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chickens as you are.
you at Corinth!

Apem. Good! gramercy.

Would we could see

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. Prithee, Apemantus, read me the superscription of these letters: I know not which is which.

Apem. Canst not read?

Page. No.

80

Apem. There will little learning die then, that day thou art hang'd. This is to Lord Timon; this to Alcibiades. Go; thou wast born a bastard, and thou 'lt die a bawd. Page. Thou wast whelped a dog, and thou shalt 90 famish a dog's death. Answer not, I am

gone.

[Exit. Apem. E'en so thou outrun'st grace. Fool, I will go with you to Lord Timon's.

Fool. Will you leave me there?

Apem. If Timon stay at home. You three serve three usurers?

Corinthian women was such that the name came to signify a prostitute. "Corinth” is here used for a house of ill fame.-H. N. H. 75. "mistress"; (so l. 107).—I. G.

All Serv. Aye; would they served us!

Apem. So would I,-as good a trick as ever hangman served thief.

Fool. Are you three usurers' men?

All Serv. Aye, fool.

Fool. I think no usurer but has a fool to his servant: my mistress is one, and I am her fool. When men come to borrow of your masters, they approach sadly and go away merry; but they enter my mistress' house merrily and go away sadly: the reason of this?

100

110

Var. Serv. I could render one.
Apem. Do it then, that we may account thee a
whoremaster and a knave; which notwith-
standing, thou shalt be no less esteemed.
Var. Serv. What is a whoremaster, fool?
Fool. A fool in good clothes, and something
like thee. "Tis a spirit: sometime 't appears
like a lord; sometime like a lawyer; some-
time like a philosopher, with two stones
moe than 's artificial one: he is very often
like a knight; and, generally, in all shapes 120
that man goes up and down in from four-
score to thirteen, this spirit walks in.

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

mantus.

119. "artificial one"; meaning the celebrated object of all alchymical research, the philosopher's stone, at that time much talked of.H. N. H.

All Serv. Aside, aside; here comes Lord
Timon.

Re-enter Timon and Flavius.

Apem. Come with me, fool, come.

130

Fool. I do not always follow lover, elder brother, and woman; sometime the philosopher. [Exeunt Apemantus and Fool. Flav. Pray you, walk near: I'll speak with you [Exeunt Servants.

anon.

Tim. You make me marvel; wherefore, ere this

time,

Had you not fully laid my state before me,
That I might so have rated my expense
As I had leave of means?

Flav.

You would not hear me,

Go to:

At many leisures I proposed.

Tim.

Perchance some single vantages you took, 140
When my indisposition put you back;

And that unaptness made your minister,
Thus to excuse yourself.

Flav.

O 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, I have shook my head and
wept;

137. "rated"; calculated.-C. H. H.

142. The construction is, "And made that unaptness your minister." -H. N. H.

Yea, 'gainst the authority of manners pray'd

you

To hold your hand more close: I did endure 150
Not seldom nor no slight checks, when I have
Prompted you in the ebb of your estate

And your great flow of debts. My loved 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 engaged, 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?

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!

161

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,
When all our offices have been oppress'd 169
With riotous feeders, when our vaults have wept
With drunken spilth of wine, when every room

153. "loved lord"; Ff. 2, 3, 4, "dear lov'd lord"; S. Walker conj. "belov'd."-I. G.

154. Ff. read "Though you heare now (too late) yet nowes a time, The"; Hanmer, "Though

MS., "Though

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yet now's too late a time"; Collier yet now's a time too late."-I. G.

Hath blazed with lights and bray'd with min

strelsy,

I have retired me to a wasteful cock,

And set mine eyes at flow.

Prithee, no more.

Tim.
Flav. Heavens, have I said, the bounty of this lord!
How many prodigal bits have slaves and peas-

ants

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

180

praise, The breath is gone whereof this praise is made: Feast-won, fast-lost; one cloud of winter show

ers,

These flies are couch'd.

Tim.

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

173. “wasteful cock"; Pope reads "lonely room"; Collier MS., "wasteful nook"; Jackson conj. "wakeful cock"; Jervis conj. "wakeful couch"; Keightley, "wasteful cock-loft"; Daniel conj. "wakeful cot"; Jackson's conjecture seems best, "wakeful cock," i. e. “cockloft," unless "cock"= wine-tap.—I. G.

This passage has greatly puzzled the commentators and put them upon divers strange explanations. Nares in his Glossary has doubtless given the right explanation; taking cock to mean the common instrument for drawing liquor from a cask. Mr. Dyce says, "One thing is quite clear,—that wasteful cock can only mean ‘a pipe with a turning stopple running to waste."" The reference, we have no doubt, is to the "spilth of wine" mentioned just before, which was kept running to waste by the owner's prodigality. The thoughts started in such a place would naturally set the good servant's “eyes at flow."-H. N. H.

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