THE LIFE OF TIMON OF ATHENS ACT FIRST SCENE I Athens. A hall in Timon's house. Enter Poet, Painter, Jeweler, Merchant, and others, at several doors. Poet. Good day, sir. Pain. I am glad you 're well. Poet. I have not seen you long: how goes the world? Pain. It wears, sir, as it grows. Poet. Aye, that's well known: Pain. I know them both; th' other 's a jeweler. Jew. Nay, that's most fix'd. Mer. A most incomparable man, breathed, as it were, 10 To an untirable and continuate goodness: He passes. Jew. I have a jewel here Mer. O, pray, let's see 't: for the Lord Timon, sir? It stains the glory in that happy verse Mer. [Looking on the jewel] 'Tis a good form. Pain. You are rapt, sir, in some work, some dedica tion To the great lord. Poet. A thing slipp'd idly from me. From whence 'tis nourish'd: the fire i' the flint 20 15-17. Former editors have thought it needful to inform the reader that these three lines are the beginning of the poem which the speaker afterwards describes. The information, whether needful or not, is doubtless correct. As the Poet strikes up the rehearsal of his lines without bespeaking any listener, this puts the Painter upon supposing him to be in a rapture. Perhaps the reader would like to be told further, that the sudden discharge of poetry arrests the speech of the Jeweler.-H. N. H. 21. The original has,-"Our Poesie is as a Gowne, which uses"; from which no sense can be gathered. The substitution of oozes is by Dr. Johnson. What follows shows that the word, whichever it be, is meant to convey the idea of spontaneous production; not forced, as the fire from the flint.-H. N. H. "gum, which oozes"; Johnson's reading; Ff. read "gown which uses"; Pope, "gum which issues.”—I. G. 24-25. "flies Each bound it chafes"; Ff., "chases"; Beckett conj. "flies. Eche (bound) it chafes"; Schmidt, "chafes with."-I. G. Pain. A picture, sir. When comes your book forth? Poet. Upon the heels of my presentment, sir. Let's see your piece. Pain. "Tis a good piece. Poet. So 'tis: this comes off well and excellent. Poet. Admirable: how this grace 30 Speaks his own standing! what a mental power Pain. It is a pretty mocking of the life. Poet. I will say of it, Lives in these touches, livelier than life. Enter certain Senators, and pass over. Pain. How this lord is follow'd! Poet. The senators of Athens: happy man! 40 30-31. "grace Speaks his own standing”; Johnson conj. "standing graces or grace Speaks understanding"; Mason conj. "Grace Speaks its own standing"; Jackson conj. "grace Speaks! 'tis one standing"; Orger conj. "grace •. seeming."-I. G. This picture, it would seem, is a full-length portrait of Timon, in which the gracefulness of the attitude expresses the habitual standing or carriage of the original.—H. N. H. 34. "interpret"; one might supply words to such intelligible action: the significant gesture ascertains the sentiments that should accompany it. So in Cymbeline, Act ii. sc. 4: “Never saw I pictures so likely to report themselves."-H. N. H. 37. "tutors nature"; the excellence of an artist was often set forth by representing him as the tutor or the competitor of nature.— H. N. H. 40. "happy man"; Theobald's emendation of Ff., "happy men.”I. G. Pain. Look, moe! Poet. You see this confluence, this great flood of visitors. I have, in this rough work, shaped out a man, But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on, Pain. How shall I understand you? Poet. 50 I will unbolt to you. You see how all conditions, how all minds, As well of glib and slippery creatures as 45-46. "my free drift halts not particularly"; my design does not stop at any particular character.-H. N. H. 47. "sea of wax"; Bailey conj. "sweep of taxing"; Collier MS., "sea of verse," etc.; but there is evidently a reference to writingtablets covered with wax.-I. G. It is difficult to make any intelligible sense out of this expression. Sea of wax is commonly interpreted as an allusion to the waxen tablets on which the ancients wrote; a custom not altogether laid aside in England till about the close of the fourteenth century. Mr. Singer explains it, more properly, as referring to the limberness of the speaker's matter; wax being the type of a "theme easily moulded to any drift, not rigidly fixed to one." Mr. Collier's second folio changes wax into verse, which strikes us as not unworthy of being considered; as wax was then commonly written ware, and so might be misprinted for verse. In either case, the expression appears sufficiently strained and far-fetched; but perhaps the Poet meant something of burlesque, and so dashed the poetaster's language with absurdity.-H. N. H. 49-50. Johnson explains the passage thus: "My poem is not a satire written with any particular view, or levell'd' at any single person: I fly, like an eagle, into a general expanse of life, and leave not, by any private mischief, the trace of my passage.”— H. N. H. Of grave and austere quality, tender down To Apemantus, that few things loves better Pain. I saw them speak together. Poet. Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill Feign'd Fortune to be throned: the base o' the mount Is rank'd with all deserts, all kind of natures, 70 Whose present grace to present slaves and serv ants Translates his rivals. Pain. "Tis conceived to scope. This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks, 58. "glass-faced"; one who shows by reflection the looks of nis patron. The Poet was mistaken in the character of Apemantus; but seeing that he paid frequent visits to Timon, he naturally concluded that he was equally courteous with his other guests.-H. N. H. 67. "propagate their states"; that is, to improve or advance their conditions.-H. N. H. |