490

Because thou art a woman, and disclaim'st
Flinty mankind; whose eyes do never give
But thorough lust and laughter. Pity's sleeping:
Strange times, that weep with laughing, not with
weeping!

Flav. I beg of you to know me, good my lord, To accept my grief and whilst this poor wealth lasts

To entertain me as your steward still.

Tim. Had I a steward

So true, so just, and now so comfortable?
It almost turns my dangerous nature mild.
Let me behold thy face. Surely, this man
Was born of woman.

Forgive my general and exceptless rashness,
You perpetual-sober gods! I do proclaim
One honest man-mistake me not-but one;
No more, I pray, -and he's a steward.
How fain would I have hated all mankind!
And thou redeem'st thyself: but all, save thee,
I fell with curses.

ACT V.

SCENE I. The woods. Before Timon's cave.

Enter Poet and Painter; TIMON watching them from his cave.

Pain. As I took note of the place, it cannot be far where he abides.

Poet. What's to be thought of him? does the rumour hold for true, that he's 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

510

Methinks thou art more honest now than wise;
For, by oppressing and betraying me,
Thou mightst 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 placed too late: You should have fear'd false times when you did feast:

520

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'ld 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,

530

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 deny'st to men; let prisons swallow
'em,

Debts wither 'em to nothing; be men like blasted woods,

And
may diseases lick up their false bloods!
And so farewell and thrive.

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 travail 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.

21

Poet. I must serve him so too, tell him of an intent that's coming toward him.

To

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. 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. [Timon comes from his cave, behind. Tim. [Aside] Excellent workman! thou canst not paint a man so bad as is thyself.

Poet. I am thinking what I shall say I have provided for him: it must be a personating of himself; a satire against the softness of prosperity, with a discovery of the infinite flatteries that follow youth and opulency.

Tim. [Aside] Must thou needs stand for a villain in thine own work? wilt thou whip thine own faults in other inen? Do so, I have gold for thee.

Poet. Nay, let's seek him:

Then do we sin against our own estate,
When we may profit meet, and come too late.
Pain. True;

When the day serves, before black-corner'd night,
Find what thou want'st by free and offer'd light.
Come.

Tim. [Aside] 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!

50

'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 meet them.
[Coming forward.

Hail, worthy Timon!

Poet.
Pain.
Our late noble master!
Tim. Have I once lived to see two honest men?

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

Pain.

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.
Tim. E'en so, sir, as I say. And, for thy
fiction,

Why, thy verse swells with stuff so fine and smooth
That thou art even natural in thine art.
But, for all this, my honest-natured friends,
I must needs say you have a little fault:
Marry, 'tis not monstrous in you, neither wish
You take much pains to mend.

Both.

To make it known to us.

Tim.

90

Beseech

your honour You'll take it ill.

Both. Most thankfully, my lord.
Tim.

Will you, indeed?
Both. Doubt it not, worthy lord.
Tim. There's never a one of you but trusts a
knave,

That mightily deceives you.

Both.

Do we, 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 cave.

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. 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

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.

Noble and young,

First Sen. 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.

Sec. Sen.

So did we woo

If thy revenges hunger for that food

tenth,

30

Throw thy glove,

50

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 shall 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 render'd to your public laws
At heaviest answer.
Both.
'Tis most nobly spoken.
Alcib. Descend, and keep your words.
[The Senators descend, and open the gates.

Enter Soldier.

60

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,