Having often of your open bounty tasted,
Hearing you were retired, your friends fall'n off,
Whose thankless natures-O abhorred spirits!-
Not all the whips of heaven are large enough:
What! to you,

Whose star-like nobleness gave life and influence
To their whole being! I am rapt and cannot cover
The monstrous bulk of this ingratitude
With any size of words.

Tim. 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.

71 Pain. He and myself Have travail'd in the great shower of your gifts, And sweetly felt it.

Tim.

Ay, you are honest men.

Pain. We are hither come to offer you our service.

Tim. 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.

Tim. Ye're honest men: ye've heard that I have gold;

I am sure you have: speak truth; ye're honest

men.

80 Pain. So it is said, my noble lord; but therefore Came not my friend nor I.

Tim. Good honest men! Thou draw'st a counterfeit

Best in all Athens: thou'rt, indeed, the best;
Thou counterfeit'st most lively.

Pain.

So, so, my lord.

110

Each man apart, all single and alone,
Yet an arch-villain keeps him company.
If where thou art two villains shall not be,
Come not near him. If thou wouldst not reside
But where one villain is, then him abandon.
Hence, pack! there's gold; you came for gold,
ye slaves:

[To Painter] You have work'd for me; there's payment for you: hence!

[To Poet] You are an alchemist; make gold of that.

Sec. Sen.

120

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. Flav. Here is his cave.. 129 Peace and content be here! Lord Timon! Timon! Look out, and speak to friends: the Athenians, By two of their most reverend senate, greet thee: Speak to them, noble Timon.

TIMON comes from his cavé.

Tim. Thou sun, that comfort'st, burn! Speak, and be hang'd:

For each true word, a blister! and each false
Be as a cauterizing to the root o' the tongue,
Consuming it with speaking!

First Sen.

Worthy Timon,Tim. Of none but such as you, and you of

Timon.

First Sen. The senators of Athens greet thee,

Timon.

Tim. I thank them; and would send them back the plague, Could I but catch it for them.

O, forget

140

First Sen. 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.

Sec. Sen. They confess Toward thee forgetfulness too general, gross: Which now the public body, which doth seldom Play the recanter, feeling in itself

150

A lack of Timon's aid, hath sense withal
Of its own fail, restraining aid to Timon;
And send forth us, to make their sorrow'd render,
Together with a recompense more fruitful
Than their offence can weigh down by the dram;
Ay, even such heaps and sums of love and wealth
As shall to thee blot out what wrongs were theirs
And write in thee the figures of their love,
Ever to read them thine.

Tim.

You witch me in it:

Therefore, Timon,- 170 Tim. Well, sir, I will; therefore, I will, sir; thus:

If Alcibiades kill my countrymen,
Let Alcibiades know this of Timon,

220

Tim. Come not to me again: but say to Athens, Timon hath made his everlasting mansion Upon the beached verge of the salt flood; Who once a day with his embossed froth The turbulent surge shall cover: thither come, And let my grave-stone be your oracle. Lips, let sour words go by and language end: What is amiss plague and infection mend! Graves only be men's works and death their gain! Sun, hide thy beams! Timon hath done his reign. [Retires to his cave. First Sen. His discontents are unremoveably Coupled to nature.

230

Athens,

And take our goodly aged men by the beards,
Giving our holy virgins to the stain

Of contumelious, beastly, mad-brain'd war,
Then let him know, and tell him Timon speaks it,
In pity of our aged and our youth,

I cannot choose but tell him, that I care not, 180 And let him take't at worst; for their knives care not,

While you have throats to answer: for myself, There's not a whittle in the unruly camp

But I do prize it at my love before

The reverend'st throat in Athens. So I leave you To the protection of the prosperous gods,

As thieves to keepers.

Stay not, all's in vain.

190

Flav. Tim. Why, I was writing of my epitaph; It will be seen to-morrow: my long sickness Of health and living now begins to mend, And nothing brings me all things. Go, live still; Be Alcibiades your plague, you his, And last so long enough!

First Sen.

We speak in vain.

men,

First Sen. These words become your lips as they pass thorough them.

Sec. Sen. And enter in our ears like great triumphers

In their applauding gates.

Tim. Commend me to them, 200 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 Sen. I like this well; he will return again. Tim. I have a tree, which grows here in my close,

210

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

It requires swift foot. [Exeunt. SCENE II. Before the walls of Athens. Enter two Senators and a Messenger. First Sen. Thou hast painfully discover'd: are his files

As full as thy report?

Mess. I have spoke the least: Besides, his expedition promises

Present approach.

Sec. Sen. We stand much hazard, if they bring not Timon.

Mess. I met a courier, one mine ancient friend; Whom, though in general part we were opposed, +Yet our old love made a particular force,

And made us speak like friends: this man was riding

From Alcibiades to Timon's cave,
With letters of entreaty, which imported
His fellowship i' the cause against your city,
In part for his sake moved.
First Sen.

ΙΟ

Here come our brothers.

Enter the Senators from TIMON. Third Sen. No talk of Timon, nothing of him expect.

The enemies' drum is heard, and fearful scouring Doth choke the air with dust: in, and prepare: Ours is the fall, I fear; our foes the snare.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III. The woods. Timon's cave, and a rude tomb seen.

Enter a Soldier, seeking TIMON. Sold. By all description this should be the place. Who's here? speak, ho! No answer! What is this?

Timon is dead, who hath outstretch'd his span: Some beast rear'd this; there does not live a man. Dead, sure; and this his grave. What's on this tomb

I cannot read; the character I'll take with wax: Our captain hath in every figure skill, An aged interpreter, though young in days: Before proud Athens he's set down by this, | Whose fall the mark of his ambition is. [Exit. 10

SCENE IV. Before the walls of Athens.

Trumpets sound. Enter ALCIBIADES with his powers.

Alcib. Sound to this coward and lascivious town
Our terrible approach. [A parley sounded.
Enter Senators on the walls.
Till now you have gone on and fill'd the time
With all licentious measure, making your wills
The scope of justice; till now myself and such
As slept within the shadow of your power
Have wander'd with our traversed arms and
breathed

Our sufferance vainly: now the time is flush,
When crouching marrow in the bearer strong
Cries of itself 'No more:' now breathless wrong
Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease, II
And pursy insolence shall break his wind
With fear and horrid flight.
First Sen.

Noble and

young,

If thy revenges hunger for that food

tenth,

30

Seek not my name: a plague consume you wicked caitiffs left!

Here lie I, Timon; who, alive, all living men did hate:

Pass by and curse thy fill, but pass and stay not here thy gait.'

These well express in thee thy latter spirits: Though thou abhorr'dst in us our human griefs,

which