1 Sen. Set but thy foot Against our rampir'd gates, and they shall ope, To say, thou'lt enter friendly. 2 Sen. Throw thy glove, Or any token of thine honour else, That thou wilt use the wars as thy redress, Alcib. Then, there's my glove: Both. "Tis most nobly spoken. Alcib. Descend, and keep your words. [The Senators descend, and the Attendants open the gates. Enter a Soldier. Sold. My noble General, Timon is dead; And on his grave-stone this insculpture, which Alcib. [Reads.] "Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft : 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, Scorn'dst our brain's flow, and those our droplets which From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye Is noble Timon; of whose memory Hereafter more. Bring me into your city, And I will use the olive with my sword: Make war breed peace; make peace stint war; make each Prescribe to other, as each other's leech. Let our drums strike. [Exeunt. NOTES ON TIMON OF ATHENS. p. 210. p. 211. F 212. ACT FIRST. SCENE I. - as a gum, which oozes The folio misprints, "as a Gowne which vses. happy man": Pope corrected the first error; the reference is plainly to Timon, not to the Senators, as Theobald saw. "In a wide sea of wax":- It has been already remarked in these Notes that the ancients wrote with a style upon a wax tablet, and that perhaps the custom was known in Shakespeare's day. Still I think it possible that there is corruption here. The metaphor is not worthy of Shakespeare. "Leaving no tract behind": i. e., no track. The words, radically the same, were used interchangeably. "Even on their knees and hands, let him slip down": The folio has, "hand" and "sit." The second folio gave, hands,' and Rowe, slip.' The stage "Trumpets sound. Enter Timon," &c.: Enter Lord which failing": Capell read, well, for the sake of rhythm, "which failing him." when he most needs me" With but little hesitation I read with the folio of 1664. The first folio has, "when he must need me.” Therefore he will be, Timon":- This line is manifestly mutilated. But Warburton and Malone explained it, Therefore he will be honest in this matter, understood! p. 217. "This gentleman of mine As to this gentleman who held a trencher, see the Note on "I beheld the maid," Merchant of Venice, Act III. Sc. 2, p. 252. which will not cost a man a doit": - It is hardly worth while to notice the misprint of the folio, "cast a man," &c. To those - and the less for "That I had no angry wit to be a lord who can make nothing of this passage, Johnson's explanation, "I should hate myself for patiently enduring to be a lord" – I suggest (referring to the hot temper in which Apemantus uttered his wish) that we might read, "That I had an angry fit to be a lord." "Aches contract," &c. :- Here 'aches' is a dissyllable. See the Note on "For the letter that begins them all, H," Much Ado about Nothing, Act III. Sc. 4, p. 332. This speech is printed as prose in the folio, but is manifestly verse. Ere we depart -i. e., Ere we part. See the Note Hath willingly departed," &c., King John, Act II. Sc. 1, p. 116. on "The most accursed thou": "The more accursed," &c. Hanmer plausibly read, Should'st have kept one," &c. :— i. e., Thou should'st, &c.; the pronoun elided, according to the custom of Shakespeare's day. p. 218. SCENE II. This direction is as nearly “Hautboys playing," &c. : as possible that of the folio. "Honest Ventidius Here and elsewhere Ventidius is called Ventigious or Ventidgius in the old copies; remembering which, we should be lenient when we hear some brother of Shakespeare's craft hiss out, ‹ Perfidjus woman!' Apparently Ho, ho, confess'd it? hang'd it," &c. : "But yond' man is ever angry": - The folio, "verie angrie." Rowe made the necessary change. "I scorn thy meat":- In the folio, as in this edition, three lines of verse are given in this speech, the rest of which is prose. It is probable, as Mr. Collier has observed, that in this instance, and in many others in this play, the entire passage was written in verse, which, in the course of transcription and printing, entirely lost its p. 219. p. 220. p. 221. p. 222. p. 223. metrical character. Yet speeches partly verse and partly prose are not uncommon in our old dramatists. invite them without knives": - Even as late as Shakespeare's time each person carried the knife which he used at table. "Much good dich thy good heart": This has been hitherto accepted as a corruption of Much good do it,' &c.; as to which interpretation I am doubtful. The word has not been discovered in any other place, and it is not among the provincialisms of either Old or New England. "O joy e'en made away," &c.: The folio has, "O joyes ene," &c., which Rowe corrected. The ear, Taste, touch, smell, pleas'd from thy table rise" : - In the folio, for these words, we have but one line, "There taste, touch, all pleased," &c. Warburton made the ingenious change, with the comment, "i. e., the five senses, Timon, acknowledge thee their patron; four of them, viz., the hearing, taste, touch, and smell, are all feasted at thy board, and these ladies come with me to entertain your sight in a masque." But, clever as this is, I am far from being sure that the folio does not give us the text as it was originally written, and that we should not read, There taste, touch, all, pleased from thy table rise; If it be asked to what there' refers, there may be the "Hey day!" Here, again, we have the form, "hoy day," which is so common that perhaps it should be retained. "1 Lady. My lord": The folio assigns this speech to "1 Lord," doubtless, as Johnson suggested, on account of the use of L. for both Lord' and 'Lady' in the manuscript. p. 224. "As to advance this jewel": — i. e., prefer, honor this p. 227. jewel. "So ; thou wilt not hear me now - This speech, like many others in this play, must needs be given in the |