chickens as you are. 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. Var. Serv. Thou are not altogether a fool. 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 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, Flav. You would not hear me, Go to: At many leisures I proposed. Tim. Perchance some single vantages you took, 140 And that unaptness made your minister, Flav. O my good lord, At many times I brought in my accounts, And say, you found them in mine honesty. 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 And your great flow of debts. My loved lord, The greatest of your having lacks a half To pay your present debts. Tim. Tim. To Lacedæmon did my land extend. 161 Tim. And set me on the proof. So the gods bless me, 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 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. ants This night englutted! Who is not Timon's? Great Timon, noble, worthy, royal Timon! 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. |