Thus part we rich in sorrow, parting poor.

[Servants embrace, and part several ways. O, the fierce wretchedness that glory brings us! 30 Who would not wish to be from wealth exempt, Since riches point to misery and contempt? Who would be so mock'd with glory? or to live But in a dream of friendship?

40

To have his pomp and all what state compounds
But only painted, like his varnish'd 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, does still mar men.
My dearest lord, bless'd, 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.

50

[Exit.

SCENE III. Woods and cave, near the sea-shore.

Enter TIMON, from the cave.

Tim. O blessed breeding sun, draw from the earth Rotten humidity; below thy sister's orb Infect the air! Twinn'd 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 senator shall bear contempt hereditary,

IO

The beggar native honour.

It is the pasture lards the rother'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 smooth'd by that below: the learned pate
Ducks to the golden fool: all is oblique,
There's nothing level in our cursed natures,
But direct villany. Therefore, be abhorr'd
All feasts, societies, and throngs of men!
His semblable, yea, himself, Timon disdains:
Destruction fang mankind! Earth, yield me
[Digging.

roots!

20

Who seeks for better of thee, sauce his palate With thy most operant poison! 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

30

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 the 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 wappen'd widow wed again;
She, whom the spital-house and ulcerous sores
Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and
spices

40

To the April day again. Come, damned earth,
Thou common whore of mankind, that put'st 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.

[Keeping some gold.

120

Think it a bastard, whom the oracle
Hath doubtfully pronounced thy throat shall cut,
And mince it sans remorse: swear against objects;
Put armour 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. There's gold to pay thy soldiers:

Make large confusion; and, thy fury spent,
Confounded be thyself! Speak not, be gone.
Alcib. Hast thou gold yet? I'll take the gold
thou givest me,
Not all thy counsel.

130

Tim. Dost thou, or dost thou not, heaven's curse upon thee!

Phr. and Timan. Give us some gold, good Timon: hast thou more?

Tim. Enough to make a whore forswear her trade,

And to make whores, a bawd. Hold up, you sluts,

Your aprons mountant: you are not oathable,-
Although, I know, you'll swear, terribly swear
Into strong shudders and to heavenly agues
The 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; 141
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 burthens of the dead;-some that were
hang'd,

No matter:-wear them, betray with them: whore still;

Paint till a horse may mire upon your face.
A pox of wrinkles!

Phr. and Timan. Well, more gold: what then?

Believe't, that we'll do any thing for gold. 150 Tim. 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 curl'd-pate ruffians bald; 160

And let the unscarr'd 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!

Phr. and Timan. More counsel with more money, bounteous Timon.

Tim. More whore, more mischief first; I have given you earnest.

Alcib. Strike up the drum towards Athens! Farewell, Timon:

If I thrive well, I'll visit thee again.

170

Tim. If I hope well, I'll never see thee more.
Alcib. I never did thee harm.

Tim. Yes, thou spokest well of me.
Alcib.
Call'st thou that harm?
Tim. Men daily find it. Get thee away, and
take

Thy beagles with thee. Alcib.

We but offend him. Strike! [Drum beats. Exeunt Alcibiades, Phrynia, and Timandra. Tim. That nature, being sick of man's unkindness,

Should yet be hungry! Common mother, thou, [Digging.

181

Whose womb unmeasurable, and infinite breast,
Teems, and feeds all; whose self-same mettle,
Whereof thy proud child arrogant man, is puff'd,
Engenders the black toad and adder blue,
The gilded newt and eyeless venom'd worm,
With all the abhorred births below crisp heaven
Whereon Hyperion's quickening fire doth shine;
Yield him, who all thy human sons doth 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
191
Never presented!—O, a root,—dear thanks!—
Dry up thy marrows, vines, and plough-torn leas;
Whereof ingrateful man, with liquorish draughts
And morsels unctuous, greases his pure mind,
That from it all consideration slips!

Enter APEMANTUS.

More man? plague, plague!

Apem. I was directed hither: men report Thou dost affect my manners, and dost use them. Tim. 'Tis, then, because thou dost not keep a dog,

200 Whom I would imitate: consumption catch thee! Apem. This is in thee a nature but infected; A poor unmanly melancholy sprung From change of fortune. Why this spade? this place?

This slave-like 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.

like thyself;

220

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 moss'd
trees,
That have outlived the eagle, page thy heels,
And skip where thou point'st out? will the cold
brook,

Candied with ice, caudle thy morning taste,
To cure thy o'er-night'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-
A fool of thee: depart.

Tim.

230

Apem. I love thee better now than e'er I did. Tim. I hate thee worse.

Apem. Tim.

Ay.

What! a knave too? Apem. If thou didst put this sour-cold habit on To castigate thy pride, 'twere well: but thou 240 Dost it enforcedly; thou'ldst courtier be again, Wert thou not beggar. Willing misery Outlives incertain pomp, is crown'd 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.

Tim. Not by his breath that is more miserable. Thou art a slave, whom Fortune's tender arm 250 With favour never clasp'd; but bred a dog. Hadst thou, like us from our first swath, 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 learn'd
The icy precepts of respect, but follow'd
The sugar'd game before thee. But myself,
Who had the world as my confectionary,
The mouths, the tongues, the eyes and hearts of

men

260

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?
269
They never flatter'd 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, be gone!
If thou hadst not been born the worst of men,
Thou hadst been a knave and flatterer.

Were all the wealth I have shut up in thee, I'ld give thee leave to hang it. Get thee gone. That the whole life of Athens were in this! 281 Thus would I eat it. [Eating a root. Арет. Here; I will mend thy feast. [Offering him a root. Tim. First mend my company, take away thyself.

Apem. So I shall mend mine own, by the lack of thine.

Tim. 'Tis not well mended so, it is but botch'd; If not, I would it were.

Apem. What wouldst thou have to Athens? Tim. Thee thither in a whirlwind. If thou wilt,

Tim. Would poison were obedient and knew my mind!

Apem. Where wouldst thou send it?
Tim. To sauce thy dishes.

299

Apem. 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 knowest none, but art despised for the contrary. There's a medlar for thee, eat it. Tim. On what I hate I feed not. Apem. Dost hate a medlar?

Tim. Ay, though it look like thee. Apem. An thou hadst hated meddlers sooner, thou shouldst have loved thyself better now. What man didst thou ever know unthrift that was beloved after his means?

Tim. Who, without those means thou talkest of, didst thou ever know beloved?

Apem. Ay, Timon.

Tim. 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 dulness would torment thee, and still thou livedst 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 german to the lion and the spots of thy kindred were jurors on thy life: all thy safety were remotion and thy defence 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! 349

Apem. 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.

Tim. How has the ass broke the wall, that thou art out of the city?

Apem. 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. 359 Tim. When there is nothing living but thee, thou shalt be welcome. I had rather be a beggar's dog than Apemantus. Apem. Thou art the cap of all the fools alive. Tim. Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon!

Apem. A plague on thee! thou art too bad

Here's gold. Go, suck the subtle blood o' the 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
Moe than you rob: take wealth and lives to-
gether;

Do villany, 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, 440
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 stolen
From general excrement: each thing's a thief:
The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough

Flav. O you gods!

Is yond despised and ruinous man my lord?
Full of decay and failing? O monument
And wonder of good deeds evilly bestow'd!
What an alteration of honour

Has desperate want made!

What viler thing upon the earth than friends 470
Who can bring noblest minds to basest ends!
How rarely does it meet with this time's guise,
When man was wish'd 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!
Tim. Away! what art thou?
Flav.

Have you forgot me, sir? Tim. Why dost ask that? I have forgot all 480 Then, if thou grant'st thou'rt a man, I have forgot thee.

men;

Flav. An honest poor servant of yours.
Tim. Then I know thee not:

I never had honest man about me, I; all

I kept were knaves, to serve in meat to villains.
Flav. The gods are witness,

Ne'er did poor steward wear a truer grief
For his undone lord than mine eyes for you.