst you.
|
|
Wherever we shall meet, for Timon's sake,
|
|
Let's yet be fellows; let's shake our heads, and say,
|
|
As 'twere a knell unto our master's fortunes,
|
|
'We have seen better days.' Let each take some;
|
|
Nay, put out all your hands. Not one word more:
|
|
Thus part we rich in sorrow, parting poor.
|
|
|
|
[Servants embrace, and part several ways]
|
|
|
|
O, the fierce wretchedness that glory brings us!
|
|
Who would not wish to be from wealth exempt,
|
|
Since riches point to misery and contempt?
|
|
Who would be so mock'd with glory? or to live
|
|
But in a dream of friendship?
|
|
To have his pomp and all what state compounds
|
|
But only painted, like his varnish'd friends?
|
|
Poor honest lord, brought low by his own heart,
|
|
Undone by goodness! Strange, unusual blood,
|
|
When man's worst sin is, he does too much good!
|
|
Who, then, dares to be half so kind again?
|
|
For bounty, that makes gods, does still mar men.
|
|
My dearest lord, bless'd, to be most accursed,
|
|
Rich, only to be wretched, thy great fortunes
|
|
Are made thy chief afflictions. Alas, kind lord!
|
|
He's flung in rage from this ingrateful seat
|
|
Of monstrous friends, nor has he with him to
|
|
Supply his life, or that which can command it.
|
|
I'll follow and inquire him out:
|
|
I'll ever serve his mind with my best will;
|
|
Whilst I have gold, I'll be his steward still.
|
|
|
|
[Exit]
|
|
|
|
TIMON OF ATHENS
|
|
|
|
ACT IV
|
|
|
|
SCENE III Woods and cave, near the seashore.
|
|
|
|
[Enter TIMON, from the cave]
|
|
|
|
O blessed breeding sun, draw from the earth
|
|
Rotten humidity; below thy sister's orb
|
|
Infect the air! Twinn'd brothers of one womb,
|
|
Whose procreation, residence, and birth,
|
|
Scarce is dividant, touch them with several fortunes;
|
|
The greater scorns the lesser: not nature,
|
|
To whom all sores lay siege, can bear great fortune,
|
|
But by contempt of nature.
|
|
Raise me this beggar, and deny 't that lord;
|
|
The senator shall bear contempt hereditary,
|
|
The beggar native honour.
|
|
It is the pasture lards the rother's sides,
|
|
The want that makes him lean. Who dares, who dares,
|
|
In purity of manhood stand upright,
|
|
And say 'This man's a flatterer?' if one be,
|
|
So are they all; for every grise of fortune
|
|
Is smooth'd by that below: the learned pate
|
|
Ducks to the golden fool: all is oblique;
|
|
There's nothing level in our cursed natures,
|
|
But direct villany. Therefore, be abhorr'd
|
|
All feasts, societies, and throngs of men!
|
|
His semblable, yea, himself, Timon disdains:
|
|
Destruction fang mankind! Earth, yield me roots!
|
|
|
|
[Digging]
|
|
|
|
Who seeks for better of thee, sauce his palate
|
|
With thy most operant poison! What is here?
|
|
Gold? yellow, glittering, precious gold? No, gods,
|
|
I am no idle votarist: roots, you clear heavens!
|
|
Thus much of this will make black white, foul fair,
|
|
Wrong right, base noble, old young, coward valiant.
|
|
Ha, you gods! why this? what this, you gods? Why, this
|
|
Will lug your priests and servants from your sides,
|
|
Pluck stout men's pillows from below their heads:
|
|
This yellow slave
|
|
Will knit and break religions, bless the accursed,
|
|
Make the hoar leprosy adored, place thieves
|
|
And give them title, knee and approbation
|
|
With senators on the bench: this is it
|
|
That makes the wappen'd widow wed again;
|
|
She, whom the spital-house and ulcerous sores
|
|
Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices
|
|
To the April day again. Come, damned earth,
|
|
Thou common whore of mankind, that put'st odds
|
|
Among the route of nations, I will make thee
|
|
Do thy right nature.
|
|
|
|
[March afar off]
|
|
|
|
Ha! a drum? Thou'rt quick,
|
|
But yet I'll bury thee: thou'lt go, strong thief,
|
|
When gouty keepers of thee cannot stand.
|
|
Nay, stay thou out for earnest.
|
|
|
|
[Keeping some gold]
|
|
|
|
[Enter ALCIBIADES, with drum and fife, in
|
|
warlike manner; PHRYNIA and TIMANDRA]
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES What art thou there? speak.
|
|
|
|
TIMON A beast, as thou art. The canker gnaw thy heart,
|
|
For showing me again the eyes of man!
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES What is thy name? Is man so hateful to thee,
|
|
That art thyself a man?
|
|
|
|
TIMON I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind.
|
|
For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog,
|
|
That I might love thee something.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES I know thee well;
|
|
But in thy fortunes am unlearn'd and strange.
|
|
|
|
TIMON I know thee too; and more than that I know thee,
|
|
I not desire to know. Follow thy drum;
|
|
With man's blood paint the ground, gules, gules:
|
|
Religious canons, civil laws are cruel;
|
|
Then what should war be? This fell whore of thine
|
|
Hath in her more destruction than thy sword,
|
|
For all her cherubim look.
|
|
|
|
PHRYNIA Thy lips rot off!
|
|
|
|
TIMON I will not kiss thee; then the rot returns
|
|
To thine own lips again.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES How came the noble Timon to this change?
|
|
|
|
TIMON As the moon does, by wanting light to give:
|
|
But then renew I could not, like the moon;
|
|
There were no suns to borrow of.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES Noble Timon,
|
|
What friendship may I do thee?
|
|
|
|
TIMON None, but to
|
|
Maintain my opinion.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES What is it, Timon?
|
|
|
|
TIMON Promise me friendship, but perform none: if thou
|
|
wilt not promise, the gods plague thee, for thou art
|
|
a man! if thou dost perform, confound thee, for
|
|
thou art a man!
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES I have heard in some sort of thy miseries.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Thou saw'st them, when I had prosperity.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES I see them now; then was a blessed time.
|
|
|
|
TIMON As thine is now, held with a brace of harlots.
|
|
|
|
TIMANDRA Is this the Athenian minion, whom the world
|
|
Voiced so regardfully?
|
|
|
|
TIMON Art thou Timandra?
|
|
|
|
TIMANDRA Yes.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Be a whore still: they love thee not that use thee;
|
|
Give them diseases, leaving with thee their lust.
|
|
Make use of thy salt hours: season the slaves
|
|
For tubs and baths; bring down rose-cheeked youth
|
|
To the tub-fast and the diet.
|
|
|
|
TIMANDRA Hang thee, monster!
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES Pardon him, sweet Timandra; for his wits
|
|
Are drown'd and lost in his calamities.
|
|
I have but little gold of late, brave Timon,
|
|
The want whereof doth daily make revolt
|
|
In my penurious band: I have heard, and grieved,
|
|
How cursed Athens, mindless of thy worth,
|
|
Forgetting thy great deeds, when neighbour states,
|
|
But for thy sword and fortune, trod upon them,--
|
|
|
|
TIMON I prithee, beat thy drum, and get thee gone.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES I am thy friend, and pity thee, dear Timon.
|
|
|
|
TIMON How dost thou pity him whom thou dost trouble?
|
|
I had rather be alone.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES Why, fare thee well:
|
|
Here is some gold for thee.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Keep it, I cannot eat it.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES When I have laid proud Athens on a heap,--
|
|
|
|
TIMON Warr'st thou 'gainst Athens?
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES Ay, Timon, and have cause.
|
|
|
|
TIMON The gods confound them all in thy conquest;
|
|
And thee after, when thou hast conquer'd!
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES Why me, Timon?
|
|
|
|
TIMON That, by killing of villains,
|
|
Thou wast born to conquer my country.
|
|
Put up thy gold: go on,--here's gold,--go on;
|
|
Be as a planetary plague, when Jove
|
|
Will o'er some high-viced city hang his poison
|
|
In the sick air: let not thy sword skip one:
|
|
Pity not honour'd age for his white beard;
|
|
He is an usurer: strike me the counterfeit matron;
|
|
It is her habit only that is honest,
|
|
Herself's a bawd: let not the virgin's cheek
|
|
Make soft thy trenchant sword; for those milk-paps,
|
|
That through the window-bars bore at men's eyes,
|
|
Are not within the leaf of pity writ,
|
|
But set them down horrible traitors: spare not the babe,
|
|
Whose dimpled smiles from fools exhaust their mercy;
|
|
Think it a bastard, whom the oracle
|
|
Hath doubtfully pronounced thy throat shall cut,
|
|
And mince it sans remorse: swear against objects;
|
|
Put armour on thine ears and on thine eyes;
|
|
Whose proof, nor yells of mothers, maids, nor babes,
|
|
Nor sight of priests in holy vestments bleeding,
|
|
Shall pierce a jot. There's gold to pay soldiers:
|
|
Make large confusion; and, thy fury spent,
|
|
Confounded be thyself! Speak not, be gone.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES Hast thou gold yet? I'll take the gold thou
|
|
givest me,
|
|
Not all thy counsel.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Dost thou, or dost thou not, heaven's curse
|
|
upon thee!
|
|
|
|
PHRYNIA |
|
|
| Give us some gold, good Timon: hast thou more?
|
|
TIMANDRA |
|
|
|
|
TIMON Enough to make a whore forswear her trade,
|
|
And to make whores, a bawd. Hold up, you sluts,
|
|
Your aprons mountant: you are not oathable,
|
|
Although, I know, you 'll swear, terribly swear
|
|
Into strong shudders and to heavenly agues
|
|
The immortal gods that hear you,--spare your oaths,
|
|
I'll trust to your conditions: be whores still;
|
|
And he whose pious breath seeks to convert you,
|
|
Be strong in whore, allure him, burn him up;
|
|
Let your close fire predominate his smoke,
|
|
And be no turncoats: yet may your pains, six months,
|
|
Be quite contrary: and thatch your poor thin roofs
|
|
With burthens of the dead;--some that were hang'd,
|
|
No matter:--wear them, betray with them: whore still;
|
|
Paint till a horse may mire upon your face,
|
|
A pox of wrinkles!
|
|
|
|
PHRYNIA |
|
|
| Well, more gold: what then?
|
|
TIMANDRA | Believe't, that we'll do any thing for gold.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Consumptions sow
|
|
In hollow bones of man; strike their sharp shins,
|
|
And mar men's spurring. Crack the lawyer's voice,
|
|
That he may never more false title plead,
|
|
Nor sound his quillets shrilly: hoar the flamen,
|
|
That scolds against the quality of flesh,
|
|
And not believes himself: down with the nose,
|
|
Down with it flat; take the bridge quite away
|
|
Of him that, his particular to foresee,
|
|
Smells from the general weal: make curl'd-pate
|
|
ruffians bald;
|
|
And let the unscarr'd braggarts of the war
|
|
Derive some pain from you: plague all;
|
|
That your activity may defeat and quell
|
|
The source of all erection. There's more gold:
|
|
Do you damn others, and let this damn you,
|
|
And ditches grave you all!
|
|
|
|
PHRYNIA |
|
|
| More counsel with more money, bounteous Timon.
|
|
TIMANDRA |
|
|
|
|
TIMON More whore, more mischief first; I have given you earnest.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES Strike up the drum towards Athens! Farewell, Timon:
|
|
If I thrive well, I'll visit thee again.
|
|
|
|
TIMON If I hope well, I'll never see thee more.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES I never did thee harm.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Yes, thou spokest well of me.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES Call'st thou that harm?
|
|
|
|
TIMON Men daily find it. Get thee away, and take
|
|
Thy beagles with thee.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES We but offend him. Strike!
|
|
|
|
[Drum beats. Exeunt ALCIBIADES, PHRYNIA,
|
|
and TIMANDRA]
|
|
|
|
TIMON That nature, being sick of man's unkindness,
|
|
Should yet be hungry! Common mother, thou,
|
|
|
|
[Digging]
|
|
|
|
Whose womb unmeasurable, and infinite breast,
|
|
Teems, and feeds all; whose self-same mettle,
|
|
Whereof thy proud child, arrogant man, is puff'd,
|
|
Engenders the black toad and adder blue,
|
|
The gilded newt and eyeless venom'd worm,
|
|
With all the abhorred births below crisp heaven
|
|
Whereon Hyperion's quickening fire doth shine;
|
|
Yield him, who all thy human sons doth hate,
|
|
From forth thy plenteous bosom, one poor root!
|
|
Ensear thy fertile and conceptious womb,
|
|
Let it no more bring out ingrateful man!
|
|
Go great with tigers, dragons, wolves, and bears;
|
|
Teem with new monsters, whom thy upward face
|
|
Hath to the marbled mansion all above
|
|
Never presented!--O, a root,--dear thanks!--
|
|
Dry up thy marrows, vines, and plough-torn leas;
|
|
Whereof ungrateful man, with liquorish draughts
|
|
And morsels unctuous, greases his pure mind,
|
|
That from it all consideration slips!
|
|
|
|
[Enter APEMANTUS]
|
|
|
|
More man? plague, plague!
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS I was directed hither: men report
|
|
Thou dost affect my manners, and dost use them.
|
|
|
|
TIMON 'Tis, then, because thou dost not keep a dog,
|
|
Whom I would imitate: consumption catch thee!
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS This is in thee a nature but infected;
|
|
A poor unmanly melancholy sprung
|
|
From change of fortune. Why this spade? this place?
|
|
This slave-like habit? and these looks of care?
|
|
Thy flatterers yet wear silk, drink wine, lie soft;
|
|
Hug their diseased perfumes, and have forgot
|
|
That ever Timon was. Shame not these woods,
|
|
By putting on the cunning of a carper.
|
|
Be thou a flatterer now, and seek to thrive
|
|
By that which has undone thee: hinge thy knee,
|
|
And let his very breath, whom thou'lt observe,
|
|
Blow off thy cap; praise his most vicious strain,
|
|
And call it excellent: thou wast told thus;
|
|
Thou gavest thine ears like tapsters that bid welcome
|
|
To knaves and all approachers: 'tis most just
|
|
That thou turn rascal; hadst thou wealth again,
|
|
Rascals should have 't. Do not assume my likeness.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Were I like thee, I'ld throw away myself.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Thou hast cast away thyself, being like thyself;
|
|
A madman so long, now a fool. What, think'st
|
|
That the bleak air, thy boisterous chamberlain,
|
|
Will put thy shirt on warm? will these moss'd trees,
|
|
That have outlived the eagle, page thy heels,
|
|
And skip where thou point'st out? will the
|
|
cold brook,
|
|
Candied with ice, caudle thy morning taste,
|
|
To cure thy o'er-night's surfeit? Call the creatures
|
|
Whose naked natures live in an the spite
|
|
Of wreakful heaven, whose bare unhoused trunks,
|
|
To the conflicting elements exposed,
|
|
Answer mere nature; bid them flatter thee;
|
|
O, thou shalt find--
|
|
|
|
TIMON A fool of thee: depart.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS I love thee better now than e'er I did.
|
|
|
|
TIMON I hate thee worse.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Why?
|
|
|
|
TIMON Thou flatter'st misery.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS I flatter not; but say thou art a caitiff.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Why dost thou seek me out?
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS To vex thee.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Always a villain's office or a fool's.
|
|
Dost please thyself in't?
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Ay.
|
|
|
|
TIMON What! a knave too?
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS If thou didst put this sour-cold habit on
|
|
To castigate thy pride, 'twere well: but thou
|
|
Dost it enforcedly; thou'ldst courtier be again,
|
|
Wert thou not beggar. Willing misery
|
|
Outlives encertain pomp, is crown'd before:
|
|
The one is filling still, never complete;
|
|
The other, at high wish: best state, contentless,
|
|
Hath a distracted and most wretched being,
|
|
Worse than the worst, content.
|
|
Thou shouldst desire to die, being miserable.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Not by his breath that is more miserable.
|
|
Thou art a slave, whom Fortune's tender arm
|
|
With favour never clasp'd; but bred a dog.
|
|
Hadst thou, like us from our first swath, proceeded
|
|
The sweet degrees that this brief world affords
|
|
To such as may the passive drugs of it
|
|
Freely command, thou wouldst have plunged thyself
|
|
In general riot; melted down thy youth
|
|
In different beds of lust; and never learn'd
|
|
The icy precepts of respect, but follow'd
|
|
The sugar'd game before thee. But myself,
|
|
Who had the world as my confectionary,
|
|
The mouths, the tongues, the eyes and hearts of men
|
|
At duty, more than I could frame employment,
|
|
That numberless upon me stuck as leaves
|
|
Do on the oak, hive with one winter's brush
|
|
Fell from their boughs and left me open, bare
|
|
For every storm that blows: I, to bear this,
|
|
That never knew but better, is some burden:
|
|
Thy nature did commence in sufferance, time
|
|
Hath made thee hard in't. Why shouldst thou hate men?
|
|
They never flatter'd thee: what hast thou given?
|
|
If thou wilt curse, thy father, that poor rag,
|
|
Must be thy subject, who in spite put stuff
|
|
To some she beggar and compounded thee
|
|
Poor rogue hereditary. Hence, be gone!
|
|
If thou hadst not been born the worst of men,
|
|
Thou hadst been a knave and flatterer.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Art thou proud yet?
|
|
|
|
TIMON Ay, that I am not thee.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS I, that I was
|
|
No prodigal.
|
|
|
|
TIMON I, that I am one now:
|
|
Were all the wealth I have shut up in thee,
|
|
I'ld give thee leave to hang it. Get thee gone.
|
|
That the whole life of Athens were in this!
|
|
Thus would I eat it.
|
|
|
|
[Eating a root]
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Here; I will mend thy feast.
|
|
|
|
[Offering him a root]
|
|
|
|
TIMON First mend my company, take away thyself.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS So I shall mend mine own, by the lack of thine.
|
|
|
|
TIMON 'Tis not well mended so, it is but botch'd;
|
|
if not, I would it were.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS What wouldst thou have to Athens?
|
|
|
|
TIMON Thee thither in a whirlwind. If thou wilt,
|
|
Tell them there I have gold; look, so I have.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Here is no use for gold.
|
|
|
|
TIMON The best and truest;
|
|
For here it sleeps, and does no hired harm.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Where liest o' nights, Timon?
|
|
|
|
TIMON Under that's above me.
|
|
Where feed'st thou o' days, Apemantus?
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Where my stomach finds meat; or, rather, where I eat
|
|
it.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Would poison were obedient and knew my mind!
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Where wouldst thou send it?
|
|
|
|
TIMON To sauce thy dishes.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS The middle of humanity thou never knewest, but the
|
|
extremity of both ends: when thou wast in thy gilt
|
|
and thy perfume, they mocked thee for too much
|
|
curiosity; in thy rags thou knowest none, but art
|
|
despised for the contrary. There's a medlar for
|
|
thee, eat it.
|
|
|
|
TIMON On what I hate I feed not.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Dost hate a medlar?
|
|
|
|
TIMON Ay, though it look like thee.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS An thou hadst hated meddlers sooner, thou shouldst
|
|
have loved thyself better now. What man didst thou
|
|
ever know unthrift that was beloved after his means?
|
|
|
|
TIMON Who, without those means thou talkest of, didst thou
|
|
ever know beloved?
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Myself.
|
|
|
|
TIMON I understand thee; thou hadst some means to keep a
|
|
dog.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS What things in the world canst thou nearest compare
|
|
to thy flatterers?
|
|
|
|
TIMON Women nearest; but men, men are the things
|
|
themselves. What wouldst thou do with the world,
|
|
Apemantus, if it lay in thy power?
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Give it the beasts, to be rid of the men.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Wouldst thou have thyself fall in the confusion of
|
|
men, and remain a beast with the beasts?
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Ay, Timon.
|
|
|
|
TIMON A beastly ambition, which the gods grant thee t'
|
|
attain to! If thou wert the lion, the fox would
|
|
beguile thee; if thou wert the lamb, the fox would
|
|
eat three: if thou wert the fox, the lion would
|
|
suspect thee, when peradventure thou wert accused by
|
|
the ass: if thou wert the ass, thy dulness would
|
|
torment thee, and still thou livedst but as a
|
|
breakfast to the wolf: if thou wert the wolf, thy
|
|
greediness would afflict thee, and oft thou shouldst
|
|
hazard thy life for thy dinner: wert thou the
|
|
unicorn, pride and wrath would confound thee and
|
|
make thine own self the conquest of thy fury: wert
|
|
thou a bear, thou wouldst be killed by the horse:
|
|
wert thou a horse, thou wouldst be seized by the
|
|
leopard: wert thou a leopard, thou wert german to
|
|
the lion and the spots of thy kindred were jurors on
|
|
thy life: all thy safety were remotion and thy
|
|
defence absence. What beast couldst thou be, that
|
|
were not subject to a beast? and what a beast art
|
|
thou already, that seest not thy loss in
|
|
transformation!
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS If thou couldst please me with speaking to me, thou
|
|
mightst have hit upon it here: the commonwealth of
|
|
Athens is become a forest of beasts.
|
|
|
|
TIMON How has the ass broke the wall, that thou art out of the city?
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Yonder comes a poet and a painter: the plague of
|
|
company light upon thee! I will fear to catch it
|
|
and give way: when I know not what else to do, I'll
|
|
see thee again.
|
|
|
|
TIMON When there is nothing living but thee, thou shalt be
|
|
welcome. I had rather be a beggar's dog than Apemantus.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Thou art the cap of all the fools alive.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon!
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS A plague on thee! thou art too bad to curse.
|
|
|
|
TIMON All villains that do stand by thee are pure.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS There is no leprosy but what thou speak'st.
|
|
|
|
TIMON If I name thee.
|
|
I'll beat thee, but I should infect my hands.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS I would my tongue could rot them off!
|
|
|
|
TIMON Away, thou issue of a mangy dog!
|
|
Choler does kill me that thou art alive;
|
|
I swound to see thee.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Would thou wouldst burst!
|
|
|
|
TIMON Away,
|
|
Thou tedious rogue! I am sorry I shall lose
|
|
A stone by thee.
|
|
|
|
[Throws a stone at him]
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Beast!
|
|
|
|
TIMON Slave!
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Toad!
|
|
|
|
TIMON Rogue, rogue, rogue!
|
|
I am sick of this false world, and will love nought
|
|
But even the mere necessities upon 't.
|
|
Then, Timon, presently prepare thy grave;
|
|
Lie where the light foam the sea may beat
|
|
Thy grave-stone daily: make thine epitaph,
|
|
That death in me at others' lives may laugh.
|
|
|
|
[To the gold]
|
|
|
|
O thou sweet king-killer, and dear divorce
|
|
'Twixt natural son and sire! thou bright defiler
|
|
Of Hymen's purest bed! thou valiant Mars!
|
|
Thou ever young, fresh, loved and delicate wooer,
|
|
Whose blush doth thaw the consecrated snow
|
|
That lies on Dian's lap! thou visible god,
|
|
That solder'st close impossibilities,
|
|
And makest them kiss! that speak'st with
|
|
every tongue,
|
|
To every purpose! O thou touch of hearts!
|
|
Think, thy slave man rebels, and by thy virtue
|
|
Set them into confounding odds, that beasts
|
|
May have the world in empire!
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Would 'twere so!
|
|
But not till I am dead. I'll say thou'st gold:
|
|
Thou wilt be throng'd to shortly.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Throng'd to!
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Ay.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Thy back, I prithee.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Live, and love thy misery.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Long live so, and so die.
|
|
|
|
[Exit APEMANTUS]
|
|
|
|
I am quit.
|
|
Moe things like men! Eat, Timon, and abhor them.
|
|
|
|
[Enter Banditti]
|
|
|
|
First Bandit Where should he have this gold? It is some poor
|
|
fragment, some slender sort of his remainder: the
|
|
mere want of gold, and the falling-from of his
|
|
friends, drove him into this melancholy.
|
|
|
|
Second Bandit It is noised he hath a mass of treasure.
|
|
|
|
Third Bandit Let us make the assay upon him: if he care not
|
|
for't, he will supply us easily; if he covetously
|
|
reserve it, how shall's get it?
|
|
|
|
Second Bandit True; for he bears it not about him, 'tis hid.
|
|
|
|
First Bandit Is not this he?
|
|
|
|
Banditti Where?
|
|
|
|
Second Bandit 'Tis his description.
|
|
|
|
Third Bandit He; I know him.
|
|
|
|
Banditti Save thee, Timon.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Now, thieves?
|
|
|
|
Banditti Soldiers, not thieves.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Both too; and women's sons.
|
|
|
|
Banditti We are not thieves, but men that much do want.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Your greatest want is, you want much of meat.
|
|
Why should you want? Behold, the earth hath roots;
|
|
Within this mile break forth a hundred springs;
|
|
The oaks bear mast, the briers scarlet hips;
|
|
The bounteous housewife, nature, on each bush
|
|
Lays her full mess before you. Want! why want?
|
|
|
|
First Bandit We cannot live on grass, on berries, water,
|
|
As beasts and birds and fishes.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Nor on the beasts themselves, the birds, and fishes;
|
|
You must eat men. Yet thanks I must you con
|
|
That you are thieves profess'd, that you work not
|
|
In holier shapes: for there is boundless theft
|
|
In limited professions. Rascal thieves,
|
|
Here's gold. Go, suck the subtle blood o' the grape,
|
|
Till the high fever seethe your blood to froth,
|
|
And so 'scape hanging: trust not the physician;
|
|
His antidotes are poison, and he slays
|
|
Moe than you rob: take wealth and lives together;
|
|
Do villany, do, since you protest to do't,
|
|
Like workmen. I'll example you with thievery.
|
|
The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
|
|
Robs the vast sea: the moon's an arrant thief,
|
|
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun:
|
|
The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
|
|
The moon into salt tears: the earth's a thief,
|
|
That feeds and breeds by a composture stolen
|
|
From general excrement: each thing's a thief:
|
|
The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power
|
|
Have uncheque'd theft. Love not yourselves: away,
|
|
Rob one another. There's more gold. Cut throats:
|
|
All that you meet are thieves: to Athens go,
|
|
Break open shops; nothing can you steal,
|
|
But thieves do lose it: steal no less for this
|
|
I give you; and gold confound you howsoe'er! Amen.
|
|
|
|
Third Bandit Has almost charmed me from my profession, by
|
|
persuading me to it.
|
|
|
|
First Bandit 'Tis in the malice of mankind that he thus advises
|
|
us; not to have us thrive in our mystery.
|
|
|
|
Second Bandit I'll believe him as an enemy, and give over my trade.
|
|
|
|
First Bandit Let us first see peace in Athens: there is no time
|
|
so miserable but a man may be true.
|
|
|
|
[Exeunt Banditti]
|
|
|
|
[Enter FLAVIUS]
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS O you gods!
|
|
Is yond despised and ruinous man my lord?
|
|
Full of decay and failing? O monument
|
|
And wonder of good deeds evilly bestow'd!
|
|
What an alteration of honour
|
|
Has desperate want made!
|
|
What viler thing upon the earth than friends
|
|
Who can bring noblest minds to basest ends!
|
|
How rarely does it meet with this time's guise,
|
|
When man was wish'd to love his enemies!
|
|
Grant I may ever love, and rather woo
|
|
Those that would mischief me than those that do!
|
|
Has caught me in his eye: I will present
|
|
My honest grief unto him; and, as my lord,
|
|
Still serve him with my life. My dearest master!
|
|
|
|
TIMON Away! what art thou?
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS Have you forgot me, sir?
|
|
|
|
TIMON Why dost ask that? I have forgot all men;
|
|
Then, if thou grant'st thou'rt a man, I have forgot thee.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS An honest poor servant of yours.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Then I know thee not:
|
|
I never had honest man about me, I; all
|
|
I kept were knaves, to serve in meat to villains.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS The gods are witness,
|
|
Ne'er did poor steward wear a truer grief
|
|
For his undone lord than mine eyes for you.
|
|
|
|
TIMON What, dost thou weep? Come nearer. Then I
|
|
love thee,
|
|
Because thou art a woman, and disclaim'st
|
|
Flinty mankind; whose eyes do never give
|
|
But thorough lust and laughter. Pity's sleeping:
|
|
Strange times, that weep with laughing, not with weeping!
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS I beg of you to know me, good my lord,
|
|
To accept my grief and whilst this poor wealth lasts
|
|
To entertain me as your steward still.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Had I a steward
|
|
So true, so just, and now so comfortable?
|
|
It almost turns my dangerous nature mild.
|
|
Let me behold thy face. Surely, this man
|
|
Was born of woman.
|
|
Forgive my general and exceptless rashness,
|
|
You perpetual-sober gods! I do proclaim
|
|
One honest man--mistake me not--but one;
|
|
No more, I pray,--and he's a steward.
|
|
How fain would I have hated all mankind!
|
|
And thou redeem'st thyself: but all, save thee,
|
|
I fell with curses.
|
|
Methinks thou art more honest now than wise;
|
|
For, by oppressing and betraying me,
|
|
Thou mightst have sooner got another service:
|
|
For many so arrive at second masters,
|
|
Upon their first lord's neck. But tell me true--
|
|
For I must ever doubt, though ne'er so sure--
|
|
Is not thy kindness subtle, covetous,
|
|
If not a usuring kindness, and, as rich men deal gifts,
|
|
Expecting in return twenty for one?
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS No, my most worthy master; in whose breast
|
|
Doubt and suspect, alas, are placed too late:
|
|
You should have fear'd false times when you did feast:
|
|
Suspect still comes where an estate is least.
|
|
That which I show, heaven knows, is merely love,
|
|
Duty and zeal to your unmatched mind,
|
|
Care of your food and living; and, believe it,
|
|
My most honour'd lord,
|
|
For any benefit that points to me,
|
|
Either in hope or present, I'ld exchange
|
|
For this one wish, that you had power and wealth
|
|
To requite me, by making rich yourself.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Look thee, 'tis so! Thou singly honest man,
|
|
Here, take: the gods out of my misery
|
|
Have sent thee treasure. Go, live rich and happy;
|
|
But thus condition'd: thou shalt build from men;
|
|
Hate all, curse all, show charity to none,
|
|
But let the famish'd flesh slide from the bone,
|
|
Ere thou relieve the beggar; give to dogs
|
|
What thou deny'st to men; let prisons swallow 'em,
|
|
Debts wither 'em to nothing; be men like
|
|
blasted woods,
|
|
And may diseases lick up their false bloods!
|
|
And so farewell and thrive.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS O, let me stay,
|
|
And comfort you, my master.
|
|
|
|
TIMON If thou hatest curses,
|
|
Stay not; fly, whilst thou art blest and free:
|
|
Ne'er see thou man, and let me ne'er see thee.
|
|
|
|
[Exit FLAVIUS. TIMON retires to his cave]
|
|
|
|
TIMON OF ATHENS
|
|
|
|
ACT V
|
|
|
|
SCENE I The woods. Before Timon's cave.
|
|
|
|
[Enter Poet and Painter; TIMON watching
|
|
them from his cave]
|
|
|
|
Painter As I took note of the place, it cannot be far where
|
|
he abides.
|
|
|
|
Poet What's to be thought of him? does the rumour hold
|
|
for true, that he's so full of gold?
|
|
|
|
Painter Certain: Alcibiades reports it; Phrynia and
|
|
Timandra had gold of him: he likewise enriched poor
|
|
straggling soldiers with great quantity: 'tis said
|
|
he gave unto his steward a mighty sum.
|
|
|
|
Poet Then this breaking of his has been but a try for his friends.
|
|
|
|
Painter Nothing else: you shall see him a palm in Athens
|
|
again, and flourish with the highest. Therefore
|
|
'tis not amiss we tender our loves to him, in this
|
|
supposed distress of his: it will show honestly in
|
|
us; and is very likely to load our purposes with
|
|
what they travail for, if it be a just true report
|
|
that goes of his having.
|
|
|
|
Poet What have you now to present unto him?
|
|
|
|
Painter Nothing at this time but my visitation: only I will
|
|
promise him an excellent piece.
|
|
|
|
Poet I must serve him so too, tell him of an intent
|
|
that's coming toward him.
|
|
|
|
Painter Good as the best. Promising is the very air o' the
|
|
time: it opens the eyes of expectation:
|
|
performance is ever the duller for his act; and,
|
|
but in the plainer and simpler kind of people, the
|
|
deed of saying is quite out of use. To promise is
|
|
most courtly and fashionable: performance is a kind
|
|
of will or testament which argues a great sickness
|
|
in his judgment that makes it.
|
|
|
|
[TIMON comes from his cave, behind]
|
|
|
|
TIMON [Aside] Excellent workman! thou canst not paint a
|
|
man so bad as is thyself.
|
|
|
|
Poet I am thinking what I shall say I have provided for
|
|
him: it must be a personating of himself; a satire
|
|
against the softness of prosperity, with a discovery
|
|
of the infinite flatteries that follow youth and opulency.
|
|
|
|
TIMON [Aside] Must thou needs stand for a villain in
|
|
thine own work? wilt thou whip thine own faults in
|
|
other men? Do so, I have gold for thee.
|
|
|
|
Poet Nay, let's seek him:
|
|
Then do we sin against our own estate,
|
|
When we may profit meet, and come too late.
|
|
|
|
Painter True;
|
|
When the day serves, before black-corner'd night,
|
|
Find what thou want'st by free and offer'd light. Come.
|
|
|
|
TIMON [Aside] I'll meet you at the turn. What a
|
|
god's gold,
|
|
That he is worshipp'd in a baser temple
|
|
Than where swine feed!
|
|
'Tis thou that rigg'st the bark and plough'st the foam,
|
|
Settlest admired reverence in a slave:
|
|
To thee be worship! and thy saints for aye
|
|
Be crown'd with plagues that thee alone obey!
|
|
Fit I meet them.
|
|
|
|
[Coming forward]
|
|
|
|
Poet Hail, worthy Timon!
|
|
|
|
Painter Our late noble master!
|
|
|
|
TIMON Have I once lived to see two honest men?
|
|
|
|
Poet Sir,
|
|
Having often of your open bounty tasted,
|
|
Hearing you were retired, your friends fall'n off,
|
|
Whose thankless natures--O abhorred spirits!--
|
|
Not all the whips of heaven are large enough:
|
|
What! to you,
|
|
Whose star-like nobleness gave life and influence
|
|
To their whole being! I am rapt and cannot cover
|
|
The monstrous bulk of this ingratitude
|
|
With any size of words.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Let it go naked, men may see't the better:
|
|
You that are honest, by being what you are,
|
|
Make them best seen and known.
|
|
|
|
Painter He and myself
|
|
Have travail'd in the great shower of your gifts,
|
|
And sweetly felt it.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Ay, you are honest men.
|
|
|
|
Painter We are hither come to offer you our service.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Most honest men! Why, how shall I requite you?
|
|
Can you eat roots, and drink cold water? no.
|
|
|
|
Both What we can do, we'll do, to do you service.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Ye're honest men: ye've heard that I have gold;
|
|
I am sure you have: speak truth; ye're honest men.
|
|
|
|
Painter So it is said, my noble lord; but therefore
|
|
Came not my friend nor I.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Good honest men! Thou draw'st a counterfeit
|
|
Best in all Athens: thou'rt, indeed, the best;
|
|
Thou counterfeit'st most lively.
|
|
|
|
Painter So, so, my lord.
|
|
|
|
TIMON E'en so, sir, as I say. And, for thy fiction,
|
|
Why, thy verse swells with stuff so fine and smooth
|
|
That thou art even natural in thine art.
|
|
But, for all this, my honest-natured friends,
|
|
I must needs say you have a little fault:
|
|
Marry, 'tis not monstrous in you, neither wish I
|
|
You take much pains to mend.
|
|
|
|
Both Beseech your honour
|
|
To make it known to us.
|
|
|
|
TIMON You'll take it ill.
|
|
|
|
Both Most thankfully, my lord.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Will you, indeed?
|
|
|
|
Both Doubt it not, worthy lord.
|
|
|
|
TIMON There's never a one of you but trusts a knave,
|
|
That mightily deceives you.
|
|
|
|
Both Do we, my lord?
|
|
|
|
TIMON Ay, and you hear him cog, see him dissemble,
|
|
Know his gross patchery, love him, feed him,
|
|
Keep in your bosom: yet remain assured
|
|
That he's a made-up villain.
|
|
|
|
Painter I know none such, my lord.
|
|
|
|
Poet Nor I.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Look you, I love you well; I'll give you gold,
|
|
Rid me these villains from your companies:
|
|
Hang them or stab them, drown them in a draught,
|
|
Confound them by some course, and come to me,
|
|
I'll give you gold enough.
|
|
|
|
Both Name them, my lord, let's know them.
|
|
|
|
TIMON You that way and you this, but two in company;
|
|
Each man apart, all single and alone,
|
|
Yet an arch-villain keeps him company.
|
|
If where thou art two villains shall not be,
|
|
Come not near him. If thou wouldst not reside
|
|
But where one villain is, then him abandon.
|
|
Hence, pack! there's gold; you came for gold, ye slaves:
|
|
|
|
[To Painter]
|
|
|
|
You have work'd for me; there's payment for you: hence!
|
|
|
|
[To Poet]
|
|
|
|
You are an alchemist; make gold of that.
|
|
Out, rascal dogs!
|
|
|
|
[Beats them out, and then retires to his cave]
|
|
|
|
[Enter FLAVIUS and two Senators]
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS It is in vain that you would speak with Timon;
|
|
For he is set so only to himself
|
|
That nothing but himself which looks like man
|
|
Is friendly with him.
|
|
|
|
First Senator Bring us to his cave:
|
|
It is our part and promise to the Athenians
|
|
To speak with Timon.
|
|
|
|
Second Senator At all times alike
|
|
Men are not still the same: 'twas time and griefs
|
|
That framed him thus: time, with his fairer hand,
|
|
Offering the fortunes of his former days,
|
|
The former man may make him. Bring us to him,
|
|
And chance it as it may.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS Here is his cave.
|
|
Peace and content be here! Lord Timon! Timon!
|
|
Look out, and speak to friends: the Athenians,
|
|
By two of their most reverend senate, greet thee:
|
|
Speak to them, noble Timon.
|
|
|
|
[TIMON comes from his cave]
|
|
|
|
TIMON Thou sun, that comfort'st, burn! Speak, and
|
|
be hang'd:
|
|
For each true word, a blister! and each false
|
|
Be as cauterizing to the root o' the tongue,
|
|
Consuming it with speaking!
|
|
|
|
First Senator Worthy Timon,--
|
|
|
|
TIMON Of none but such as you, and you of Timon.
|
|
|
|
First Senator The senators of Athens greet thee, Timon.
|
|
|
|
TIMON I thank them; and would send them back the plague,
|
|
Could I but catch it for them.
|
|
|
|
First Senator O, forget
|
|
What we are sorry for ourselves in thee.
|
|
The senators with one consent of love
|
|
Entreat thee back to Athens; who have thought
|
|
On special dignities, which vacant lie
|
|
For thy best use and wearing.
|
|
|
|
Second Senator They confess
|
|
Toward thee forgetfulness too general, gross:
|
|
Which now the public body, which doth seldom
|
|
Play the recanter, feeling in itself
|
|
A lack of Timon's aid, hath sense withal
|
|
Of its own fail, restraining aid to Timon;
|
|
And send forth us, to make their sorrow'd render,
|
|
Together with a recompense more fruitful
|
|
Than their offence can weigh down by the dram;
|
|
Ay, even such heaps and sums of love and wealth
|
|
As shall to thee blot out what wrongs were theirs
|
|
And write in thee the figures of their love,
|
|
Ever to read them thine.
|
|
|
|
TIMON You witch me in it;
|
|
Surprise me to the very brink of tears:
|
|
Lend me a fool's heart and a woman's eyes,
|
|
And I'll beweep these comforts, worthy senators.
|
|
|
|
First Senator Therefore, so please thee to return with us
|
|
And of our Athens, thine and ours, to take
|
|
The captainship, thou shalt be met with thanks,
|
|
Allow'd with absolute power and thy good name
|
|
Live with authority: so soon we shall drive back
|
|
Of Alcibiades the approaches wild,
|
|
Who, like a boar too savage, doth root up
|
|
His country's peace.
|
|
|
|
Second Senator And shakes his threatening sword
|
|
Against the walls of Athens.
|
|
|
|
First Senator Therefore, Timon,--
|
|
|
|
TIMON Well, sir, I will; therefore, I will, sir; thus:
|
|
If Alcibiades kill my countrymen,
|
|
Let Alcibiades know this of Timon,
|
|
That Timon cares not. But if be sack fair Athens,
|
|
And take our goodly aged men by the beards,
|
|
Giving our holy virgins to the stain
|
|
Of contumelious, beastly, mad-brain'd war,
|
|
Then let him know, and tell him Timon speaks it,
|
|
In pity of our aged and our youth,
|
|
I cannot choose but tell him, that I care not,
|
|
And let him take't at worst; for their knives care not,
|
|
While you have throats to answer: for myself,
|
|
There's not a whittle in the unruly camp
|
|
But I do prize it at my love before
|
|
The reverend'st throat in Athens. So I leave you
|
|
To the protection of the prosperous gods,
|
|
As thieves to keepers.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS Stay not, all's in vain.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Why, I was writing of my epitaph;
|
|
it will be seen to-morrow: my long sickness
|
|
Of health and living now begins to mend,
|
|
And nothing brings me all things. Go, live still;
|
|
Be Alcibiades your plague, you his,
|
|
And last so long enough!
|
|
|
|
First Senator We speak in vain.
|
|
|
|
TIMON But yet I love my country, and am not
|
|
One that rejoices in the common wreck,
|
|
As common bruit doth put it.
|
|
|
|
First Senator That's well spoke.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Commend me to my loving countrymen,--
|
|
|
|
First Senator These words become your lips as they pass
|
|
thorough them.
|
|
|
|
Second Senator And enter in our ears like great triumphers
|
|
In their applauding gates.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Commend me to them,
|
|
And tell them that, to ease them of their griefs,
|
|
Their fears of hostile strokes, their aches, losses,
|
|
Their pangs of love, with other incident throes
|
|
That nature's fragile vessel doth sustain
|
|
In life's uncertain voyage, I will some kindness do them:
|
|
I'll teach them to prevent wild Alcibiades' wrath.
|
|
|
|
First Senator I like this well; he will return again.
|
|
|
|
TIMON I have a tree, which grows here in my close,
|
|
That mine own use invites me to cut down,
|
|
And shortly must I fell it: tell my friends,
|
|
Tell Athens, in the sequence of degree
|
|
From high to low throughout, that whoso please
|
|
To stop affliction, let him take his haste,
|
|
Come hither, ere my tree hath felt the axe,
|
|
And hang himself. I pray you, do my greeting.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS Trouble him no further; thus you still shall find him.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Come not to me again: but say to Athens,
|
|
Timon hath made his everlasting mansion
|
|
Upon the beached verge of the salt flood;
|
|
Who once a day with his embossed froth
|
|
The turbulent surge shall cover: thither come,
|
|
And let my grave-stone be your oracle.
|
|
Lips, let sour words go by and language end:
|
|
What is amiss plague and infection mend!
|
|
Graves only be men's works and death their gain!
|
|
Sun, hide thy beams! Timon hath done his reign.
|
|
|
|
[Retires to his cave]
|
|
|
|
First Senator His discontents are unremoveably
|
|
Coupled to nature.
|
|
|
|
Second Senator Our hope in him is dead: let us return,
|
|
And strain what other means is left unto us
|
|
In our dear peril.
|
|
|
|
First Senator It requires swift foot.
|
|
|
|
[Exeunt]
|
|
|
|
TIMON OF ATHENS
|
|
|
|
ACT V
|
|
|
|
SCENE II Before the walls of Athens.
|
|
|
|
[Enter two Senators and a Messenger]
|
|
|
|
First Senator Thou hast painfully discover'd: are his files
|
|
As full as thy report?
|
|
|
|
Messenger have spoke the least:
|
|
Besides, his expedition promises
|
|
Present approach.
|
|
|
|
Second Senator We stand much hazard, if they bring not Timon.
|
|
|
|
Messenger I met a courier, one mine ancient friend;
|
|
Whom, though in general part we were opposed,
|
|
Yet our old love made a particular force,
|
|
And made us speak like friends: this man was riding
|
|
From Alcibiades to Timon's cave,
|
|
With letters of entreaty, which imported
|
|
His fellowship i' the cause against your city,
|
|
In part for his sake moved.
|
|
|
|
First Senator Here come our brothers.
|
|
|
|
[Enter the Senators from TIMON]
|
|
|
|
Third Senator No talk of Timon, nothing of him expect.
|
|
The enemies' drum is heard, and fearful scouring
|
|
Doth choke the air with dust: in, and prepare:
|
|
Ours is the fall, I fear; our foes the snare.
|
|
|
|
[Exeunt]
|
|
|
|
TIMON OF ATHENS
|
|
|
|
ACT V
|
|
|
|
SCENE III The woods. Timon's cave, and a rude tomb seen.
|
|
|
|
[Enter a Soldier, seeking TIMON]
|
|
|
|
Soldier By all description this should be the place.
|
|
Who's here? speak, ho! No answer! What is this?
|
|
Timon is dead, who hath outstretch'd his span:
|
|
Some beast rear'd this; there does not live a man.
|
|
Dead, sure; and this his grave. What's on this tomb
|
|
I cannot read; the character I'll take with wax:
|
|
Our captain hath in every figure skill,
|
|
An aged interpreter, though young in days:
|
|
Before proud Athens he's set down by this,
|
|
Whose fall the mark of his ambition is.
|
|
|
|
[Exit]
|
|
|
|
TIMON OF ATHENS
|
|
|
|
ACT V
|
|
|
|
SCENE IV Before the walls of Athens.
|
|
|
|
[Trumpets sound. Enter ALCIBIADES with his powers]
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES Sound to this coward and lascivious town
|
|
Our terrible approach.
|
|
|
|
[A parley sounded]
|
|
|
|
[Enter Senators on the walls]
|
|
|
|
Till now you have gone on and fill'd the time
|
|
With all licentious measure, making your wills
|
|
The scope of justice; till now myself and such
|
|
As slept within the shadow of your power
|
|
Have wander'd with our traversed arms and breathed
|
|
Our sufferance vainly: now the time is flush,
|
|
When crouching marrow in the bearer strong
|
|
Cries of itself 'No more:' now breathless wrong
|
|
Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease,
|
|
And pursy insolence shall break his wind
|
|
With fear and horrid flight.
|
|
|
|
First Senator Noble and young,
|
|
When thy first griefs were but a mere conceit,
|
|
Ere thou hadst power or we had cause of fear,
|
|
We sent to thee, to give thy rages balm,
|
|
To wipe out our ingratitude with loves
|
|
Above their quantity.
|
|
|
|
Second Senator So did we woo
|
|
Transformed Timon to our city's love
|
|
By humble message and by promised means:
|
|
We were not all unkind, nor all deserve
|
|
The common stroke of war.
|
|
|
|
First Senator These walls of ours
|
|
Were not erected by their hands from whom
|
|
You have received your griefs; nor are they such
|
|
That these great towers, trophies and schools
|
|
should fall
|
|
For private faults in them.
|
|
|
|
Second Senator Nor are they living
|
|
Who were the motives that you first went out;
|
|
Shame that they wanted cunning, in excess
|
|
Hath broke their hearts. March, noble lord,
|
|
Into our city with thy banners spread:
|
|
By decimation, and a tithed death--
|
|
If thy revenges hunger for that food
|
|
Which nature loathes--take thou the destined tenth,
|
|
And by the hazard of the spotted die
|
|
Let die the spotted.
|
|
|
|
First Senator All have not offended;
|
|
For those that were, it is not square to take
|
|
On those that are, revenges: crimes, like lands,
|
|
Are not inherited. Then, dear countryman,
|
|
Bring in thy ranks, but leave without thy rage:
|
|
Spare thy Athenian cradle and those kin
|
|
Which in the bluster of thy wrath must fall
|
|
With those that have offended: like a shepherd,
|
|
Approach the fold and cull the infected forth,
|
|
But kill not all together.
|
|
|
|
Second Senator What thou wilt,
|
|
Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smile
|
|
Than hew to't with thy sword.
|
|
|
|
First Senator Set but thy foot
|
|
Against our rampired gates, and they shall ope;
|
|
So thou wilt send thy gentle heart before,
|
|
To say thou'lt enter friendly.
|
|
|
|
Second Senator Throw thy glove,
|
|
Or any token of thine honour else,
|
|
That thou wilt use the wars as thy redress
|
|
And not as our confusion, all thy powers
|
|
Shall make their harbour in our town, till we
|
|
Have seal'd thy full desire.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES Then there's my glove;
|
|
Descend, and open your uncharged ports:
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Those enemies of Timon's and mine own
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Whom you yourselves shall set out for reproof
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Fall and no more: and, to atone your fears
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With my more noble meaning, not a man
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Shall pass his quarter, or offend the stream
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Of regular justice in your city's bounds,
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But shall be render'd to your public laws
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At heaviest answer.
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Both 'Tis most nobly spoken.
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ALCIBIADES Descend, and keep your words.
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[The Senators descend, and open the gates]
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[Enter Soldier]
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Soldier My noble general, Timon is dead;
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Entomb'd upon the very hem o' the sea;
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And on his grave-stone this insculpture, which
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With wax I brought away, whose soft impression
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Interprets for my poor ignorance.
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ALCIBIADES [Reads the epitaph] 'Here lies a
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wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft:
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Seek not my name: a plague consume you wicked
|
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caitiffs left!
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Here lie I, Timon; who, alive, all living men did hate:
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Pass by and curse thy fill, but pass and stay
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|
not here thy gait.'
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|
These well express in thee thy latter spirits:
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Though thou abhorr'dst in us our human griefs,
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Scorn'dst our brain's flow and those our
|
|
droplets which
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From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit
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Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye
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On thy low grave, on faults forgiven. Dead
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Is noble Timon: of whose memory
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Hereafter more. Bring me into your city,
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And I will use the olive with my sword,
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Make war breed peace, make peace stint war, make each
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Prescribe to other as each other's leech.
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Let our drums strike.
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[Exeunt]
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