The canker gnaw thy 50 Tim. A beast, as thou art. The canker heart, For showing me again the eyes of man! Alcib. What is thy name? Is man so hateful to thee, That art thyself a man? Tim. I am misanthropos, and hate mankind. For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog, Alcib. I know thee well; But in thy fortunes am unlearn'd and strange. Tim. I know thee too; and more than that I know thee I not desire to know. Follow thy drum; With man's blood paint the ground, gules, gules: Religious canons, civil laws are cruel; 60 Then what should war be? This fell whore of thine Hath in her more destruction than thy sword, For all her cherubin look. Phry. Thy lips rot off! Tim. I will not kiss thee; then the rot returns To thine own lips again. Alcib. How came the noble Timon to this change? Tim. As the moon does, by wanting light to give: But then renew I could not, like the moon; There were no suns to borrow of. 64-65. This alludes to the old erroneous prevalent opinion, that infection communicated to another left the infecter free. "I will not," says Timon, “take the rot from thy lips by kissing_thee.”— H. N. H. Alcib. What is it, Timon? plague thee, for thou art a man: if thou Alcib. I have heard in some sort of thy miseries. Voiced so regardfully? Tim. Timan. Yes. Art thou Timandra? 80 Tim. Be a whore still: they love thee not that use thee; Give them diseases, leaving with thee their lust. To the tub-fast and the diet. 87. The "diet" was a customary term for the regimen prescribed in the secases. In this scene we trace the Poet's reading to Plutarch's Life of Alcibiades, North's translation; there being no mention made of the courtesans in either of the sources whence, as shown in our Introduction, the other materials of the play were drawn. For the showing of this, the following from Plutarch will suffice: "Now was Alcibiades in a certaine village of Phrygia with a concubine of his called Timandra. So he dreamed one night that he had put on his Timan. Hang thee, monster! Alcib. Pardon him, sweet Timandra, for his wits Are drown'd and lost in his calamities. 90 I have but little gold of late, brave Timon, How cursed Athens, mindless of thy worth, But for thy sword and fortune, trod upon them Tim. I prithee, beat thy drum, and get thee gone. Alcib. I am thy friend and pity thee, dear Timon. Tim. How dost thou pity him whom thou dost trouble? concubines apparell, and how she had dressed his head, frizeled his haire, and painted his face, as he had bene a woman; and the voice goeth, this vision was but a litle before his death. Those that were sent to kill him durst not enter the house where he was, but set it on fire round about. Alcibiades, spying the fire, got such apparell and hangings as he had, and threw it on the fire, thinking to put it out; and so, casting his cloke about his left arme, tooke his naked sword in his other hand, and ranne out of the house, himselfe not once touched with the fire, saving his clothes were a litle singed. These murtherers, so soone as they spied him, drew backe, and stood asunder, and durst not one of them come neere him, to stand and fight with him; but afarre off they bestowed so many arrowes and darts on him, that they killed him there. Now, when they had left him, Timandra went and tooke his body, which she wrapped up in the best linen she had, and buried him as honourably as she could."-H. N. H. Alcib. When I have laid proud Athens on a heap- Alcib. Tim. That by killing of villains 110 Will o'er some high-viced city hang his poison It is her habit only that is honest, Herself's a bawd: let not the virgin's cheek Make soft thy trenchant sword; for those milkpaps, That through the window-bars bore at men's eyes, 106. "conquer my country"; Kinnear conj. "confound my countrymen"; Hanmer, "make conquest of my country"; Capell, "conquer thy own country"; S. Walker conj. "scourge thy country"; Hudson, "scourge my country."-I. G. 108. "planetary plague"; the result of being "struck" by a planet. -C. H. H. 116. "window-bars"; Johnson conj. Ff., "window Barn"; Pope, "window-barn"; Warburton, "window-lawn"; Tyrwhitt conj. “widow's barb."-I. G. "By 'window-bars' the Poet probably means 'the partlet, gorget, or kerchief, which women put about their neck, and pin down over their paps, sometimes called a niced, and translated Mamillare or fascia pectoralis; and described as made of fine linen: from its semitransparency arose the simile of window bars. This is the best explanation I have to offer. Mr. Boswell thought that windows was Are not within the leaf of pity writ, But set them down horrible traitors: spare not the babe Whose dimpled smiles from fools exhaust their mercy; Think it a bastard whom the oracle 120 Hath doubtfully pronounced thy throat shall cut, And mince it sans remorse: swear against objects; Put armor on thine ears and on thine eyes, Whose proof nor yells of mothers, maids, nor babes, Nor sight of priests in holy vestments bleeding, Shall pierce a jot. There's gold to pay thy soldiers: Make large confusion; and, thy fury spent, Confounded be thyself! Speak not, be gone. Alcib. Hast thou gold yet? thou givest me, Not all thy counsel. I'll take the gold 130 Tim. Dost thou or dost thou not, heaven's curse upon thee! used to signify a woman's breasts, in a passage he has cited from Weaver's Plantagenet's Tragical Story, but it seems to me doubtful. I can hardly think the passage warrants Johnson's explanation, “The virgin shows her bosom through the lattice of her chamber'" (Singer). -H. N. H. 120. "think it a bastard"; an allusion to the tale of Edipus.— H. N. H. 122. "swear against objects"; that is, against objects of charity and compassion. So, in Troilus and Cressida, Ulysses says: "For Hector, in his blaze of wrath, subscribes to tender objects.”— H. N. H. |