:

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 travel 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.

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

:

Pain. Good as the best. Promising is the very air of 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. To promise is most courtly and fashionable : performance is a kind of will, or testament, which argues a great sickness in his judgment that makes it.

Tim. 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. Must thou needs, stand for a villain in thine own work? Wilt thou whip thine own faults in other men? 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.

What a god's gold,

Tim. I'll meet you at the turn.
That he is worshipp'd in a baser temple,

Than where swine feed!

'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 do meet them.

[Advancing.

[6] This allusion is scriptural, and occurs in Psalm xcii. 11. "The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree." STEEV. 17] Personating for representing simply. For the subject of this projected satire was Timon's case, not his person.

WARB.

Poet. Hail, worthy Timon!

Pain. Our late noble master.

Tim. Have I once liv'd to see two honest men ?
Poet. Sir,

Having often of your open bounty tasted,

Hearing you were retir'd, 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'm 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.

Pain. He, and myself,

Have travell'd in the great shower of your gifts,
And sweetly felt it.

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. You are honest men: You have heard that I

have gold;

I am sure, you have: speak truth: you are honest men. 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 art, indeed, the best ; Thou counterfeit'st most lively.

Pain. So, so, my lord.

Tim. Even so, sir, as I say:-And, for thy fiction,[To Poet. Why, thy verse swells with stuff so fine and smooth, That thou art even natural in thine art.But, for all this, my honest-natur'd friends, I must needs say, you have a little fault : Marry, 'tis not monstrous in you; neither wish I, You take much pains to mend.

Both. Beseech your honour,

To make it known to us.

Tim. You'll take it ill.

Both. Most thankfully, my lord.

Tim. Will you, indeed?

Both. Doubt it not, worthy lord.

Tim. There's ne'er a one of you but trusts a knave, That mightily deceives you.

Both. Do we, my lord?

Tim. Ay, and you hear him cog, see him dissemble, Know his gross patchery, love him, feed him, Keep in your bosom : yet remain assur'd,

That he's a made-up villain."

Pain. I know none such, my lord.

Poet. Nor I.

Tim. Look you, I love you well; I'll give you gold, Rid me these villains from your companies :

Hang them, or stab them, drown them in a draught,9
Confound them by some course, and come to me,
I'll give you gold enough.

Both. Name them, my lord, let's know them.

Tim. You that way, and you this, but two in company :1 -Each man apart, all single and alone,

Yet an arch-villain keeps him company.

If, where thou art, two villains shall not be.

[To the Painter. Come not near him.-If thou wouldst not reside

[To the Poet.

But where one villain is, then him abandon.-
Hence! pack! there's gold, ye came for gold, ye slaves :
You have done work for me, there's payment:
You are an alchymist, make gold of that:

Out, rascal dogs!

The same.

:

[Exit, beating and driving them out

SCENE II.

Enter FLAVIUS, and two Senators.

Flav. It is in vain that you would speak with Timon ;

For he is set so only to himself,

That nothing but himself, which looks like man,

Is friendly with him.

1 Sen. Bring us to his cave:

It is our part, and promise to the Athenians,

To speak with Timon.

3 Sen. At all times alike

[8] A complete, a finished villain. MASON.

19] That is, in the jakes.

JOHNSON.

[1] Do you go that way, and you this, and yet still each of you will have two in your company: each of you, though single and alone, will be accompanied by an arch villain.

MALONE.

Men are not still the same: 'Twas time, and griefs,
That fram'd 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.

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.

Enter TIMON.

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!

1 Sen. Worthy Timon,

Tim. Of none but such as you, and you of Timon.

2 Sen. The senators of Athens greet thee, Timon.

Tim. I thank them; and would send them back the plague,

Could I but catch it for them.

1 Sen. O, forget

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.

2 Sen. They confess,

Toward thee, forgetfulness too general, gross :
Which now the public body,-which doth seldom
Play the recanter,-feeling in itself

A lack of Timon's aid, hath sense withal
Of its own fall, restraining aid to Timon;
And send forth us, to make their sorrowed render,
Together with a recompense more fruitful

Than their offence can weigh down by the dram ;3
Ay, even such heaps and sums of love and wealth,
As shall to thee blot out what wrongs were theirs,

[2] The Athenians had sense, that is, felt the danger of their own fall, by the arms of Alcibiades. JOHNSON.

[S] A recompense so large, that the offence they have omitted, though every dram of that offence should be put into the scale, cannot counterpoise it. The recompense will outweigh the offence, which, instead of weighing down the scale in which it is placed, will kick the beam.

MALONE.

And write in thee the figures of their love,
Ever to read them thine.

Tim. You witch me in it;

Surprize me to the very brink of tears:
Lend me a fool's heart, and a woman's eyes,
And I'll beweep these comforts, worthy senators.

1 Sen. Therefore, so please thee to return with us,
And of our Athens (thine, and ours,) to take
The captainship, thou shalt be met with thanks,
Allow'd with absolute power, and thy good name
Live with authority :-So soon we shall drive back
Of Alcibiades the approaches wild ;

Who, like a boar too savage, doth root up

His country's peace.

2 Sen. And shakes his threat'ning sword Against the walls of Athens.

1 Sen. Therefore, Timon,

Tim. Well, sir, I will; therefore, I will, sir; Thus,-If Alcibiades kill my countrymen,

Let Alcibiades know this of Timon,

That-Timon cares not. But if he sack fair 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,
And let him take't at worst; for their knives care not,
While you have throats to answer for myself,
There's not a whittle in the unruly camp,*

So I leave you

But I do prize it at my love, before
The reverend'st throat in Athens.
To the protection of the prosperous gods,
As thieves to keepers.

Flav. Stay not, all's in vain.

Tim. Why, I was writing of my epitaph,
It will be seen to-morrow; my long sickness
Of health, and living, now begins to mend,"
And nothing brings me all things. Go, live still;
Be Alcibiades your plague, you his,

And last so long enough!

1 Sen. We speak in vain.

[4] A whittle is still in many places the common name for a pocket clasp knife, such as children use.

STEEVENS.

[5] The disease of life begins to promise me a period.

JOHNSON.