Stay, I will lend thee money, borrow none. [Exit. Re-enter the Lords, with other Lords and Senators. 1 Lord. How now, my lords? 2 Lord. Know you the quality of lord Timon's fury? 3 Lord. Pish! did you see my cap? 4 Lord. I have lost my gown. 3 Lord. He's but a mad lord, and nought but humour sways him. He gave me a jewel the other day, and now he has beat it out of hat: my my jewel? 4 Lord. Did you see my cap? 2 Lord. Here 'tis. 4 Lord. Here lies my gown. 1 Lord. Let's make no stay. 2 Lord. Lord Timon's mad. 3 Lord. - Did you see I feel't upon my bones. 4 Lord. One day he gives us diamonds, next day stones. ACT IV. [Exeunt. SCENE I. Without the Walls of Athens. Enter TIMON. Tim. Let me look back upon thee, O thou wall, And minister in their steads! to general filths* Do't in your parents' eyes! bankrupts, hold fast; On Athens, ripe for stroke! thou cold sciatica, Take thou that too, with multiplying banns! general filths ] i. e. common sewers. confounding contraries,] i. e. contrarieties whose nature it is to waste or destroy each other. 6 sion. 7 8 yet confusion] Sir Thomas Hanmer reads, let confu liberty -] Liberty is here used for libertinism. multiplying banns!] i. e. accumulated curses. Multiplying for multiplied: the active participle with a passive signification. The gods confound (hear me, you good gods all,) [Exit. SCENE II. Athens. A Room in Timon's House. Enter FLAVIUS, with Two or Three Servants. 1 Serv. Hear you, master steward, where's our master? Are we undone? cast off? nothing remaining? Flav. Alack, my fellows, what should I say to you? Let me be recorded by the righteous gods, I am as poor as you. 1 Serv. Such a house broke ! So noble a master fallen! All gone! and not 2 Serv. As we do turn our backs Slink all away; leave their false vows with him, A dedicated beggar to the air, With his disease of all-shunn'd poverty, Walks, like contempt, alone. More of our fellows. Enter other Servants. Flav. All broken implements of a ruin'd house. 9 Enter Flavius,] Nothing contributes more to the exaltation of Timon's character than the zeal and fidelity of his servants. No-thing but real virtue can be honoured by domesticks; nothing but impartial kindness can gain affection from dependants. 3 Serv. Yet do our hearts wear Timon's livery, The latest of my wealth I'll share amongst you. We have seen better days. Let each take some; [Giving them money. Nay, put out all your hands. Not one word more: Thus part we rich in sorrow, parting poor. 1 [Exeunt Servants. O, the fierce wretchedness that glory brings us! Who would not wish to be from wealth exempt, Since riches point to misery and contempt? Who'd be so mock'd with glory? or to live But in a dream of friendship? 2 To have his pomp, and all what state compounds, Of monstrous friends: nor has he with him to O, the fierce wretchedness] Fierce is here used for hasty, precipitate. 9 Strange, unusual blood,] Strange, unusual blood, may mean strange, unusual disposition. Supply his life, or that which can command it. I'll ever serve his mind with my best will; Whilst I have gold, I'll be his steward still. [Exit. SCENE III. The Woods. Enter TIMON. Tim. O blessed breeding sun, draw from the earth Rotten humidity; below thy sister's orb3 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 denude that lord ;+ The beggar native honour. It is the pasture lards the brother'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, 3 world. below thy sister's orb —] That is, the moon's, this sublunary Not nature, To whom all sorès lay siege, can bear great fortune, But by contempt of nature.] Mr. M. Mason observes, that this "but by the addition of a single letter may be rendered passage clearly intelligible; by merely reading natures instead of nature." "Not even beings reduced to the utThe meaning will then bemost extremity of wretchedness, can bear good fortune, without contemning their fellow-creatures." +"deny't that lord;"- MALONE. |