One honest man,-mistake me not,-but one; No more, I pray,-and he is 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 moge honest now, than wise; For, by oppressing and betraying me,
Thou might'st have sooner got another service: For many so arrive at second masters,
Upon their first lord's neck. But tell me true, (For I must ever doubt, though ne'er so sure,) Is not thy kindness subtle, covetous,
If not a usuring kindness; and as rich men deal gifts, Expecting in return twenty for one?
Flav. No, my most worthy master, in whose breast Doubt and suspect, alas, are plac'd too late: You should have fear'd false times, when you did feast: Suspect still comes where an estate is least. That which I show, heaven knows, is merely love, Duty and zeal to your unmatched mind, Care of your food and living: and, believe it, My most honour'd lord,
For any benefit that points to me, Either in hope, or present, I'd exchange
For this one wish, That you had power and wealth To requite me, by making rich yourself.
Tim. Look thee, 'tis so!-Thou singly honest man Here, take :-the gods out of my misery Have sent thee treasure. Go, live rich, and happy: But thus condition'd; Thou shalt build from men ; Hate all, curse all: show charity to none; But let the famish'd flesh slide from the bone, Ere thou relieve the beggar: give to dogs
What thou deni'st to men; let prisons swallow them, Debts wither them: be men like blasted woods, And may diseases lick up their false bloods!
And so, farewell, and thrive.
SCENE I.-The same. Before Timon's Cave. Enter Poet and Painter ; Timon behind, unseen. 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 ru mour hold for true, that he is so full of gold?
Pain. 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.
Poct. Then this breaking of his has been but a try for his friends.
Pain. 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 travel for, if it be a just and true report that goes of his having.
Poet. What have you now to present unto him?
Pain. 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.
Pain. Good as the best. Promising is the very air o' the time: it opens the eyes of expectation: performance is ever the duller for his act; and, but in the plainer and simpler kind of people, the deed of saying is quite out of use. To promise is most courtly and fashionable: performance is a kind of will, or testament, which argues a great sickness in his judgement that makes it.
Tim. Excellent workman! Thou canst not paint a man so bad as is thyself.
Poet. I am thinking, what I shall say I have provid ed for him: It must be a personating of himself: a satire against the softness of prosperity: with a dis covery of the infinite flatteries that follow youth and opulency.
Tim. 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.
Phet. Nay, let's seek him:
Then do we sin against our own estate, When we may profit meet, and come too late. Paint. True:
When the day serves, before black-corner'd night, Find what thou want'st by free and offer'd light. Come.
Tim. I'll meet you at the turn. What a god's gold, That he is worshipp'd in a baser temple, Than where swine feed!
'Tis thou that rigg'st the bark, and plough'st the foam; Settlest admired reverence in a slave:
To thee be worship! and thy saints for aye Be crown'd with plagues, that thee alone obey! Fit I do meet them.
Hail, worthy Timon! Pain. Our late noble master.
Tim. Have I once liv'd to see two honest men? Poct. Sir,
Having often of your open bounty tasted, Hearing you were retir'd, your friends fallen 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'm 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.
He, and myself, Have travell'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. You are honest men: You have heard that I
Tim. Of none but such as you, and you of Timon. 2 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.
1 Sen. 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. 2 Sen.
Both. Doubt it not, worthy lord. Tim. There's ne'er a one of you but trusts a knave, Toward thee, forgetfulness too general, gross;
That mightily deceives you.
Which now the public body,-which doth seldom Play the recanter,-feeling in itself
A lack of Timon's aid, hath sense withal
Of its own fall, restraining aid to Timon;
And send forth us, to make their sorrowed 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,
Tim. Look you, I love you well: I'll give you gold, As shall to thee blot out what wrongs were theirs, Rid me these villains from your companies:
Hang them, or stab them, drown them in a draught, Confound them by some course, and come to me, I'll give you gold enough.
Name them, my lord, let's know them. Tim. You that way, and you this, but two in company:
-Each man apart, all single and alone, Yet an arch-villain keeps him company.
If, where thou art, two villains shall not be,
[To the Painter. Come not near him.-If thou wouldst not reside [To the Poet.
But where one villain is, then him abandon.- Hence! pack! there's gold, ye came for gold, ye slaves:
You have done work for me, there's payment: hence! You are an alchymist, make gold of that:- Out, rascal dogs! [Exit, beating and driving them out.
SCENE II.-The same. Enter Flavius, and two
And write in thee the figures of their love, Ever to read them thine.
Tim. You witch me in it; Surprize me to the very brink of tears: Lend me a fool's heart, and a woman's eyes, And I'll be weep these comforts, worthy senators.
1 Sen. Therefore, so please thee to return with us, And of our Athens (thine, and ours,) to take The captainship, thou shalt be met with thanks Allow'd with absolute power, and thy good name Live with authority:-So soon we shall drive back Of Alcibiades the approaches wild; Who, like a boar too savage, doth root up His country's peace.
And shakes his threat'ning sword Against the walls of Athens.
1 Sen. Therefore, Timon,- Tim. 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 the beards,
Flo. It is in vain that you would speak with Ti- Giving our holy virgins to the stain
Of contumelious, beastly, mad-brain'd war;
Then, let him know,-and tell him, Timon speaks it, In pity of our aged, and our youth,
I cannot choose but tell him, that-I care not, And let him take't at worst; for their knives care not, While you have throats to answer: for myself, There's not a whittle in the unruly camp,
But I do prize it at my love, before The reverend'st throat in Athens. So I leave you To the protection of the prosperous gods, As thieves to keepers.
Flav. Stay not, all's in vain. 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!
1 Sen. That's well spoke. Tim. Commend me to my loving countrymen. 1 Sen. These words become your lips as they pass through them.
2 Sen. And enter in our ears, like great triumphers In their applauding gates. Tim. 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. 2 Sen. I like this well, he will return again. Tim. I have a tree, which grows here in my close, That mine own use invites me to cut down, And shortly must I fell it; Tell my friends, Tell Athens, in the sequence of degree, From high to low throughout, that whoso please To stop affliction, let him take his haste, Come hither, ere my tree hath felt the axe, And hang himself :-I pray you, do my greeting. Flav. Trouble him no further, thus you still shall find him.
Tim. Come not to me again: but say to Athens, Timon hath made his everlasting mansion Upon the beached verge of the salt flood; Which 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. [Exit Timon,
1 Sen. His discontents are unremoveably Coupled to nature.
2 Sen. Our hope in him is dead: Let us return, And strain what other means is left unto us In our dear peril.
SCENE V-Before the Walls of Athens. Trumpets sound. Enter Alcibiades, and Forces. 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 travers'd arms, and breath' Our sufferance vainly: Now the time is flush, When crouching marrow, in the bearer strong, Cries, of itself, No more: now breathless wrong Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease; And pursy insolence shall break his wind, With fear, and horrid flight.
1 Sen. Noble, and young, When thy first griefs were but a mere conceit, Ere thou hadst power, or we had cause of fear, We sent to thee; to give thy rages balm, To wipe out our ingratitude with loves Above their quantity.
2 Sen. So did we woo Transformed Timon to our city's love, By humble message, and by promis'd means; We were not all unkind, nor all deserve The common stroke of war.
1 Sen. These walls of ours Were not erected by their hands, from whom You have receiv'd your griefs: nor are they such, That these great towers, trophies, and schools should
For private faults in them.
2 Sen. Nor are they living, Who were the motives that you first went out; Shame, that they wanted cunning, in excess Hath broke their hearts. March, noble lord, Into our city with thy banners spread : By decimation, and a tithed death, (If thy revenges hunger for that food,
Which nature loaths,) take thou the destin'd tenth; And by the hazard of the spotted die, Let die the spotted.
All have not offended; For those that were, it is not square, to take, On those that are, revenges: erimes, like lands, Are not inherited. Then, dear countryman, Bring in thy ranks, but leave without thy rage: Spare thy Athenian cradle, and those kin, Which, in the bluster of thy wrath, must fall With those that have offended: like a shepherd, Approach the fold, and cull the infected forth, But kill not all together.
2 Sen. What thou wilt, Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smile, Than hew to't with thy sword.
Against our rampir'd gates, and they shall ope; So thou wilt send thy gentle heart before, To say, thou'lt enter friendly.
Throw thy glove, Or any token of thine honour else, That thou wilt use the wars as thy redress, And not as our confusion, all thy powers Shall make their harbour in our town, till we Have seal'd thy full desire.
Alcib. Then there's my glove; Descend, and open your uncharged ports; Those enemies of Timon's, and mine own, Whom you yourselves shali set out for reproof, Fall, and no more: and,-to atone your fears With my more noble meaning,-not a man Shall pass his quarter, or offend the stream Of regular justice in your city's bounds, But shall be remedied, to your public laws At heaviest answer.
Both. Alcib. Descend, and keep your words.
"Tis most nobly spoken,
[The Senators descend, and open the gates. Enter a Soldier.
Sol. My noble general, Timon is dead;
Alcib. [Reads.] Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft:
Seek not my name: A plague consume you wicked caitiff's 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 fail, yet rich conceit Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye On thy low grave, on faults forgiven. Dead
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
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