Imatges de pàgina
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TIMON OF ATHENS.

ACT I.

SCENE I. Athens. A Hall in Timon's House.

Enter Poet, Painter, Jeweller, Merchant, and
Others, at several Doors.

GOOD day, sir.

Pain.

Poet.

I am glad you are well1.

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 conjur'd to attend. I know the merchant.
Pain. I know them both; t'other's a jeweller.
Mer. O, 'tis a worthy lord!

Jew.
Nay, that's most fix'd.
Mer. A most incomparable man; breath'd, as it

were,

1 It would be less abrupt and more metrical to begin the play thus:

Poet. Good day, sir.

Pain. Good sir, I'm glad you're well.

2 The Poet merely means to ask if any thing extraordinary or out of the common course of things has lately happened; and is prevented from waiting for an answer by observing so many conjured by Timon's bounty to attend.

To an untirable and continuate goodness:

He passes3.
Jew.

I have a jewel here.

Mer. O, pray, let's see't: For the Lord Timon, sir? Jew. If he will touch the estimate1: But, for

that

Poets. When we for

the vile,

recompense have prais'd

It stains the glory in that happy verse

Which aptly sings the good.

Mer.

'Tis a good form. [Looking at the Jewel.

Jew. And rich: here is a water, look you. Pain. You are rapt, sir, in some work, some dedication

To the great lord.

Poet.

A thing slipp'd idly from me. Our poesy is a gum, which oozes6

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
Each bound it chafes. What have you there?
Pain. A picture, sir. And when comes your
book forth?

3

breath'd, as it were,

To an untirable and continuate goodness:

He passes.

Breath'd is exercised, inured by constant practice, so trained as not to be wearied. To breathe a horse is to exercise him for the course: continuate for continued course. He passes, i. e. exceeds or goes beyond common bounds.

'Why this passes, Master Ford.'

Merry Wives of Windsor. 4 Touch the estimate, that is, come up to the price.

5 We must here suppose the poet busy in reciting part of his own work; and that these three lines are the introduction of the poem addressed to Timon.

6 The old copies read:

Our poesie is a gowne which uses.'

It is not certain whether this word is chafes or chases in the folio. I think the former is the true reading. The poetaster means that the vein of a poet flows spontaneously, like the current of a river, and flies from each bound that chafes it in its course, as scorning all impediment, and requiring no excitement. In Julius Cæsar we have:

The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores.'

Poet. Upon the heels of my presentment, sir. Let's see your piece.

Pain.

"Tis a good piece.

Poet. So 'tis: this comes off well9 and excellent. Pain. Indifferent.

Poet.

Admirable: How this grace

Speaks his own standing10! what a mental power
This eye shoots forth! how big imagination
Moves in this lip! to the dumbness of the gesture
One might interpret11.

Pain. It is a pretty mocking of the life.
Here is a touch; Is't good?

Poet.

I'll say of it,

It tutors nature: artificial strife12

Lives in these touches, livelier than life.

Enter certain Senators, and pass over.

Pain. How this lord's follow'd!

Poet. The senators of Athens:-Happy men!
Pain. Look, more!

Poet. You see this confluence, this great flood of visitors13.

I have, in this rough work, shap'd out a man, Whom this beneath world14 doth embrace and hug With amplest entertainment: My free drift

8 i. e. as soon as my book has been presented to Timon.

9 This comes off well apparently means this is cleverly done, or this piece is well executed. The phrase is used in Measure for Measure ironically. See vol. ii. p. 24, note 12.

10 How the graceful attitude of this figure proclaims that it stands firm on its centre, or gives evidence in favour of its own fixure. Grace is introduced as bearing witness to propriety.

11 One might venture to supply words to such intelligible action. Such significant gesture ascertains the sentiments that should accompany it. So in Cymbeline, Act ii. Sc. 4:

6 --ever saw I pictures

So likely to report themselves.'

12 i. e. the contest of art with nature. This was a very common mode of expressing the excellence of a painter. Shakspeare has it again, more clearly expressed, in his Venus and Adonis :His art with nature's workmanship at strife.'

13 Mane salutantum totis vomit ædibus undam.'

14 So in Measure for Measure we have,This under generation;' and in King Richard III. the lower world.

Halts not particularly15, but moves itself
In a wide sea of wax16: no levell'd malice
Infects one comma in the course I hold;
But flies an eagle flight, bold, and forth on,
Leaving no tract behind.

I'll unbolt17 to you.

Pain. How shall I understand you? Poet. You see how all conditions, how all minds (As well of glib and slippery creatures, as Of grave and austere quality), tender down Their services to Lord Timon: his large fortune, Upon his good and gracious nature hanging,

Subdues and properties 18 to his love and tendance All sorts of hearts; yea, from the glass-fac'd flatterer19

To Apemantus, that few things loves better
Than to abhor himself: even he drops down
The knee before him, and returns in peace
Most rich in Timon's nod.

Pain.

I saw them speak together. Poet. Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill, Feign'd Fortune to be thron'd: The base o'the mount Is rank'd with all deserts, all kind of natures, That labour on the bosom of this sphere To propagate their states20: amongst them all, Whose eyes are on this sovereign lady fix'd, One do I personate of Lord Timon's frame, Whom Fortune with her ivory hand wafts to her: Whose present grace to present slaves and servants Translates his rivals.

15 My design does not stop at any particular character.

16 An allusion to the Roman practice of writing with a style on tablets, covered with wax: a custom which also prevailed in England until about the close of the fourteenth century.

17 i. e open, explain.

18 i. e. subjects and appropriates.

19 One who shows by reflection the looks of his patron. The poet was mistaken in the character of Apemantus; but seeing that he paid frequent visits to Timon, he naturally concluded that he was equally courteous with his other guests.

20 i. e. to improve or promote their conditions. See vol. ii. p. 15,

note 6.

Pain.

"Tis conceiv'd to scope21.

This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks,
With one man beckon'd from the rest below,
Bowing his head against the steepy mount
To climb his happiness, would be well express'd
In our condition22.

Poet.

Nay, sir, but hear me on:

All those which were his fellows but of late
(Some better than his value), on the moment
Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tendance,
Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ears23,

Make sacred even his stirrop, and through him
Drink the free air24.

Pain.

Ay, marry, what of these? Poet. When Fortune, in her shift and change of

mood,

Spurns down her late belov'd, all his dependants,
Which labour'd after him to the mountain's top,
Even on their knees and hands, let him slip
down,

Not one accompanying his declining foot.
Pain. "Tis common:

A thousand moral paintings I can show,

That shall demonstrate these quick blows of
fortune

More pregnantly than words. Yet you do well,
To show Lord Timon, that mean eyes25 have seen
The foot above the head.

21 i. c. extensively imagined, largely conceived.

22 i. e. in our art, in painting. Condition was used for profession, quality; façon de faire. See vol. i. p. 137, note 14.

23 Whisperings of officious servility, the incense of the worshipping parasite to the patron as a god. Gray has excellently expressed in his Elegy these sacrificial offerings to the great from the poetic tribe:

To heap the shrine of luxury and pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.'

24 To drink the air, like the haustos ætherios of Virgil, is merely a poetic phrase for draw the air, or breathe. To drink the free air, therefore, through another,' is to breathe freely at his will only, so as to depend on him for the privilege of life; not even to breathe freely without his permission.

25 i. e. inferior spectators.

sit

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