Still ferve him with my life. My dearest master! To requite me, by making rich yourself.

"Timon comes forward from bis tave.
Tim. Away! what art thou?
Flav. Have you forgot me, fir?
Tim. Why dost ask that? I have forgot all

[men;

Then, if thou grant'st thou art a man, I have
Forgot thee.

Flav. An honest poor servant of yours.
Tim. Then I know thee not :

I ne'er had honeft man about me, I; all
I kept were knaves, to serve in meat to villains.
Flav. The gods are witness,
Ne'er did poor steward wear a truer grief

For his undone lord, than mine eyes for you.

Tim. What, doft thou weep? Come nearer;
then I love thee,
Because thou art a woman, and disclaim'ft
Flinty mankind; whose eyes do never give,
But thorough luft, and laughter. Pity's sleeping:
Strange times, that weep with laughing, not with

So true, fo juft, and now fo comfortable?
It almost turns my dangerous nature wild 2.
-Let me behold thy face. Surely, this man
Was born of woman.

Forgive my general and exceptless rafhness,
Perpetual-fober gods! I do proclaim

One honeft man,-mistake me not, -But one;
No more, I pray, and he is a steward.-
How fain would I have hated all mankind,
And thou redeem'st thyself: But all, save thee,
I fell with curfes.

Methinks, thou art more honeft now, than wife;
For, by oppreffing and betraying me,

Thou might'st have fooner got another service:
For many fo arrive at second masters,

Tim. Look thee, 'tis fo!-Thou singly honeft man,
Here, take the gods out of my mifery
Have fent thee treasure. Go, live rich, and happy
But thas condition'd; Thou shalt build from 3 men
Hate all, curse all: fhew charity to none;
But let the famish'd flesh flide from the bone,
Ere thou relieve the beggar: give to dogs
What thou deny'it to men; let prifons swallow 'em,
Debts wither 'em to nothing: Be men like blasted

Flav. O, let me stay, and comfort you, my mafter.
Tim. If thou hat'ît curfes,

Stay not but fly, whilft thou art bleft and free:
Ne'er fee thou man, and let me ne'er see.thee.
[Exeunt feverally.

SCENE II.
The fame.

Enter Poet and Painter.

Pain. As I took note of the place, it cannot be far where he abides.

Poet. What's to be thought of him? Does the rumour hold for true, that he is fo full of gold?

Pain. Certain: Alcibiades reports it; Phrynia and Tymandra had gold of him he likewife enrich'd poor ftraggling foldiers with great quantity: 'Tis faid, he gave his steward a mighty sum. Poet. Then this breaking of his has been but a try for his friends?

Pain. Nothing else you shall see him a palm in Athens again, and flourish with the highest. Therefore, 'tis not amifs, we tender our loves to him, in this fuppos'd distress of his: it will thew 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 promife him an excellent piece.

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

Pain. Good as the best. Promifing is the very air o' the time; it opens the eyes of expectation: performance is ever the duller for his act; and, but in the plainer and fimpler kind of people, the deed of faying is quite out of use 4. To promife is moft courtly and fashionable: performance is a kind of will, or teftament, which argues a great fickness in his judgment that makes it.

Re-enter Timon from bis cave, unfeen. Tim. Excellent workman! Thou canft not paint a man fo bad as thyself.

Peet. I am thinking, what I shall fay I have provided for him: It must be a perfonating 5 of

For any benefit that points to me,
Either in hope, or present, I'd exchange it
For this one wish, That you had power and wealth himself a fatire againft the foftness of profperity;

I Knave is here used in the compound sense of a fervant and a rafcal. [2 To turn wild. is to distract. An appearance so unexpected, fays Timon, almost tarps my favageness to distraction. 3 i. e. away from human habitations. 4 The fenfe is, "The doing of that which we have faid we would do, the accomplishment and performance of our promifc, is, except among the lower classes of mankind, quite out of ufe." 5 Perfonating for repacienting fimply; for the fubject of this projected fatire was Timon's cafe, not his perfon,

Tim. Have I once liv'd to fee two honest men? Hang them, or ftab them, drown them in a draught 4, Poet. Sir,

Pain. So it is faid, my noble lord: but therefore Is friendly with him.

Tim. Good honest men: -Thou draw'st a coun- It is our part, and promife to the Athenians,

Best in all Athens: thou art, indeed, the beft;

Thou counterfeit'st most lively.

Pain. So, fo, my lord.

Ii. e. night which is as obfcure as a dark corner. 2 A portrait was called a counterfeit in our author's time. 3 i. e. a hypocrite. 4 That is, in the jakes. 5 This passage is obícure. Dr. Johnfon thinks the meaning is this: But two in company, that is, Stand apart, let only two be toge ther; for even when each stands single there are two, he himself and a villain. But, in the North, fignifies, without.

The former man may make him: Bring us to him, And take our goodly aged men by the beards,

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 fun, that comfort'st, burn! Speak,
and be hang'd!

For each true word, a blifter, and each false
Be as a cauterizing to the root ở' the tongue,
Confuming it with fpeaking!

1 Sen. Worthy Timon,

Giving our

holy virgins to the ftain
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 chuse 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 4 in the unruly camp,
But I do prize it at my love, before

The reverend'st throat in Athens. So I leave you
To the protection of the profperous gods,

[mon. As thieves to keepers.

Tim. Of none but fuch as you, and you of Ti2 Sen. The fenators of Athens greet thee, Ti

Flav. Stay not, all's in vain.
Tim. Why, I was writing of my epitaph,
[the plague, It will be seen to-morrow; My long fickness
Tim. I thank them; and would fend them back Of health, and living, now begins to mend,

mon.

Could I but catch it for them.

1 Sen. O, forget

What we are forry for ourselves in thee.

The fenators, with one confent of love,

Intreat thee back to Athens; who have thought

On fpecial dignities, which vacant lie

For thy beft ufe and wearing.

2 Sen. They confefs,

Toward thee, forgetfulness too general, gross:
And now the publick body, which doth feldom
Play the recanter, feeling in itself

A lack of Timon's aid, hath sense withal
Of its own fall 4, reftraining aid to Timon;

And fends forth us, to make their forrowed ren

der 2,

Together with a recompence more fruitful
Than their offence can weigh down by the dram;
Ay, even fuch heaps and fums of love and wealth,
As shall to thee blot out what wrongs were theirs,
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 fenators.

I Sen. Therefore, so please thee to return with
And of our Athens (thine, and ours) to take [us,
The captainship, thou shalt be met with thanks,
Allow'd 3 with absolute power, and thy good name
Live with authority:-fo foon fhall we drive back
Of Alcibiades the approaches wild;

Who, like a boar too favage, doth root up
His country's peace.

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

1 Sen. Therefore, Timon,

And nothing brings me all things. Go, live still;
Be Alcibiades your plague, you his,
And last so long enough!

I 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.

I Sen. That's well fpoke.

Tim. Commend me to my loving countrymen,-
I Sen. These words become your lips as they

pass through them.

[ers

2 Sen. And enter in our ears, like great triumphIn their applauding gates.

Tim. Commend me to them;

And tell them, that, to ease them of their griefs,
Their fears of hoftile strokes, their aches, loffes,
Their pangs of love, with other incident throes
That nature's fragil vessel doth fustain
In life's uncertain voyage, I will fome kindness

do them:

I'll teach them to prevent wild Alcibiades' wrath.
2 Sen. I like this well, he will return again.
Tim. I have a tree, which grows here in my
clofe,

That mine own use invites me to cut down,
And shortly must I fell it: Tell my friends,
Tell Athens, in the sequence of degree 5,
From high to low throughout, that whoso please
Toftop affliction, let hinı take his haste,
Come hither, ere my tree hath felt the axe,
And hang himfelf :-I pray you, do my greeting.

Flav. Trouble him no further, thus you still
shall find him.

Tim. Come not to me again: but say to Athens,
Timon hath made his everlafting manfion
Upon the beached verge of the falt flood,

Tim. Well, fir, I will; therefore I will, fir; Which once a day with his emboffed froth 6

Thus,

If Alcibiades kill my countrymen,
[Athens,
Let Alcibiades know this of Timon,
That-Timon cares not. But if he fack fair

The turbulent furge shall cover; thither come,
And let my grave-stone be your oracle.-
Lips, let four words go by, and language end :
What is amiss, plague and infection mend!

• The Athenians had fenfe, that is, felt the danger of their own fall, by the arms of Alcibiades. 3 Allowed is licensed, privileged, uncontrolled. 4 A whittle is still in the mid2 Render is confeffion. si.e. from highest Iand counties the common pame for a pocket clafp knife, fuch as children ufe. to lowest.

6 We have before observed, that when a deer was run hard, and foamed at the mouth, Graves

he was laid to be emboss'd.

Sol, By all description, this should be the place. Who's here? speak, ho!-No answer? - What is this?

Timon is dead, who hath out-stretch'd his span:
Some beaft read this; there does not live a man.
Dead, fure; and this his grave. What's on this
tomb?

I cannot read; the character I'll take with wax;
Our captain hath in every figure skill;
An ag'd interpreter, though young in days:
Before proud Athens he's fet down by this,
Whofe fall the mark of his ambition is.

[Exit.

SCENE VI
Before the Walls of Athens.

Trumpets found. Enter Alcibiades, with bis powers.
Alc. Sound to this coward and lafcivious towa
Our terrible approach.

[Sound a parley. The Senators appear upon the walk.
'Till now you have gone on, and fill'd the time
With all licentious measure, making your wil's
The scope of juftice; 'till now, myself, and fuch
As flept within the shadow of your power,
Have wander'd with our traverit arms 2, and

breath'd

Our fufferance vainly: Now the time is fluth,
When crouching marrow 4, in the bearer ftrong,

Cries of itself, No more: now breathlefs wrong

Shall fit and pant in your great chairs of ease;
And purfy infolence shall break his wind,
With fear, and horrid flight.

1 Sen. Noble and young,

When thy first griefs were but a meer conceit,
Ere thou hadft power, or we had caufe to fear,
We fert to thee; to give thy rages balm,
To wipe out our ingratitudes with loves
Above their 5 quantity.

2 Sen. So did we woo
Transformed Timon to our city's love,
By humble message, and by promis'd means;
We were not all unkind, nor all deferve
The common ftroke of war.

I Sen. These walls of ours

Were not erected by their hands, from whom
You have receiv'd your griefs nor are they fuch,
That these great towers, trophies, and school

mould fall

For private faults in them.

2 Sen. Nor are they living,

Who were the motives that you first went out;
Shame, that they wanted cunning, in excefs
Hath broke their hearts 6. March, noble lord,
Into our city with thy banners spread:
By decimation, and a tithed death,
(If thy revenges hunger for that food,
Which nature loaths) take thou the destin'd tenth;
And by the hazard of the spotted die,
Let die the spotted.

1 Sen. All have not offended;
For those that were, it is not square 7, to take,
On those that are, revenges: crimes, like lands,
Are not inherited. Then, dear countryman,
Bring in thy ranks, but leave without thy rage:
Spare thy Athenian cradle, and those kin,
Which, in the blufter of thy wrath, muft fall

Dr. Warburton observes, that dear, in the language of that time, signified dread, and is so used by Shakspeare in numberless places. Mr. Steevens says, that dear may in this instance fignify imme diute; and that it is an enforcing epithet with not always a distinct meaning. 2 Arms across. 3 A bird is flush when his feathers are grown, and he can leave the nest. Flush means mature. marrow was fuppofed to be the original of Arength. The image is from a camel kneeling to take up his load, who rifes immediately when he finds he has as much laid on as he can bear. Thear refers to rages. 6 The meaning is, " Shame in excess (i. e. extremity of shame) that they wanted cunning (i. e. that they were not wife enough not to banish you) hath broke their hearts." not regular, not equitable.