to the solution of the problem. It certainly produces the impression of having been left roughly sketched by Shakespeare, whose touch is manifest in the more important speeches, especially those belonging to the character of Timon; but while the Third Scene is clearly not Shakespeare's, the four-lined epitaph in the Fourth Scene, the Shakespearean portion, combines two inconsistent couplets, and the combination could not have been intended by Shakespeare, though both were naturally in the rough unfinished MS.; the poet had evidently not made up his mind which of the two epitaphs to use, whether Timon's own, or that which, "commonly rehearsed," was not his, "but was made by the poet Callimachus." 1 In all probability Shakespeare's unfinished MS., containing the main parts of the play already written out, with the general plan merely outlined, was worked up after Shakespeare's death into the play we possess; it cannot be 1 In order that the reader should understand the weight of this piece of evidence, he should compare Act V. Sc. iv. 11. 70–73 with its original in North's Plutarch (Life of Antonius) :—"He (Timon) died in the city of Hales, and was buried upon the sea-side. Now it chanced so that the sea getting in, it compassed his tomb round about, that no man could come to it; and upon the same was written this epitaph: 'Here lies a wretched corse of wretched soul bereft: Seek not my name: a plague consume you wicked wretches leftľ "It is reported that Timon himself when he lived made this epitaph; for that which is commonly rehearsed was not his, but made by the poet Callimachus: 'Here lie I, Timon, who alive all living men did hate: Pass by and curse thy fill: but pass, and stay not here thy gait.” (The substitution of "wicked caitiffs" for "wicked wretches" suggests a comparison with Paynter's version of the epitaph, beginning "My wretched caitif days,” etc.). It is not likely that lines 3, 4 in the previous scene (V. iii.) are intended for Timon's epitaph, though at first sight the rhyming couplet gives that impression. The speech is weak enough as it is, without adding to it the crowning absurdity of making the soldier first read the epitaph, and then proceed to take the character in wax, because he cannot read it. finally determined whether this elaboration was undertaken for stage-representation, or for the purpose of fitting it for a place in the First Folio, when the Editors had resolved to change the position of Troilus and Cressida.1 Perhaps the printing of Julius Cæsar was commenced before that of Timon was finished. There is no definite evidence of an older play on the subject that could have been the original of Shakespeare's,2 nor are the inferior portions strikingly suggestive of the style of the old-fashioned productions superseded by Shakespeare's revisions or recasts. The MS. play entitled “Timon," written about the year 1600, edited for the Shakespeare Society by Dyce in 1842, was intended solely for the amusement of an academic audience, and there is not the least evidence that it was ever seen by Shakespeare.3 SOURCE OF THE PLOT A passage in Plutarch's Life of Antonius (in North's Plutarch) containing a short account of Timon may have ་ 1 Dr. Nicholson (Trans. of New Shak. Soc. 1874) adduced what he considered "tolerably decisive proof that Timon as we now have it was an acted play":-"in old plays the entrance directions are sometimes in advance of the real entrances, having been thus placed in the theater copy, that the performers or bringers-in of stage-properties might be warned to be in readiness to enter on their cue." He points out some of these directions in the present play as printed in the Folio; but his case, from this point of view, does not seem strong. 2 There seems to be no foundation for Mr. Simpson's that "a Timon was, at the date of the Satiromastix in the possession of Shakespeare's Company" (New Shak. Soc., 1874, p. 252). 3 Malone pointed out that there is a scene in it resembling Shakespeare's banquet given by Timon to his flatterers. Instead of warm water, he sets before them stones painted like artichokes, and afterwards beats them out of the room. The likeness is easily accounted for by identity of source. The last line of the Third Act, with its mention of "stones," is noteworthy, seeing that in the play Timon throws the water in the faces of the guests and nothing is said about his pelting them with stones. The stage-direction is not found in the folios. * 1 attracted Shakespeare to the subject of the play. Shakespeare was also acquainted with Paynter's story of Timon, in The Palace of Pleasure. Other versions of the story are to be found in Elizabethan literature (e. g. the account of Timon in Richard Barckley's Felicity of Man). “Critic Timon" is already referred to by Shakespeare in his early play of Love's Labor's Lost. An interesting comparison might be instituted between the present play and Lucian's Dialogue on Timon; it seems almost certain that directly or indirectly the Dialogue has exercised considerable influence on the conception of the drama, though we know of no English or French version of Lucian's work that Shakespeare could have used; perhaps the other author of the play possessed the Greek he lacked. DATE OF COMPOSITION Some of the problems connected with the composition of Timon have already been indicated. Internal evidence of style is alone available for fixing the date of Shakespeare's parts of the play. Esthetic and metrical considerations would place it after Hamlet—(Coleridge describes it as an "after-vibration of Hamlet," but the vibration is rather too harsh and jarring)—and before the opening of Shakespeare's last period, i. e. about the same time as Macbeth, Othello, and Lear; Shakespeare's satirical drama must belong to the period when, "as the stern censurer of mankind," he reached his greatest tragic height; it makes one happy to think that the pity and terror of tragedy had more attractions for him than the stern severity of bitter satire; he probably found the theme uncongenial and cast it aside: "No.-I am that I am; and they that level At my abuses reckon up their own: I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel; All men are bad and in their badness reign." (Sonnet cxxi.) DURATION OF ACTION The time of the play may be taken as six days represented on the stage, with one long interval: Day 1. Act I, sc. i, ii. Day 2. Act II, sc. i, ii; Act III, sc. i-iii. Day 3. Act III, sc. iv-vi; Act IV, sc. i and ii. Interval. INTRODUCTION By HENRY NORMAN HUDSON, A.M. The Life of Timon of Athens, as it is called in the original edition, is among the most difficult of Shakespeare's plays for an editor to deal with; which difficulty grows partly from the characteristics of the play itself, and partly from the lack of any contemporary notices concerning it. The only information we have respecting it is, that it was published in the folio of 1623, where it stands the fifth in the division of Tragedies, and that it was entered the same year at the Stationers' by Blount and Jaggard as one of "the plays not formerly entered to other men"; which latter circumstance naturally infers that the play had not been published before. The original edition is without any marking of the acts and scenes, save that at the beginning we have "Actus Primus, Scana Prima”; and at the end is given a list of the persons represented, headed "The Actors' Names." The original text is in divers respects very remarkable: some parts are set forth in a most irregular manner, being full of short and seemingly-broken lines, with many passages printed as verse which cannot possibly be made to read as such; yet the sense is generally so complete as to infer that the irregularity came from the writer, not from the printer. In these parts, moreover, along with Shakespeare's peculiar rhythm and harmony, we miss also, and in an equal degree, his characteristic diction and imagery: the ruggedness and irregularity are not those of one who, having mastered the resources of harmony, knew how to heighten and enrich it with discords, but of one who was ignorant of its laws and incapable of its powers. Other |