Out of his free love, hath presented to you
Four milk-white horses, trapp'd in silver.

1 Shakspeare probably borrowed this idea from the puritanical writers of his time. Thus Stubbee, in his Anatomie of Abuses, Svo. 1583, Dauncers thought to be madmen.' And as in all feasts and pastimes dauncing is the last, so it is the extream of all other vice.' 5 An equivoque is here intended, in which cross'd And again,There were (saith Ludovicus Vives) from means have his hand crossed with money, or have mofar countries certain men brought into our parts of the ney in his possession, and to be cross'd or thwarted. world, who when they saw mer, daunce, ran away mar-So in As You Like It, Yet I should bear no cross if I vellously afraid, crying out and thinking them mad,' did bear you. Many coins being marked with a cross &c. Perhaps the thought originated from the following on the reverse. passage in Cicero, Pro Murena 6, Nemo enim fere sultat sobrius, nisi forte insanit.

2 The glory of this life is like [or just such] madDess, in the eye of reason, as this pomp appears when opposed to the frugal repast of a philosopher feeding on oil and roots."

3 i. e. you have conceived the fairest of us,' or 'you think favourably of our performance, and make the best of it.'

So infinitely endeared

Tim. All to you.2-Lights, more lights.
1 Lord.
The best of happiness,
Honour, and fortunes, keep with you, Lord Timon!
Tim. Ready for his friends.
[Exeunt ALCIPIADES, Lords, &c.
Apem.
What a coil's here!
Serving of becks, and jutting out of bums!
I doubt whether their legs be worth the sums
That are given for 'em. Friendship's full of dregs:
Methinks, false hearts should never have sound legs.
Thus honest fools lay out their wealth on court'sies.
Tim. Now, Apemantus, if thou wert not sullen,
I'd be good to thee.

Apem. No, I'll nothing: for, if I should be brib'd too, there would be none left to rail upon thee; and then thou would'st sin the faster. Thou givest so long, Timon, I fear me, thou wilt give away thyself in paper shortly: What need these feasts, pomps, and vain glories?

Tim. Nay, an you begin to rail on society once, I am sworn, not to give regard to you. Farewell; and come with better music. [Exit.

Apem. So;-thou'lt not hear me now,-thou shalt not then, I'll lock thy heaven" from thee. O, that men's ears should be

To counsel deaf, but not to flattery!

[Exit.

1 i. e. could dispense them on every side with an un

grudging distribution.

ACT II.

SCENE I Athens. A Room in a Senator's
House. Enter a Senator, with papers in his hand.

Sen. And late, five thousand to Varro; and to
Isidore

He owes nine thousand; besides my former sum,
Which makes it five and twenty.-Still in motion
Of raging waste? It cannot hold; it will not.
If I want gold, steal but a beggar's dog,
And give it Timon, why the dog coins gold:
If I would sell my horse, and buy twenty more
Better than he, why, give my horse to Timon,
Ask nothing, give it him, it foals me" straight,
And able horses: No porter at his gate;
But rather one that smiles, and still invites
All that pass by. It cannot hold; no reason
Can sound his state in safety. Caphis, ho!
Caphis, I say!

Caph.

9

Enter CAPHIS.

Here, sir; what is your pleasure?
Sen. Get on your cloak, and haste you to Lord
Timon;

Importune him for my moneys; he not ceas'd1o
With slight denial; nor then silenc'd, when-
Commend me to your master-and the cap
Plays in the right hand, thus :-but tell him, sırrah,
My uses cry to me, I must serve my turn
Out of mine own; his days and times are past,
And my reliances on his fracted dates
Have smit my credit: I love and honour him;
But must not break my back, to heal his finger:
Immediate are my needs; and
my relief
Must not be toss'd and turn'd to me in words,
But find supply immediate. Get
Put on a most importunate aspect,
A visage of demand; for, I do fear,
When every feather sticks in his own wing,
Lord Timon will be left a naked gull,11
Which12 flashes now a phoenix. Get you gone.
Caph. I go, sir.

you gone:

Sen. I go, sir?-take the bonds along with you,
And have the dates in compt.
Caph.
Sen.

I will, sir.

Go. [Exeunt.

SCENE II. The same. A Hall in Timon's House.
Enter FLAVIUS, with many Bills in his hand.
Flay. No care, no stop! so senseless of expense,
That he will neither know how to maintain it,

2 That is, all good wishes to you,' or 'all happi-Nor cease his flow of riot: Takes no account ness attend you.'

3 A beck is a nod or salutation with the head. Steevens says that beck has four distinct significations,' but they will resolve themselves into tico. Beck, a rivulet, or little river; and beck, a motion or sign with the head; signa capitis voluntatem ostendens. This last may be either a nod of salutation, of assent or dis-sent, or finally of command.

4 He plays upon the word leg, as it signifies a limb, and a boir or act of obeisance.

5 Warburton explained this, be ruined by his securities entered into. Dr. Farmer would read proper, i. e. I suppose, in propria persona. Steevens supports this reading by a quotation from Roy's Satire on Cardinal Wolsey:

their order

Is to have nothing in proper,
But to use all thynges in commune.'

6 By his hearen he means good advice; the only thing by which he could be saved.

How things go from him; nor resumes no care
Of what is to continue; Never mind
Was to be so unwise, to be so kind.13
I must be round with him now he comes from hunt-
What shall be done? He will not hear, till feel:
ing.
Fye, fye, fye, fye!

9 Johnson altered this to found his state in safety? But the reading of the folio is evidently sound, which I think will bear explanation thus:-No reason can proclaim his state in safety, or not dangerous.' So in King Henry VIII. Act v. Sc. 2:

Pray heaven he sound not my disgrace!' 10 Be not stayed or stopped. :

"Why should Tiberius' liberty be ceased?" Claudius Tiberius Nero, 1607. 11 This passage has been thus explained by Roger Wilbraham, Esq. in his Glossary of words used in Cheshire:- Gull, s. a naked gull; so are called all

7 The commentators have made difficulties about this passage, which appears to me quite plain and intel-nestling birds in quite an unfledged state." ligible without a cominent. 'If I give my horse to Timon, it immediately foals, i. e. produces me several

able horses.'

8 Sternness was the characteristic of a porter. There appeared at Kenilworth Castle, [1575] a porter tall of parson, big of lim, and stearn of countinauns.' The word one, in the second line, does not refer to porter, but means a person. He has no stern forbidding porter at his gate to keep people out, but a person who smiles and invites then in.'

12 Which for who. The pronoun relative applied to things is frequently used for the pronoun relative ap. plied to persons, by old writers, and does not seem to have been thought a grammatical error. It is still preserved in the Lord's prayer.

13 This is elliptically expressed:
Never mind

Was [made] to be so unwise [in order] to be so kind.' Conversation, as Johnson observes, affords many examples of similar lax expression.

Is't not your business too?
Caph. It is ;-And yours too, Isidore?
Isid. Serv.

Caph. 'Would we were all discharg'd!
Var. Serv.

Caph. Here comes the lord.

It is so.

I fear it.

Enter TIMON, ALCIBIADES, and Lords, &c.
Tim. So soon as dinner's done, we'll forth again,2
My Alcibiades. With me? What's your will?
Caph. My lord, here is a note of certain dues.
Tim. Dues? Whence are you?
Caph.

Isid. Serv. [To VAR. Serv.] There's the fool hangs on your back already.

Apem. No, thou stand'st single, thou art not on him yet.

Caph. Where's the fool now?

Apem. He last ask'd the question.-Poor rogues, and usurers' men! bawds between gold and want! All Serv. What are we, Apemantus?

Apem. Asses.

All Serv. Why?

Apem. That you ask me what you are, and do not know yourselves.-Speak to 'em, fool. Fool. How do you, gentlemen?

All Serv. Gramercies, good fool: How does your mistress!

Fool. She's e'en setting on water to scald such Of Athens, here, my lord.chickens as you are. 'Would, we could see you at Corinth.

Tim. Go to my steward.

Caph. Please it your lordship, he hath put me off
To the succession of new days this month:
My master is awak'd by great occasion,

To call upon his own; and humbly prays you,
That with your other noble parts you'll suit,3
In giving him his right.

Tim.

Mine honest friend,

I pr'ythee, but repair to me next morning.

Caph. Nay, good my lord,

Tim.

Contain thyself, good friend.

Apem. Good! gramercy.

Enter Page.

Fool. Look you, here comes my mistress' page. Page. [To the Fool.] Why, how now, captain? what do you in this wise company ?-How dost thou, Apemantus?

Apem. Would I had a rod in my mouth, that I might answer thee profitably.

Page. Pr'ythee, Apemantus, read me the super

Var. Serv. One Varro's servant, my good lord,scription of these letters; I know not which is From Isidore;

Isid. Serv. Your steward puts me off, my lord; famish, a dog's death. Answer not, I am gone. And I am sent expressly to your lordship.

Tim. Give me breath,

you;

I do beseech you, good my lords, keep on; ̧
[Exeunt ALCIBIADES and Lords.
I'll wait upon you instantly.-Come hither, pray
[TO FLAVIUS.
How goes the world, that I am thus encounter'd
With clamorous demands of date-broke bonds,*
And the detention of long-since-due debts,
Against my honour?
Flav.
Please you, gentlemen,
The time is unagreeable to this business:
Your importunacy cease, till after dinner;
That I may make his lordship understand
Wherefore you are not paid."

The reason of this?

Var. Serv. I could render one.

Apem. Do it, then, that we may account thee a whoremaster and a knave; which notwithstanding,

Caph. Stay, stay, here comes the fool with Ape- thou shalt be no less esteemed.

mantus; let's have some sport with 'em.

Var. Serv. Hang him, he'll abuse us.
Isid. Serv. A plague upon him, dog!
Var. Serv. How dost, fool?

Apem. Dost dialogue with thy shadow?
Var. Serv. I speak not to thee.
Apem. No; 'tis to thyself,-Come away.
[To the Fool.

1 Good even, or good den, was the usual salutation from noon, the moment that good morrow became improper. See Romeo and Juliet, Act ii. Sc. 4.

2 i. e. to hunting; in our author's time it was the custom to hunt as well after dinner as before. Thus in Tancred and Gismunda, 1592. He means this evening in the park to hunt. Queen Elizabeth, during her stay at Kenilworth Castle, always hunted in the afternoon, 3 i. e. that you will behave on this occasion in a man. ner consistent with your other noble qualities. 4 The old copy reads:

Var. Serv. What is a whoremaster, fool? Fool. A fool in good clothes, and something like thee. 'Tis a spirit: sometime, it appears like a lord; sometime, like a lawyer; sometime, like a philosopher, with two stones more than his artificial one:" He is very often like a knight; and, genehere lost, in which the audience were informed that the fool and the page that follows him belonged to Phrynia, Timandra, or some other courtesan; upon the knowledge of which depends the greater part of the ensuing jocularity.

6 The reputation of the ladies of Corinth for gallantry caused the term to be anciently used for a house of ill repute. The scalding, to which the fool alludes, is the curative process for a certain disease, by means of a tub, which persons affected (according to Randle Holme, Storehouse of Armory, b. iii. p. 441) were put into, not to boyl up to an heighth, but to parboyl. In the frontispiece to the Old Latin Comedy of Cornelis. num Dolium this sweating tub is represented. It was anciently the practice to scald the feathers off poultry instead of plucking them.

7 Meaning the celebrated object of al' alchymica! research, the philosopher's stone, at that time much talk5 Johnson thought that a scene or passage had beened of. Sir Thomas Smith was one of those who lost

And my reliances on his fracted dates.

rally in all shapes, that man goes up and down in, | When all our offices have been oppress'd
from fourscore to thirteen, this spirit walks in..

Var. Serv. Thou art not altogether a fool.
Fool. Nor thou altogether a wise man: as much
foolery as I have, so much wit thou lackest.
Apem. That answer might have become Ape-

mantus.

You would not hear me,
At many leisures I propos'd.
Tim.
Perchance, some single vantages you took,
When my indisposition put you back;
And that unaptness made your minister,'
Thus to excuse yourself.

Flav.

my good lord!

At many times I brought in my accounts,
Laid them before you; you would throw them off,
And say, you found them in mine honesty.
When, for some trifling present, you have bid me
Return so much,2 I have shook my head, and wept ;
Yea, 'gainst the authority of manners, pray'd you
To hold your hand more close; I did endure
Not seldom, nor no slight checks; when I have
Prompted you, in the ebb of your estate,
And your great flow of debts. My dear-lov'd lord,
Though you hear now (too late!) yet now's a time,'
The greatest of your having lacks a half
To pay your present debts.

Tim.

Let all my land be sold.
Flav. 'Tis all engag'd, some forfeited and gone;
And what remains will hardly stop the mouth
Of present dues: the future comes apace :
What shall defend the interim? and at length
How goes our reckoning ?4

Tim. To Lacedæmon did my land extend.
Flav. O my good lord, the world is but a word;"
Were it all yours to give it in a breath,
How quickly were it gone?

Tim.

You tell me true.

Flav. If you suspect my husbandry, or falsehood,
Call me before the exactest auditors,
And set me on the proof. So the gods bless me,

considerable sums in seeking of it. Sir Richard Steele
was one of the last eminent men who entertained hopes
of being successful in this pursuit. His laboratory was
at Poplar.

1 The construction is, And made that unaptness your minister."

2 He does not mean so great a sum, but a certain

Bum.

3Though you now at last listen to my remonstran ces, yet now your affairs are in such a state, that the whole of your remaining fortune will scarce pay half your debts: you are therefore wise too late.'

With riotous feeders; when our vaults have wept
With drunken spilth of wine; when every room
Hath blaz'd with lights, and bray'd with minstrelsy;
I have retir'd me to a wasteful cock,"
And set mine eyes at flow.

Tim.
Pr'ythee, no more.
Flav. Heavens, have I said, the bounty of this lord!
How many prodigal bits have slaves, and peasants,
This night englutted! Who is not Timon's?
What heart, head, sword, force, means, but is Lord
Timon's?

Great Timon, noble, worthy, royal Timon!
Ah! when the means are gone that buy this praise,
The breath is gone whereof this praise is made:
Feast-won, fast-lost; one cloud of winter showers,
These flies are couch'd.

Tim.
Come, sermon me no further:
No villanous bounty yet hath pass'd my heart;
Unwisely, not ignobly, have I given."

Why dost thou weep? Canst thou the conscience

lack,

To think I shall lack friends? Secure thy heart;
If I would broach the vessels of my love,
And try the argument of hearts by borrowing,
Men, and men's fortunes, could I frankly use,
As I can bid thee speak.

Flav.

Assurance bless your thoughts! Tim. And, in some sort, these wants of mine are crown'd, 10

That I account them blessings; for by these
Shall I try friends: You shall perceive, how you
Mistake my fortunes; I am wealthy in my friends.
Within there, ho!-Flaminius, Servilius!
Enter FLAMINIUS, SERVILIUS, and other Servants.
Serv. My lord, my lord,-

Tim. I will despatch you severally. - You, to
Lord Lucius,-

To Lord Lucullus you; I hunted with his
Honour to-day;-You to Sempronius;
Commend me to their loves; and, I am proud, say,
That my occasions have found time to use them
Toward a supply of money: let the request
Be fifty talents.

Flam.

As you have said, my lord.
Flav. Lord Lucius, and Lord Lucullus? humph!
[Aside.
Tim. Go you, sir, [To another Serv.] to the

senators,

(Of whom, even to the state's best health, I have Deserv'd this hearing,) bid 'em send o' the instant A thousand talents to me.

Flav.

I have been bold
(For that I knew it the most general way,)11
To them to use your signet, and your name;

present hour of five until the bell has told eleven,"
countenances Steevens's explanation; as does another
passage, from Shirley's Opportunitie, cited by Mr. Bos-
well:-
'Let all the offices of entertainment
Be free and open.'

The cellar and the buttery are probably meant.

7 A wasteful cock is possibly what we now call a waste pipe, a pipe which is continually running, and thereby prevents the overflow of cisterns, &c. by carrying off their superfluous water. This circumstance served to keep the idea of Timon's unceasing prodigal 4 How will you be able to subsist in the time inter-ity in the mind of the steward, while its remoteness vening between the payment of the present demands (which your whole substance will hardly satisfy) and the claim of future dues, for which you have no fund whatsoever; and, finally, on the settlement of all accounts, in what a wretched plight will you be.'

. e. as the world itself may be comprised in a word, you might give it away in a breath.

was favourable to meditation.

8 Every reader must rejoice in this circumstance of comfort which presents itself to Timon, who, although beggared through want of prudence, consoles himself with reflection that his ruin was not brought on by the pursuit of guilty pleasures.-Steevens.

9 i. e. the contents of them. The argument of a book 6 Steevens asserted that offices here meant apart was a brief sum of the whole matter contained in it.' ments allotted to culinary purposes, the reception of So in Hamlet, the king asks concerning the play :domestics, &c.; and that feeders meant servants. Ma-Have you heard the argument? is there no offence in lone contended that by offices was intended all rooms it?" or places at which refreshments were prepared or served out; as Steevens had explained it in Othello; and that feeders did not here mean servants. It must be confessed that the passage in Othello, 'All offices are open, and there is full liberty of feasting from this

10 i. e. dignified, adorned, made gracious. 'And yet no day without a deed to crown it.' King Henry VIII. 11The most general way,' is the most compendious, to try many at a time.

Flam. 'Faith, nothing but an empty box, sir; Flav. They answer, in a joint and corporate voice, which, in my lord's behalf, I come to entreat your That now they are at fall, want treasure, cannot honour to supply; who, having great and instant Do what they would; are sorry-you are honour-occasion to use fifty talents, hath sent to your lordable,

But yet they could have wish'd-they know not-assistance therein.

Serv. Here's my lord. Lucul. [Aside. One of Lord Timon's men? a gift, I warrant. Why, this hits right; I dreamt of a silver bason and ewer to-night. Flaminius, honest Which my lord paid for, be of any power Flaminius; you are very respectively welcome, To expel sickness, but prolong his hour!13 [Erit. sir.-Fill me some wine.-[Exit Servant.]-And how does that honourable, complete, free-hearted SCENE II. The same. A public Place. Enter gentleman of Athens, thy very bountiful good lord and master?

1 Stran. We know14 him for no less, though we poured down their throats. In the old Shepherd's Ca2 Johnson, Steevens, and Malone have explained in-lendar, Lazarus declares himself to have seen covetous tending here regarding, turning their notice, or attend. men and women in hell dipped in caldrons of molten ing to, &c. but it certainly means pretending. See metal. And in the old black letter ballad of The Dead King Richard III. Sc. 5. Shakspeare uses pretend in Man's Song :many places for intend: and I have shown that he Ladles full of melted gold also uses pretend for intend in several instances. Were poured down their throats.' Crassus was so punished by the Parthians. 10 So in King Lear :

3 Fractions are broken hints, abrupt remarks. A half-cap is a cap slightly moved, not put off. 4 Liberal, not parsimonious.

That nobleness 11 i. e. suffering, grief. Othello, when Desdemona

5 i. e. consideratively, regardfully. 6 Honesty here means liberality. of spirit or honesty that free-born men have.'-Baret. 7 Steevens says, 'I believe this coin is from the mint of the poet' We are not to look for the name of a Greek coin here; but he probably formed it from solidari, or soldi, a small coin, which Florio makes equal to shillings in value.

8 And we alive now who lived then. As much as to say, in so short a time.

9 One of the punishments invented for the covetous and avaricious in hell of old, was to have melted gold