Poet, Painter, Jeweller, and Merchant. Three Strangers.

Servants to Timon's
Creditors.

Cupid and Amazons in the masque.

Other Lords, Senators, Officers, Soldiers, Banditti, and Attendants.

SCENE. - Athens and the woods adjoining.

ACT I.

SCENE I.. Athens. A Hall in TIMON'S House.

Enter Poet, Painter, Jeweller, Merchant, and others, at several doors.

Poet. Good day, sir.

Pain.

I am glad you're well.

Poet. I have not seen you long: how goes the world? Pain. It wears, sir, as it grows.

Poet.

Ay, that's well known :

But what particular rarity? what strange,
Which manifold record not matches? — See,
Magic of bounty! all these spirits thy power
Hath conjured to attend. I know the merchant.
Pain. I know them both; th' other's a jeweller.
Mer. O, 'tis a worthy lord.

Jew.

Nay, that's most fix’d.

Mer. A most incomparable man; breathed,1 as it were, To an untirable and continuate goodness:

He passes.2

Jew. I have a jewel here.

Mer. O, pray, let's see't: for the Lord Timon, sir?
Jew. If he will touch the estimate: 3 but, for that –
Poet. [Reading from his poem.]

When we for recompense have praised the vile,
It stains the glory in that happy verse
Which aptly sings the good.

Mer. [Looking at the jewel.] 'Tis a good form.
Jew. And rich: here is a water, look ye.

Pain. You're rapt, sir, in some work, some dedication

To the great lord?

Poet.

A thing slipp'd idly from me.

Our poesy is as a gum, which oozes

From whence 'tis nourished: the fire i' the flint

Shows not till it be struck; our gentle flame

Provokes itself, and, like the current, flies

1 Breathed is exercised or practised; a frequent usage. Still, to speak of being exercised to a thing sounds odd: we should say exercised in. But Shakespeare has other like expressions, such as "guilty to self-wrong." See vol. vii. page 233, note 57.

2 Passes is excels, surpasses. So the phrase still in use, " It passes expres sion." See vol. vii. page 174, note I.

3 To touch the estimate is to reach, or come up to, the price set upon it.