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Timon of Athens
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by William Shakespeare
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Edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine
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with Michael Poston and Rebecca Niles
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Folger Shakespeare Library
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https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/timon-of-athens/
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Created on Jul 31, 2015, from FDT version 0.9.2
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Characters in the Play
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======================
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TIMON, a noble Athenian
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FLAVIUS, his steward
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Servants of Timon:
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LUCILIUS
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FLAMINIUS
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SERVILIUS
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Other SERVANTS of Timon
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APEMANTUS, a Cynic philosopher
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ALCIBIADES, an Athenian Captain
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His concubines:
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PHRYNIA
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TIMANDRA
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SOLDIER of Alcibiades
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SENATORS and LORDS of Athens
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Friends of Timon:
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LUCIUS
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LUCULLUS
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SEMPRONIUS
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VENTIDIUS
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Other FRIENDS of Timon
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Servants of Timon's creditors:
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CAPHIS, servant to a Senator
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ISIDORE'S MAN
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VARRO'S two MEN
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TITUS
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LUCIUS' MAN
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HORTENSIUS
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PHILOTUS
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A POET
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A PAINTER
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A JEWELER
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A MERCHANT
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An OLD ATHENIAN
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FOOL
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PAGE
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Three STRANGERS, one called HOSTILIUS
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BANDITTI, theives
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"Cupid" and other Maskers (as Amazons)
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Soldiers, Servants, Messengers, Attendants, Musicians
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ACT 1
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=====
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Scene 1
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=======
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[Enter Poet, Painter, Jeweler, and Merchant, at several
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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
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I have not seen you long. How goes the world?
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PAINTER
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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 jeweler.
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MERCHANT, [to Jeweler]
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O, 'tis a worthy lord!
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JEWELER Nay, that's most fixed.
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MERCHANT
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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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JEWELER I have a jewel here--
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MERCHANT
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O, pray, let's see 't. For the Lord Timon, sir?
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JEWELER
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If he will touch the estimate. But for that--
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POET, [to Painter]
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When we for recompense have 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, [looking at the jewel]
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'Tis a good form.
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JEWELER And rich. Here is a water, look ye.
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PAINTER, [to Poet]
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You are rapt, sir, in some work, some dedication
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To the great lord.
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POET A thing slipped idly from me.
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Our poesy is as a gum which oozes
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From whence 'tis nourished. The fire i' th' 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 chases. What have you there?
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PAINTER
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A picture, sir. When comes your book forth?
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POET
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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
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So 'tis. This comes off well and excellent.
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PAINTER
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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 th' dumbness of the gesture
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One might interpret.
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PAINTER
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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.]
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PAINTER How this lord is followed.
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POET
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The senators of Athens, happy men.
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PAINTER Look, more.
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POET
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You see this confluence, this great flood of visitors.
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[(Indicating his poem.)] I have in this rough work
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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 leveled 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 slipp'ry 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
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Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill
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Feigned Fortune to be throned. The base o' th' mount
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Is ranked with all deserts, all kind of natures
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That labor 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 fixed,
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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 beckoned from the rest below,
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Bowing his head against the steepy mount
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To climb his happiness, would be well expressed
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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
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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 labored 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
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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 Lord Timon, addressing himself
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courteously to every suitor. He is accompanied by a
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Messenger and followed by Lucilius and other
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Servants.]
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TIMON Imprisoned is he, say you?
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MESSENGER
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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 honorable 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 and free him.
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MESSENGER Your Lordship ever binds him.
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TIMON
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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 Honor. [He exits.]
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[Enter an old Athenian.]
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OLD MAN
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Lord Timon, hear me speak.
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TIMON Freely, good father.
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OLD MAN
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Thou hast a servant named Lucilius.
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TIMON I have so. What of him?
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OLD MAN
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Most noble Timon, call the man before thee.
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TIMON
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Attends he here or no?--Lucilius!
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LUCILIUS Here, at your Lordship's service.
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OLD MAN
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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 MAN
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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' th' 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 MAN 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 MAN 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
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Ay, my good lord, and she accepts of it.
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OLD MAN
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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 endowed
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If she be mated with an equal husband?
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OLD MAN
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Three talents on the present; in future, all.
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TIMON
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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 MAN Most noble lord,
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Pawn me to this your honor, she is his.
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TIMON
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My hand to thee; mine honor on my promise.
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LUCILIUS
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Humbly I thank your Lordship. Never may
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That state or fortune fall into my keeping
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Which is not owed to you.
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[He exits with the old Athenian.]
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POET, [presenting his poem to Timon]
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Vouchsafe my labor, and long live your Lordship.
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TIMON
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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
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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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For, since dishonor traffics with man's nature,
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He is but outside; these penciled 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 you.
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TIMON
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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 suffered under praise.
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JEWELER What, my lord? Dispraise?
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TIMON
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A mere satiety of commendations.
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If I should pay you for 't as 'tis extolled,
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It would unclew me quite.
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JEWELER 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 mocked.
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MERCHANT
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No, my good lord. He speaks the common tongue,
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Which all men speak with him.
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[Enter Apemantus.]
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TIMON Look who comes here. Will you be chid?
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JEWELER We'll bear, with your Lordship.
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MERCHANT He'll spare none.
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TIMON
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Good morrow to thee, gentle Apemantus.
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APEMANTUS
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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
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Why dost thou call them knaves? Thou know'st
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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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JEWELER You know me, Apemantus?
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APEMANTUS Thou know'st I do. I called thee by thy
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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
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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 th' law.
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TIMON How lik'st 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,
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and yet 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
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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 'dst anger ladies.
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APEMANTUS O, they eat lords. So they come by great
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bellies.
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TIMON That's a lascivious apprehension.
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APEMANTUS So thou apprehend'st it. Take it for thy
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labor.
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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
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not cost a 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,
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where thou 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
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for thy labor. He that loves to be flattered is worthy
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o' th' 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
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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.--Art
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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
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thee!
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[Trumpet sounds. Enter a Messenger.]
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TIMON What trumpet's that?
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MESSENGER
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'Tis Alcibiades and some twenty horse,
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All of companionship.
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TIMON
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Pray, entertain them. Give them guide to us.
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[Some Servants exit with Messenger.]
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You must needs dine with me. Go not you hence
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Till I have thanked 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. [They bow to each other.]
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APEMANTUS, [apart] So, so, there!
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Aches contract and starve your supple joints!
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That there should be small love amongst these sweet
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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, [to Timon]
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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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[All but Apemantus exit.]
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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
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The most accursed thou, that still omit'st it.
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SECOND LORD Thou art going to Lord Timon's feast?
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APEMANTUS
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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
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Thou art a fool to bid me farewell twice.
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SECOND LORD Why, Apemantus?
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APEMANTUS
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Shouldst have kept one to thyself, for I mean to give
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thee none.
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FIRST LORD Hang thyself.
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APEMANTUS
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No, I will do nothing at thy bidding.
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Make thy requests to thy friend.
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SECOND LORD
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Away, unpeaceable dog, or I'll spurn thee hence.
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APEMANTUS I will fly, like a dog, the heels o' th' ass.
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[He exits.]
|
|
|
|
FIRST LORD
|
|
He's opposite to humanity. Come, shall we in
|
|
And taste Lord Timon's bounty? He outgoes
|
|
The very heart of kindness.
|
|
|
|
SECOND LORD
|
|
He pours it out. Plutus, the god of gold,
|
|
Is but his steward. No meed but he repays
|
|
Sevenfold above itself. No gift to him
|
|
But breeds the giver a return exceeding
|
|
All use of quittance.
|
|
|
|
FIRST LORD The noblest mind he carries
|
|
That ever governed man.
|
|
|
|
SECOND LORD
|
|
Long may he live in fortunes. Shall we in?
|
|
I'll keep you company.
|
|
[They exit.]
|
|
|
|
Scene 2
|
|
=======
|
|
[Hautboys playing loud music. A great banquet served
|
|
in, and then enter Lord Timon, the States, the Athenian
|
|
Lords (including Lucius), Alcibiades, and Ventidius
|
|
(which Timon redeemed from prison). Flavius and others
|
|
are in attendance. Then comes dropping after all
|
|
Apemantus discontentedly like himself.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
VENTIDIUS Most honored 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. [He offers a purse.]
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
VENTIDIUS A noble spirit!
|
|
|
|
TIMON
|
|
Nay, my lords, 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 you to my fortunes
|
|
Than my fortunes to me. [They sit.]
|
|
|
|
FIRST LORD My lord, we always have confessed it.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS
|
|
Ho, ho, "confessed it"? Hanged it, have you not?
|
|
|
|
TIMON O Apemantus, you are welcome.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS No, you shall not make me welcome.
|
|
I come to have thee thrust me out of doors.
|
|
|
|
TIMON
|
|
Fie, thou 'rt a churl. You've got a humor 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. [(Apart.)] O you gods,
|
|
what a number of men eats 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 draft, is the readiest
|
|
man to kill him. 'T 'as been proved. If I were a huge
|
|
man, I should fear to drink at meals,
|
|
Lest they should spy my wind-pipe's dangerous
|
|
notes.
|
|
Great men should drink with harness on their
|
|
throats.
|
|
|
|
TIMON, [responding to a toast]
|
|
My lord, in heart! And let the health go round.
|
|
|
|
SECOND LORD Let it flow this way, my good lord.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS, [apart] "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' th' 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.
|
|
[He 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 they were bleeding new, my lord,
|
|
there's no meat like 'em. I could wish my best
|
|
friend at such a feast.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS, [apart] Would all those flatterers 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 forever 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 keeps
|
|
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 call 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's 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, [apart] Thou weep'st 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, [apart]
|
|
Ho, ho! I laugh to think that babe a bastard.
|
|
|
|
THIRD LORD
|
|
I promise you, my lord, you moved me much.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS, [apart] Much! [Sound tucket.]
|
|
|
|
TIMON What means that trump?
|
|
|
|
[Enter 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. [Servant exits.]
|
|
|
|
[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. There
|
|
Taste, touch, all, pleased from thy table rise;
|
|
They only now come but to feast thine eyes.
|
|
|
|
TIMON
|
|
They're welcome all. Let 'em have kind admittance.
|
|
Music, make their welcome!
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS
|
|
You see, my lord, how ample you're beloved.
|
|
|
|
[Music. Enter the masque of Ladies as Amazons,
|
|
with lutes in their hands, dancing and playing.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS, [apart] Hoy-day!
|
|
What a sweep of vanity comes this way.
|
|
They dance? They are madwomen.
|
|
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 'as 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 single 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 luster,
|
|
And entertained me with mine own device.
|
|
I am to thank you for 't.
|
|
|
|
FIRST LADY
|
|
My lord, you take us even at the best.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS, [apart] 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.
|
|
[Cupid and Ladies exit.]
|
|
|
|
TIMON Flavius.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS
|
|
My lord?
|
|
|
|
TIMON The little casket bring me hither.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS Yes, my lord. [(Aside.)] More jewels yet?
|
|
There is no crossing him in 's humor;
|
|
Else I should tell him well, i' faith I should.
|
|
When all's spent, he'd be crossed then, an he could.
|
|
'Tis pity bounty had not eyes behind,
|
|
That man might ne'er be wretched for his mind.
|
|
[He exits.]
|
|
|
|
FIRST LORD Where be our men?
|
|
|
|
SERVANT Here, my lord, in readiness.
|
|
|
|
SECOND LORD
|
|
Our horses.
|
|
|
|
[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, honor 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. [Servant exits.]
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS I beseech your Honor,
|
|
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 another Servant.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
SECOND SERVANT
|
|
May it please your Honor, Lord Lucius,
|
|
Out of his free love, hath presented to you
|
|
Four milk-white horses trapped in silver.
|
|
|
|
TIMON
|
|
I shall accept them fairly. Let the presents
|
|
Be worthily entertained. [Servant exits.]
|
|
|
|
[Enter a third Servant.]
|
|
|
|
How now? What news?
|
|
|
|
THIRD SERVANT Please you, my lord, that honorable
|
|
gentleman Lord Lucullus entreats your company
|
|
tomorrow to hunt with him and has sent your
|
|
Honor two brace of greyhounds.
|
|
|
|
TIMON
|
|
I'll hunt with him; and let them be received,
|
|
Not without fair reward. [Servant exits.]
|
|
|
|
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 ev'ry 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. [He exits.]
|
|
|
|
TIMON, [to Lords] You do yourselves much wrong.
|
|
You bate too much of your own merits.
|
|
[(Offering a gift.)] 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. 'Tis
|
|
yours because you liked it.
|
|
|
|
FIRST 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 friends' 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 pitched 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 endeared--
|
|
|
|
TIMON All to you.--Lights, more lights.
|
|
|
|
FIRST LORD
|
|
The best of happiness, honor, and fortunes
|
|
Keep with you, Lord Timon.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Ready for his friends.
|
|
[All but Timon and Apemantus exit.]
|
|
|
|
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 giv'st so
|
|
long, Timon, I fear me thou wilt give away thyself
|
|
in paper shortly. What needs these feasts, pomps,
|
|
and vainglories?
|
|
|
|
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. [He exits.]
|
|
|
|
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!
|
|
[He exits.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
ACT 2
|
|
=====
|
|
|
|
Scene 1
|
|
=======
|
|
[Enter a Senator, with papers.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
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 sound 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 honor him
|
|
But must not break my back to heal his finger.
|
|
Immediate are my needs, and my relief
|
|
Must not be tossed and turned 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. Come.
|
|
[He hands Caphis papers.]
|
|
|
|
CAPHIS I will, sir.
|
|
|
|
SENATOR Go.
|
|
[They exit.]
|
|
|
|
Scene 2
|
|
=======
|
|
[Enter Steward 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 Men of Isidore and Varro.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
CAPHIS
|
|
Good even, Varro. What, you come for money?
|
|
|
|
VARRO'S MAN Is 't not your business too?
|
|
|
|
CAPHIS It is. And yours too, Isidore?
|
|
|
|
ISIDORE'S MAN It is so.
|
|
|
|
CAPHIS Would we were all discharged!
|
|
|
|
VARRO'S MAN I fear it.
|
|
|
|
CAPHIS Here comes the lord.
|
|
|
|
[Enter Timon, and his train, with Alcibiades.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
TIMON
|
|
So soon as dinner's done we'll forth again,
|
|
My Alcibiades. [(To Caphis.)] With me? What is your
|
|
will?
|
|
|
|
CAPHIS, [offering Timon a paper]
|
|
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 MAN, [offering a paper] One Varro's servant,
|
|
my good lord--
|
|
|
|
ISIDORE'S MAN, [offering a paper]
|
|
From Isidore. He humbly prays your speedy
|
|
payment.
|
|
|
|
CAPHIS
|
|
If you did know, my lord, my master's wants--
|
|
|
|
VARRO'S MAN
|
|
'Twas due on forfeiture, my lord, six weeks and past.
|
|
|
|
ISIDORE'S MAN
|
|
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.
|
|
[Alcibiades and Timon's train exit.]
|
|
[To Flavius.] Come hither. Pray you,
|
|
How goes the world that I am thus encountered
|
|
With clamorous demands of debt, broken bonds,
|
|
And the detention of long-since-due debts
|
|
Against my honor?
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS, [to the creditors' Men] 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 entertained.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS Pray, draw near.
|
|
[Timon and Flavius exit.]
|
|
|
|
[Enter Apemantus and Fool.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
CAPHIS Stay, stay, here comes the Fool with Apemantus.
|
|
Let's ha' some sport with 'em.
|
|
|
|
VARRO'S MAN Hang him! He'll abuse us.
|
|
|
|
ISIDORE'S MAN A plague upon him, dog!
|
|
|
|
VARRO'S MAN How dost, Fool?
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Dost dialogue with thy shadow?
|
|
|
|
VARRO'S MAN I speak not to thee.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS No, 'tis to thyself. [(To the Fool.)] Come
|
|
away.
|
|
|
|
ISIDORE'S MAN, [to Varro's Man] There's the fool hangs
|
|
on your back already.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS No, thou stand'st single; thou 'rt not on
|
|
him yet.
|
|
|
|
CAPHIS, [to Isidore's Man] Where's the fool now?
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS He last asked the question. Poor rogues
|
|
and usurers' men, bawds between gold and want.
|
|
|
|
ALL THE MEN What are we, Apemantus?
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Asses.
|
|
|
|
ALL THE MEN Why?
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS That you ask me what you are, and do not
|
|
know yourselves.--Speak to 'em, Fool.
|
|
|
|
FOOL How do you, gentlemen?
|
|
|
|
ALL THE MEN 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 master's page.
|
|
|
|
PAGE, [to 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.
|
|
[He shows some papers.]
|
|
|
|
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 'lt die a bawd.
|
|
|
|
PAGE Thou wast whelped a dog, and thou shalt famish
|
|
a dog's death. Answer not. I am gone. [He exits.]
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS E'en so thou outrunn'st 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 THE MEN 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 THE MEN 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 master's
|
|
house merrily and go away sadly. The reason
|
|
of this?
|
|
|
|
VARRO'S MAN I could render one.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Do it then, that we may account thee a
|
|
whoremaster and a knave, which notwithstanding,
|
|
thou shalt be no less esteemed.
|
|
|
|
VARRO'S MAN 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 more 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 MAN Thou art not altogether a Fool.
|
|
|
|
FOOL Nor thou altogether a wise man. As much foolery
|
|
as I have, so much wit thou lack'st.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS That answer might have become Apemantus.
|
|
|
|
ALL THE MEN Aside, aside! Here comes Lord Timon.
|
|
|
|
[Enter Timon and Steward Flavius.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Come with me, fool, come.
|
|
|
|
FOOL I do not always follow lover, elder brother, and
|
|
woman; sometime the philosopher.
|
|
[Apemantus and the Fool exit.]
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS, [to the creditors' Men]
|
|
Pray you, walk near. I'll speak with you anon.
|
|
[The Men exit.]
|
|
|
|
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 th' authority of manners prayed you
|
|
To hold your hand more close. I did endure
|
|
Not seldom nor no slight checks 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 reck'ning?
|
|
|
|
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 of falsehood,
|
|
Call me before th' exactest auditors,
|
|
And set me on the proof. So the gods bless me,
|
|
When all our offices have been oppressed
|
|
With riotous feeders, when our vaults have wept
|
|
With drunken spilth of wine, when every room
|
|
Hath blazed with lights and brayed 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 couched.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Come, sermon me no further.
|
|
No villainous bounty yet hath passed 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 crowned,
|
|
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 three Servants, Flaminius, Servilius, and another.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
SERVANTS My lord, my lord.
|
|
|
|
TIMON I will dispatch you severally. [(To Servilius)]
|
|
You to Lord Lucius, [(to Flaminius)] to Lord
|
|
Lucullus you--I hunted with his Honor today; [(to
|
|
the third Servant)] 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. [Servants exit.]
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS, [aside] Lord Lucius and Lucullus? Humh!
|
|
|
|
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' th' 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 honorable,
|
|
But yet they could have wished--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 fashioned for the journey, dull and heavy.
|
|
Go to Ventidius. Prithee, be not sad.
|
|
Thou art true and honest--ingeniously I speak--
|
|
No blame belongs to thee. Ventidius lately
|
|
Buried his father, by whose death he's stepped
|
|
Into a great estate. When he was poor,
|
|
Imprisoned, and in scarcity of friends,
|
|
I cleared him with five talents. Greet him from me.
|
|
Bid him suppose some good necessity
|
|
Touches his friend, which craves to be remembered
|
|
With those five talents. 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.
|
|
[He exits.]
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS I would I could not think it.
|
|
That thought is bounty's foe;
|
|
Being free itself, it thinks all others so.
|
|
[He exits.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
ACT 3
|
|
=====
|
|
|
|
Scene 1
|
|
=======
|
|
[Enter Flaminius waiting to speak with Lucullus,
|
|
from his master.]
|
|
|
|
[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 tonight.--Flaminius, honest
|
|
Flaminius, you are very respectively welcome, sir.
|
|
[(To Servant.)] Fill me some wine. [(Servant exits.)]
|
|
And how does that honorable, 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 Honor
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
[Enter Servant with wine.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
SERVANT Please your Lordship, here is the wine.
|
|
|
|
LUCULLUS Flaminius, I have noted thee always wise.
|
|
Here's to thee. [He drinks.]
|
|
|
|
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.--Get you gone, sirrah. [Servant exits.]
|
|
Draw nearer, honest Flaminius. Thy lord's a bountiful
|
|
gentleman, but thou art wise and thou
|
|
know'st well enough, although thou com'st to me,
|
|
that this is no time to lend money, especially upon
|
|
bare friendship, without security. Here's three solidares
|
|
for thee. [(Gives him money.)] Good boy,
|
|
wink at me, and say thou saw'st 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!
|
|
[He throws the money back at Lucullus.]
|
|
|
|
LUCULLUS Ha! Now I see thou art a fool and fit for thy
|
|
master. [Lucullus exits.]
|
|
|
|
FLAMINIUS
|
|
May these add to the number that may scald thee!
|
|
Let molten 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 my master's passion. This slave
|
|
Unto his honor has my lord's meat in him.
|
|
Why should it thrive and turn to nutriment
|
|
When he is turned 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.
|
|
[He exits.]
|
|
|
|
Scene 2
|
|
=======
|
|
[Enter Lucius, with three Strangers.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS Who, the Lord Timon? He is my very good
|
|
friend and an honorable 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
|
|
rumors: now Lord Timon's happy hours are done
|
|
and past, and his estate shrinks from him.
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS 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 fifty talents, nay, urged
|
|
extremely for 't, and showed what necessity
|
|
belonged to 't, and yet was denied.
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS How?
|
|
|
|
SECOND STRANGER I tell you, denied, my lord.
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS What a strange case was that! Now, before the
|
|
gods, I am ashamed on 't. Denied that honorable
|
|
man? There was very little honor showed in 't. For
|
|
my own part, I must needs confess I have received
|
|
some small kindnesses from him, as money, plate,
|
|
jewels, and suchlike trifles, nothing comparing to
|
|
his; yet had he mistook him and sent to me, I
|
|
should ne'er have denied his occasion fifty talents.
|
|
|
|
[Enter Servilius.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
SERVILIUS, [aside] See, by good hap, yonder's my lord.
|
|
I have sweat to see his Honor. [To Lucius.] My
|
|
honored lord.
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS Servilius. You are kindly met, sir. Fare thee
|
|
well. Commend me to thy honorable virtuous lord,
|
|
my very exquisite friend. [He turns to exit.]
|
|
|
|
SERVILIUS May it please your Honor, my lord hath
|
|
sent--
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS Ha! What has he sent? I am so much endeared
|
|
to that lord; he's ever sending. How shall I thank
|
|
him, think'st 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 fifty talents.
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS
|
|
I know his Lordship is but merry with me.
|
|
He cannot want fifty-five hundred talents.
|
|
|
|
SERVILIUS
|
|
But in the meantime he wants less, my lord.
|
|
If his occasion were not virtuous,
|
|
I should not urge it half so faithfully.
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS
|
|
Dost thou speak seriously, Servilius?
|
|
|
|
SERVILIUS Upon my soul, 'tis true, sir.
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS What a wicked beast was I to disfurnish
|
|
myself against such a good time, when I might ha'
|
|
shown myself honorable! How unluckily it happened
|
|
that I should purchase the day before for a
|
|
little part, and undo a great deal of honor! 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 Honor 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 honorable
|
|
gentleman. Good Servilius, will you
|
|
befriend me so far as to use mine own words to
|
|
him?
|
|
|
|
SERVILIUS Yes, sir, I shall.
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS I'll look you out a good turn, Servilius.
|
|
[Servilius exits.]
|
|
True, as you said, Timon is shrunk indeed,
|
|
And he that's once denied will hardly speed.
|
|
[He exits.]
|
|
|
|
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 sport. 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 honorable carriage,
|
|
Had his necessity made use of me,
|
|
I would have put my wealth into donation,
|
|
And the best half should have returned to him,
|
|
So much I love his heart. But I perceive
|
|
Men must learn now with pity to dispense,
|
|
For policy sits above conscience.
|
|
[They exit.]
|
|
|
|
Scene 3
|
|
=======
|
|
[Enter a Third Servant of Timon's with Sempronius,
|
|
another of Timon's friends.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
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 redeemed from prison. All these
|
|
Owes their estates unto him.
|
|
|
|
SERVANT My lord,
|
|
They have all been touched and found base metal,
|
|
For they have all denied him.
|
|
|
|
SEMPRONIUS How? Have they denied him?
|
|
Has Ventidius and Lucullus denied him,
|
|
And does he send to me? Three? Humh!
|
|
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 th' 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 occasions might have wooed 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 it last? No.
|
|
So it may prove an argument of laughter
|
|
To th' rest, and I 'mongst lords be thought a fool.
|
|
I'd 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 honor shall not know my coin.
|
|
[He exits.]
|
|
|
|
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 employed
|
|
Now to guard sure their master.
|
|
And this is all a liberal course allows:
|
|
Who cannot keep his wealth must keep his house.
|
|
[He exits.]
|
|
|
|
Scene 4
|
|
=======
|
|
[Enter Varro's two Men, meeting Titus and others, all
|
|
being Men of Timon's creditors to wait for his coming
|
|
out. Then enter Lucius' Man and Hortensius.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
VARRO'S FIRST MAN
|
|
Well met. Good morrow, Titus and Hortensius.
|
|
|
|
TITUS
|
|
The like to you, kind Varro.
|
|
|
|
HORTENSIUS Lucius!
|
|
What, do we meet together?
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS' MAN Ay, and I think
|
|
One business does command us all,
|
|
For mine is money.
|
|
|
|
TITUS So is theirs and ours.
|
|
|
|
[Enter Philotus.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS' MAN
|
|
And, sir, Philotus' too.
|
|
|
|
PHILOTUS Good day at once.
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS' MAN Welcome, good brother.
|
|
What do you think the hour?
|
|
|
|
PHILOTUS Laboring for nine.
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS' MAN
|
|
So much?
|
|
|
|
PHILOTUS Is not my lord seen yet?
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS' MAN Not yet.
|
|
|
|
PHILOTUS
|
|
I wonder on 't. He was wont to shine at seven.
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS' MAN
|
|
Ay, but the days are waxed 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 t' 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.
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS' MAN 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 MAN
|
|
Yes, mine's three thousand crowns. What's yours?
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS' MAN Five thousand mine.
|
|
|
|
VARRO'S FIRST MAN
|
|
'Tis much deep, and it should seem by th' sum
|
|
Your master's confidence was above mine,
|
|
Else surely his had equaled.
|
|
|
|
[Enter Flaminius.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
TITUS One of Lord Timon's men.
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS' MAN 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. [He exits.]
|
|
|
|
[Enter Flavius, the Steward in a cloak, muffled.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS' MAN
|
|
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 MAN By your leave, sir.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS What do you 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 preferred 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 th' int'rest into their glutt'nous 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.
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS' MAN Ay, but this answer will not serve.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS
|
|
If 'twill not serve, 'tis not so base as you,
|
|
For you serve knaves. [He exits.]
|
|
|
|
VARRO'S FIRST MAN How? What does his cashiered
|
|
Worship mutter?
|
|
|
|
VARRO'S SECOND MAN 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.
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS' MAN
|
|
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.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
TIMON
|
|
What, are my doors opposed against my passage?
|
|
Have I been ever free, and must my house
|
|
Be my retentive enemy, my jail?
|
|
The place which I have feasted, does it now,
|
|
Like all mankind, show me an iron heart?
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS' MAN Put in now, Titus.
|
|
|
|
TITUS My lord, here is my bill.
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS' MAN Here's mine.
|
|
|
|
HORTENSIUS And mine, my lord.
|
|
|
|
VARRO'S SECOND MAN And ours, my lord.
|
|
|
|
PHILOTUS All our bills.
|
|
|
|
TIMON
|
|
Knock me down with 'em! Cleave me to the girdle.
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS' MAN Alas, my lord--
|
|
|
|
TIMON Cut my heart in sums!
|
|
|
|
TITUS Mine, fifty talents.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Tell out my blood.
|
|
|
|
LUCIUS' MAN Five thousand crowns, my lord.
|
|
|
|
TIMON
|
|
Five thousand drops pays that.--What yours?--And
|
|
yours?
|
|
|
|
VARRO'S FIRST MAN My lord--
|
|
|
|
VARRO'S SECOND MAN My lord--
|
|
|
|
TIMON
|
|
Tear me, take me, and the gods fall upon you!
|
|
[Timon exits.]
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
[They exit.]
|
|
|
|
[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.
|
|
I'll once more feast the rascals.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS O my lord,
|
|
You only speak from your distracted soul.
|
|
There's not so much left to furnish out
|
|
A moderate table.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Be it 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.
|
|
[They exit.]
|
|
|
|
Scene 5
|
|
=======
|
|
[Enter three Senators at one door, Alcibiades meeting
|
|
them, with Attendants.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
FIRST SENATOR, [to the Second Senator]
|
|
My lord, you have my voice to 't. The fault's
|
|
Bloody. 'Tis necessary he should die.
|
|
Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.
|
|
|
|
SECOND SENATOR Most true. The law shall bruise 'em.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES
|
|
Honor, 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 stepped 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 honor in him which buys out his fault--
|
|
But with a noble fury and fair spirit,
|
|
Seeing his reputation touched 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 labored
|
|
To bring manslaughter into form and set quarreling
|
|
Upon the head of valor--which indeed
|
|
Is valor 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 valor, but to bear.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES
|
|
My lords, then, under favor, 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 valor 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 defense, 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
|
|
Why, I say, my lords, has done fair service
|
|
And slain in fight many of your enemies.
|
|
How full of valor 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 valor 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 inferred 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 honor, 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 forever.
|
|
|
|
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. [Senators exit.]
|
|
|
|
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 banished.
|
|
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 honor with most lands to be at odds.
|
|
Soldiers should brook as little wrongs as gods.
|
|
[He exits.]
|
|
|
|
Scene 6
|
|
=======
|
|
[Music. Enter divers Friends at several doors.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
FIRST FRIEND The good time of day to you, sir.
|
|
|
|
SECOND FRIEND I also wish it to you. I think this honorable
|
|
lord did but try us this other day.
|
|
|
|
FIRST FRIEND 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 FRIEND It should not be, by the persuasion of
|
|
his new feasting.
|
|
|
|
FIRST FRIEND 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 FRIEND 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 FRIEND I am sick of that grief too, as I understand
|
|
how all things go.
|
|
|
|
SECOND FRIEND Every man here's so. What would he
|
|
have borrowed of you?
|
|
|
|
FIRST FRIEND A thousand pieces.
|
|
|
|
SECOND FRIEND A thousand pieces!
|
|
|
|
FIRST FRIEND What of you?
|
|
|
|
SECOND FRIEND He sent to me, sir--
|
|
|
|
[Enter Timon and Attendants.]
|
|
|
|
Here he comes.
|
|
|
|
TIMON With all my heart, gentlemen both! And how
|
|
fare you?
|
|
|
|
FIRST FRIEND Ever at the best, hearing well of your
|
|
Lordship.
|
|
|
|
SECOND FRIEND 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' th' trumpets' sound. We shall to 't presently.
|
|
|
|
FIRST FRIEND 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 FRIEND My noble lord--
|
|
|
|
TIMON Ah, my good friend, what cheer?
|
|
|
|
SECOND FRIEND My most honorable 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 FRIEND 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 FRIEND All covered dishes!
|
|
|
|
FIRST FRIEND Royal cheer, I warrant you.
|
|
|
|
THIRD FRIEND Doubt not that, if money and the season
|
|
can yield it.
|
|
|
|
FIRST FRIEND How do you? What's the news?
|
|
|
|
THIRD FRIEND Alcibiades is banished. Hear you of it?
|
|
|
|
FIRST AND SECOND FRIENDS Alcibiades banished?
|
|
|
|
THIRD FRIEND 'Tis so. Be sure of it.
|
|
|
|
FIRST FRIEND How? How?
|
|
|
|
SECOND FRIEND I pray you, upon what?
|
|
|
|
TIMON My worthy friends, will you draw near?
|
|
|
|
THIRD FRIEND I'll tell you more anon. Here's a noble
|
|
feast toward.
|
|
|
|
SECOND FRIEND This is the old man still.
|
|
|
|
THIRD FRIEND Will 't hold? Will 't hold?
|
|
|
|
SECOND FRIEND It does, but time will--and so--
|
|
|
|
THIRD FRIEND 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. [(They 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 tag 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. They contain
|
|
only water and stones.]
|
|
|
|
SOME SPEAK What does his Lordship mean?
|
|
|
|
SOME OTHER I know not.
|
|
|
|
TIMON
|
|
May you a better feast never behold,
|
|
You knot of mouth-friends! 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 villainy. [(He throws 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, vapors, and minute-jacks.
|
|
Of man and beast the infinite malady
|
|
Crust you quite o'er! [(They stand.)] What, dost thou
|
|
go?
|
|
Soft! Take thy physic first--thou too--and thou.--
|
|
Stay. I will lend thee money, borrow none.
|
|
[He attacks them and forces 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! [He exits.]
|
|
|
|
[Enter Timon's Friends, the Senators, with other Lords.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
FIRST FRIEND How now, my lords?
|
|
|
|
SECOND FRIEND Know you the quality of Lord Timon's
|
|
fury?
|
|
|
|
THIRD FRIEND Push! Did you see my cap?
|
|
|
|
FOURTH FRIEND I have lost my gown.
|
|
|
|
FIRST FRIEND He's but a mad lord, and naught but
|
|
humors 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?
|
|
|
|
SECOND FRIEND Did you see my cap?
|
|
|
|
THIRD FRIEND Here 'tis.
|
|
|
|
FOURTH FRIEND Here lies my gown.
|
|
|
|
FIRST FRIEND Let's make no stay.
|
|
|
|
SECOND FRIEND
|
|
Lord Timon's mad.
|
|
|
|
THIRD FRIEND I feel 't upon my bones.
|
|
|
|
FOURTH FRIEND
|
|
One day he gives us diamonds, next day stones.
|
|
[The Senators and the others exit.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
ACT 4
|
|
=====
|
|
|
|
Scene 1
|
|
=======
|
|
[Enter Timon.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
TIMON
|
|
Let me look back upon thee. O thou wall
|
|
That girdles 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' th' 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' th' 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 neighborhood,
|
|
Instruction, manners, mysteries, and trades,
|
|
Degrees, observances, customs, and laws,
|
|
Decline to your confounding contraries,
|
|
And yet 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 th' Athenian bosoms, and their crop
|
|
Be general leprosy! Breath infect breath,
|
|
That their society, as their friendship, may
|
|
Be 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
|
|
Th' unkindest beast more kinder than mankind.
|
|
The gods confound--hear me, you good gods all!--
|
|
Th' 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.
|
|
[He exits.]
|
|
|
|
Scene 2
|
|
=======
|
|
[Enter Steward 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 picked; and his poor self,
|
|
A dedicated beggar to the air,
|
|
With his disease of all-shunned poverty,
|
|
Walks, like contempt, alone.
|
|
|
|
[Enter other Servants.]
|
|
|
|
More of our fellows.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS
|
|
All broken implements of a ruined 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. Leaked 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." [(He offers them
|
|
money.)] Let each take some.
|
|
Nay, put out all your hands. Not one word more.
|
|
Thus part we rich in sorrow, parting poor.
|
|
[The 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 mocked 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 varnished 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, do still mar men.
|
|
My dearest lord, blest 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.
|
|
[He exits.]
|
|
|
|
Scene 3
|
|
=======
|
|
[Enter Timon in the woods, with a spade.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
TIMON
|
|
O blessed breeding sun, draw from the Earth
|
|
Rotten humidity! Below thy sister's orb
|
|
Infect the air! Twinned 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 Senators shall bear contempt hereditary,
|
|
The beggar native honor.
|
|
It is the pasture lards the brother'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 smoothed by that below. The learned pate
|
|
Ducks to the golden fool. All's obliquy.
|
|
There's nothing level in our cursed natures
|
|
But direct villainy. Therefore be abhorred
|
|
All feasts, societies, and throngs of men.
|
|
His semblable, yea, himself, Timon disdains.
|
|
Destruction fang mankind! Earth, yield me roots!
|
|
Who seeks for better of thee, sauce his palate
|
|
With thy most operant poison! [(Digging, he finds
|
|
gold.)] 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 th' 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 wappened widow wed again;
|
|
She whom the spital house and ulcerous sores
|
|
Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices
|
|
To th' April day again. Come, damned earth,
|
|
Thou common whore of mankind, that puts odds
|
|
Among the rout 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.
|
|
[He buries the gold, keeping some out.]
|
|
|
|
[Enter Alcibiades, with Drum and Fife, in warlike
|
|
manner, and 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 unlearned 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 cherubin 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 th' 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 drowned 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 neighbor 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 conquered!
|
|
|
|
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 honored 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 the throat shall cut,
|
|
And mince it sans remorse. Swear against objects;
|
|
Put armor 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. [(He offers gold.)] There's gold to
|
|
pay thy soldiers.
|
|
Make large confusion and, thy fury spent,
|
|
Confounded be thyself! Speak not. Begone.
|
|
|
|
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!
|
|
|
|
BOTH WOMEN
|
|
Give us some gold, good Timon. Hast thou more?
|
|
|
|
TIMON
|
|
Enough to make a whore forswear her trade,
|
|
And to make whores a bawd. Hold up, you sluts,
|
|
Your aprons mountant. [(He begins throwing gold
|
|
into their aprons.)] You are not oathable,
|
|
Although I know you'll swear--terribly swear
|
|
Into strong shudders and to heavenly agues
|
|
Th' 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 burdens of the dead--some that were hanged,
|
|
No matter; wear them, betray with them. Whore
|
|
still.
|
|
Paint till a horse may mire upon your face.
|
|
A pox of wrinkles!
|
|
|
|
BOTH WOMEN Well, more gold. What then?
|
|
Believe 't that we'll do anything 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 curled-pate
|
|
ruffians bald,
|
|
And let the unscarred 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!
|
|
|
|
BOTH WOMEN
|
|
More counsel with more money, bounteous Timon.
|
|
|
|
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 spok'st well of me.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES Call'st thou that harm?
|
|
|
|
TIMON
|
|
Men daily find it. Get thee away, and take
|
|
Thy beagles with thee.
|
|
|
|
ALCIBIADES, [to the Women] We but offend him.--
|
|
Strike. [The drum sounds; all but Timon exit.]
|
|
|
|
TIMON
|
|
That nature, being sick of man's unkindness,
|
|
Should yet be hungry! [(He digs.)] Common mother,
|
|
thou
|
|
Whose womb unmeasurable and infinite breast
|
|
Teems and feeds all; whose selfsame mettle--
|
|
Whereof thy proud child, arrogant man, is puffed--
|
|
Engenders the black toad and adder blue,
|
|
The gilded newt and eyeless venomed worm,
|
|
With all th' abhorred births below crisp heaven
|
|
Whereon Hyperion's quick'ning fire doth shine:
|
|
Yield him who all thy human sons do 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 plow-torn leas,
|
|
Whereof ingrateful man with liquorish drafts
|
|
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 future. Why this spade? This place?
|
|
This slavelike 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 gav'st thine ears, like tapsters that bade
|
|
welcome,
|
|
To knaves and all approachers. 'Tis most just
|
|
That thou turn rascal. Had'st thou wealth again,
|
|
Rascals should have 't. Do not assume my likeness.
|
|
|
|
TIMON
|
|
Were I like thee, I'd 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 moist trees,
|
|
That have outlived the eagle, page thy heels
|
|
And skip when thou point'st out? Will the cold brook,
|
|
Candied with ice, caudle thy morning taste
|
|
To cure thy o'ernight's surfeit? Call the creatures
|
|
Whose naked natures live in all 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 'dst courtier be again
|
|
Wert thou not beggar. Willing misery
|
|
Outlives incertain pomp, is crowned 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 favor never clasped but bred a dog.
|
|
Hadst thou, like us from our first swathe, 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 learned
|
|
The icy precepts of respect, but followed
|
|
The sugared 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, have 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 flattered 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, begone.
|
|
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'd give thee leave to hang it. Get thee gone.
|
|
That the whole life of Athens were in this!
|
|
Thus would I eat it. [He gnaws a root.]
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS, [offering food] Here, I will mend thy feast.
|
|
|
|
TIMON
|
|
First mend my company. Take away thyself.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS
|
|
So I shall mend mine own by th' lack of thine.
|
|
|
|
TIMON
|
|
'Tis not well mended so; it is but botched.
|
|
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 a-nights, Timon?
|
|
|
|
TIMON Under that's above me. Where feed'st thou
|
|
a-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 know'st 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 'dst 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 talk'st 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 thee. If thou wert the fox, the lion would suspect
|
|
thee when peradventure thou wert accused by
|
|
the ass. If thou wert the ass, thy dullness would
|
|
torment thee, and still thou lived'st 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 germane
|
|
to the lion, and the spots of thy kindred were
|
|
jurors on thy life. All thy safety were remotion, and
|
|
thy defense 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 swoon to see thee.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS
|
|
Would thou wouldst burst!
|
|
|
|
TIMON Away, thou tedious rogue!
|
|
I am sorry I shall lose a stone by thee.
|
|
[Timon throws a stone at Apemantus.]
|
|
|
|
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 of the sea may beat
|
|
Thy gravestone daily. Make thine epitaph,
|
|
That death in me at others' lives may laugh.
|
|
[(To his 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 sold'rest close impossibilities
|
|
And mak'st 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 thronged to shortly.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Thronged to?
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Ay.
|
|
|
|
TIMON
|
|
Thy back, I prithee.
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS Live and love thy misery.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Long live so, and so die. I am quit.
|
|
|
|
[Enter the Banditti.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
APEMANTUS
|
|
More things like men.--Eat, Timon, and abhor
|
|
them. [Apemantus exits.]
|
|
|
|
FIRST BANDIT Where should he have this gold? It is
|
|
some poor fragment, some slender ort 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?
|
|
|
|
OTHERS Where?
|
|
|
|
SECOND BANDIT 'Tis his description.
|
|
|
|
THIRD BANDIT He. I know him.
|
|
|
|
ALL Save thee, Timon.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Now, thieves?
|
|
|
|
ALL
|
|
Soldiers, not thieves.
|
|
|
|
TIMON Both, too, and women's sons.
|
|
|
|
ALL
|
|
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 briars scarlet hips.
|
|
The bounteous huswife 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 professed, that you work not
|
|
In holier shapes, for there is boundless theft
|
|
In limited professions. Rascal thieves,
|
|
Here's gold. [(He gives them gold.)] Go, suck the
|
|
subtle blood o' th' 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
|
|
More than you rob. Take wealth and lives together.
|
|
Do, villainy, 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 stol'n
|
|
From gen'ral excrement. Each thing's a thief.
|
|
The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power
|
|
Has unchecked theft. Love not yourselves. Away!
|
|
Rob one another. There's more gold. [(He gives them
|
|
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 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.
|
|
[Thieves exit.]
|
|
|
|
[Enter Flavius the Steward, to Timon.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS O you gods!
|
|
Is yond despised and ruinous man my lord?
|
|
Full of decay and flailing? O, monument
|
|
And wonder of good deeds evilly bestowed!
|
|
What an alteration of honor has desp'rate 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 wished 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.
|
|
[He weeps.]
|
|
|
|
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,
|
|
T' accept my grief, and, whilst this poor wealth lasts,
|
|
To entertain me as your steward still.
|
|
[He offers money.]
|
|
|
|
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,
|
|
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 feared 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 honored lord,
|
|
For any benefit that points to me,
|
|
Either in hope or present, I'd 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. [(Timon offers gold.)] The gods out of my
|
|
misery
|
|
Has sent thee treasure. Go, live rich and happy,
|
|
But thus conditioned: thou shalt build from men;
|
|
Hate all, curse all, show charity to none,
|
|
But let the famished flesh slide from the bone
|
|
Ere thou relieve the beggar; give to dogs
|
|
What thou deniest 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 hat'st curses,
|
|
Stay not. Fly whilst thou art blest and free.
|
|
Ne'er see thou man, and let me ne'er see thee.
|
|
[They exit.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
ACT 5
|
|
=====
|
|
|
|
Scene 1
|
|
=======
|
|
[Enter Poet and Painter.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
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 rumor
|
|
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 and true report
|
|
that goes of his having.
|
|
|
|
[Enter Timon, behind them, from his cave.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
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'
|
|
th' 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, [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-cornered night,
|
|
Find what thou want'st by free and offered light.
|
|
Come.
|
|
|
|
TIMON, [aside]
|
|
I'll meet you at the turn. What a god's gold
|
|
That he is worshiped in a baser temple
|
|
Than where swine feed!
|
|
'Tis thou that rigg'st the bark and plow'st the foam,
|
|
Settlest admired reverence in a slave.
|
|
To thee be worship, and thy saints for aye
|
|
Be crowned with plagues, that thee alone obey!
|
|
Fit I meet them. [He comes 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 starlike 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 travailed 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
|
|
You're honest men. You've heard that I have gold.
|
|
I am sure you have. Speak truth. You're honest men.
|
|
|
|
PAINTER
|
|
So it is said, my noble lord, but therefor
|
|
Came not my friend nor I.
|
|
|
|
TIMON
|
|
Good honest men. [(To the Painter.)] 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. [(To the Poet.)] 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 Honor
|
|
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 draft,
|
|
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 archvillain keeps him company.
|
|
[(To one.)] If where thou art, two villains shall not be,
|
|
Come not near him. [(To the other.)] If thou wouldst
|
|
not reside
|
|
But where one villain is, then him abandon.--
|
|
Hence, pack. There's gold. You came for gold, you
|
|
slaves.
|
|
[(To one.)] You have work for me. There's payment.
|
|
Hence.
|
|
[(To the other.)] You are an alchemist; make gold of
|
|
that.
|
|
Out, rascal dogs!
|
|
[Timon drives them out and then exits.]
|
|
|
|
[Enter Steward Flavius, and two Senators.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS
|
|
It is 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 th' 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. Th' Athenians
|
|
By two of their most reverend Senate greet thee.
|
|
Speak to them, noble Timon.
|
|
|
|
[Enter Timon out of his cave.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
TIMON
|
|
Thou sun that comforts, burn!--Speak and be
|
|
hanged!
|
|
For each true word a blister, and each false
|
|
Be as a cauterizing to the root o' th' 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 it own fall, restraining aid to Timon,
|
|
And send forth us to make their sorrowed render,
|
|
Together with a recompense more fruitful
|
|
Than their offense 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;
|
|
Allowed with absolute power, and thy good name
|
|
Live with authority. So soon we shall drive back
|
|
Of Alcibiades th' approaches wild,
|
|
Who like a boar too savage doth root up
|
|
His country's peace.
|
|
|
|
SECOND SENATOR And shakes his threat'ning 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 he sack fair Athens
|
|
And take our goodly aged men by th' beards,
|
|
Giving our holy virgins to the stain
|
|
Of contumelious, beastly, mad-brained 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 th' 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, [to Senators] Stay not. All's in vain.
|
|
|
|
TIMON
|
|
Why, I was writing of my epitaph.
|
|
It will be seen tomorrow. 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 wrack,
|
|
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 through
|
|
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, [to Second 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 ax,
|
|
And hang himself. I pray you, do my greeting.
|
|
|
|
FLAVIUS, [to Senators]
|
|
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 gravestone be your oracle.
|
|
Lips, let four 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.
|
|
[Timon exits.]
|
|
|
|
FIRST SENATOR
|
|
His discontents are unremovably
|
|
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.
|
|
[They exit.]
|
|
|
|
Scene 2
|
|
=======
|
|
[Enter two other Senators, with a Messenger.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
THIRD SENATOR
|
|
Thou hast painfully discovered. Are his files
|
|
As full as thy report?
|
|
|
|
MESSENGER I have spoke the least.
|
|
Besides, his expedition promises
|
|
Present approach.
|
|
|
|
FOURTH 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' th' cause against your city,
|
|
In part for his sake moved.
|
|
|
|
[Enter the other Senators.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
THIRD SENATOR Here come our brothers.
|
|
|
|
FIRST SENATOR
|
|
No talk of Timon; nothing of him expect.
|
|
The enemy's drum is heard, and fearful scouring
|
|
Doth choke the air with dust. In, and prepare.
|
|
Ours is the fall, I fear, our foe's the snare.
|
|
[They exit.]
|
|
|
|
Scene 3
|
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=======
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[Enter a Soldier in the woods, seeking Timon.]
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SOLDIER
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By all description this should be the place.
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Who's here? Speak, ho! No answer? What is this?
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[He reads an epitaph.]
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Timon is dead, who hath out-stretched his span.
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Some beast read this; there does not live a man.
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Dead, sure, and this his grave. What's on this tomb
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I cannot read. The character I'll take with wax.
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Our captain hath in every figure skill,
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An aged interpreter, though young in days.
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Before proud Athens he's set down by this,
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Whose fall the mark of his ambition is.
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[He exits.]
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Scene 4
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=======
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[Trumpets sound. Enter Alcibiades with his Powers
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before Athens.]
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ALCIBIADES
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Sound to this coward and lascivious town
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Our terrible approach. [Sounds a parley.]
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[The Senators appear upon the walls.]
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Till now you have gone on and filled the time
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With all licentious measure, making your wills
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The scope of justice. Till now myself and such
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As slept within the shadow of your power
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Have wandered with our traversed arms and breathed
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Our sufferance vainly. Now the time is flush,
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When crouching marrow in the bearer strong
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Cries of itself "No more!" Now breathless wrong
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Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease,
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And pursy insolence shall break his wind
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With fear and horrid flight.
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FIRST SENATOR Noble and young,
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When thy first griefs were but a mere conceit,
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Ere thou hadst power or we had cause of fear,
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We sent to thee to give thy rages balm,
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To wipe out our ingratitude with loves
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Above their quantity.
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SECOND SENATOR So did we woo
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Transformed Timon to our city's love
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By humble message and by promised means.
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We were not all unkind, nor all deserve
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The common stroke of war.
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FIRST SENATOR These walls of ours
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Were not erected by their hands from whom
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You have received your grief, nor are they such
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That these great towers, trophies, and schools
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should fall
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For private faults in them.
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SECOND SENATOR Nor are they living
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Who were the motives that you first went out.
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Shame, that they wanted cunning, in excess
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Hath broke their hearts. March, noble lord,
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Into our city with thy banners spread.
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By decimation and a tithed death,
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If thy revenges hunger for that food
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Which nature loathes, take thou the destined tenth
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And, by the hazard of the spotted die,
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Let die the spotted.
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FIRST SENATOR All have not offended.
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For those that were, it is not square to take,
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On those that are, revenge. Crimes, like lands,
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Are not inherited. Then, dear countryman,
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Bring in thy ranks but leave without thy rage.
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Spare thy Athenian cradle and those kin
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Which in the bluster of thy wrath must fall
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With those that have offended. Like a shepherd
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Approach the fold and cull th' infected forth,
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But kill not all together.
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SECOND SENATOR What thou wilt,
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Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smile
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Than hew to 't with thy sword.
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FIRST SENATOR Set but thy foot
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Against our rampired gates and they shall ope,
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So thou wilt send thy gentle heart before
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To say thou 'lt enter friendly.
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SECOND SENATOR Throw thy glove,
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Or any token of thine honor else,
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That thou wilt use the wars as thy redress
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And not as our confusion, all thy powers
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Shall make their harbor in our town till we
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Have sealed thy full desire.
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ALCIBIADES Then there's my glove.
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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 remedied 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.]
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[Enter a Soldier, with the wax tablet.]
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SOLDIER
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My noble general, Timon is dead,
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Entombed upon the very hem o' th' sea,
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And on his gravestone 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.]
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Here lies a 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 not here
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thy gait.
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These well express in thee thy latter spirits.
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Though thou abhorred'st in us our human griefs,
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Scorned'st our brains' flow and those our droplets
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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
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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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[Drums. They exit.]
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