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 the day serves, before black-corner'd night, TIM. I'll meet you at the turn.-What a god's gold, That he is worshipp'd in a baser temple 'Tis thou that rigg'st the bark, and plough'st the Rid me these villains from your companies : BOTH. Name them, my lord, let's know them. company: Each man apart, all single and alone, respondent of Steevens' proposed to read, “black-cover'd night." Mr. Dyce suggests "black-curtain'd night." When the day serves, &c.] This couplet should be assigned to the Poet, to whom it undoubtedly belongs. d A made-up villain.] A finished, or accomplished villain. Yet an arch-villain keeps him company. You have done work for me, there's payment: You are an alchemist, make gold of that:- [Beats them out, and then retires into his cave. It is our part, and promise to the Athenians, To speak with Timon. 2 SEN. At all times alike Timon. TIM. I thank them; and would send them back the plague, Men are not still the same: 'twas time and griefs Could I but catch it for them. The reverend'st throat in Athens. So I leave you 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. TIM. But yet I love my country, and am not One that rejoices in the common wreck, As common bruit doth put it. 1 SEN. That's well spoke. TIM. Commend me to my loving countrymen,1 SEN. These words become your lips as they pass through them. 2 SEN. And enter in our ears like great triúmphers In their applauding gates. TIM. Commend me to them; 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. TIM. Come not to me again: but say to Athens, As full as thy report? MESS. 2 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 oppos'd, From Alcibiades to Timon's cave, Here come our brothers. "When, though on several part we were oppos'd, We conceive the errors to lurk in the words made and force, the former having been caught by the compositor from the following line, and would read, "Whom, though in general part we were oppos'd, And made us speak like friends." To take a truce was an every-day expression in our author's time, and has been adopted by him more than once; thus, in "King John," Act III. Sc. 1 : "With my vex'd spirits I cannot take a truce." And in "Troilus and Cressida," Act II. Sc. 3:"Took a truce, and did him service." |