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other men's companies but the company of Alcibiades, a bold and insolent youth whom he would greatly feast and make much of, and kissed him very gladly. Apemantus, wondering at it, asked him the cause what he meant to make so much of that young man alone, and to hate all others. Timon answered him, 'I do it, because I know that one day he shall do great mischief unto the Athenians.' This Timon sometimes would have Apemantus in his company, because he was much like of his nature and conditions, and also followed him in his manner of life. On a time when they solemnly celebrated the feast called Choæ at Athens, where they make sprinklings and sacrifices for the dead, and that they two feasted together by themselves, Apemantus said unto the other, 'O, here is a trim banquet, Timon.' Timon answered again, 'Yea, so thou wert not here.' It is reported of him also, that this Timon on a time, the people being assembled in the market-place about despatch of some affairs, got up into the pulpit for orations, where the orators commonly used to speak unto the people; and silence being made, every man listening to hear what he would say, because it was a wonder to see him in that place, at length he began to speak in this manner: 'My lords of Athens, I have a little yard at my house where there groweth a fig-tree, on the which many citizens have hanged themselves; and, because I mean to make some building on that place, I thought good to let you all understand it, that before the fig-tree be cut down, if any of you be desperate, you may there in time go hang yourselves.' He died in the city of Hales, and was buried upon the sea-side. Now, it chanced so, that the sea getting in 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 left.'

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.'

Many other things could we tell you of this Timon, but this little shall suffice at this present."

The account as given in the Palace of Pleasure agrees in all material respects with this. Of course there can be no doubt that one of these sources furnished the idea of Apemantus, as also of the "tree which grows here in my close," and of the "everlasting mansion upon the beached verge of the salt flood"; neither of these being found in the place from whence other materials of the drama were drawn.

The rest of the story was derived, directly or indirectly, from Lucian's dialogue entitled Timon, or the Man-hater. Malone, in the remarks quoted above, thinks the Poet could not have borrowed directly from Lucian, because there was then no English translation of the dialogue in question. In the first place, however, it would be something hard to prove this, the only evidence being, that no such translation of that date has come down to us. In the second place, there is known to have been both a Latin and an Italian version of Lucian at that time, and there can be little doubt that Shakespeare understood enough of both those languages to be able to read a piece of that description. We subjoin such a sketch and abstract of the dialogue as will exhibit the nature and amount of the Poet's indebtedness to the Greek satirist.

The piece opens with an address of Timon to Jupiter, the guardian of friendship and hospitality, complaining that his godship has grown sleepy or indifferent; so that he no longer punishes the baseness and ingratitude of men, but has suffered his firebrands to dwindle into nothing, a mere poetical smoke, a heap of idle names, so that nobody fears being burned by them; that he neither hears the perjured nor observes the wicked, being blind to every

thing about him, and having his ears stopped, like an old dotard. He calls on the god to make ready those farshooting thunderbolts, which have been so much beversed, against the guilty, lest he be at last dethroned by their violence. He then comes to his own case: "I, who have raised so many from poverty to riches, helped the needy, and spent my substance to make my friends happy, am now left poor and destitute: those, who once adored me and hung upon my nod, will not so much as look upon me; but if I chance to meet any of them, they pass by me, as if they had never seen me, or turn away as from a loathsome spectacle. Reduced, at length, to the utmost misery, and clothed with skins, I dig this little spot of earth. Here I philosophize, in the desert, with my spade, all my happiness being that I no longer behold the prosperity of the wicked."

Jupiter, being thus berated, asks Mercury who it is that bellows so from the foot of Hymettus, speaks of him as some bold prating fellow who seems to be digging, and infers him to be a philosopher from his uttering such profane speeches. Mercury answers that he is Timon, the rich man who so often has offered whole hecatombs to the gods. That his goodness of heart and kindness to the poor, or rather his folly and want of judgment in the choice of friends, have been the ruin of him; he having never discovered that he was lavishing his all on wolves and vultures. That, having ate his bones bare, and, if there was any marrow in them, sucked it all out, they left him, and, so far from relieving him in turn, would not even look upon him. That for this cause he has turned digger, refusing to show himself in the city, and venting his rage against those who, having been enriched by him, now proudly pass along, not knowing whether his name be Timon.

Jupiter forthwith orders Mercury and Plutus to visit Timon and bestow new wealth upon him; at the same time apologizing for his remissness of late, that he has been kept busy with thieves and plunderers, and that his ears

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have been so stunned with the noisy disputes and squabbles of philosophers blabbing about virtue and spirituality and he knows not what, that he could not hear the prayers of mortals; and promising to give those ungrateful parasites their due, as soon as he shall have repaired his damaged lightning: whereupon Mercury remarks how necessary 'tis to be impudent; for this Timon has now got Jupiter over to his side by dint of clamor and abuse, while, if he had said nothing, he might have kept on digging through life, without being noticed. Plutus is very loth to do the bidding of Jupiter, because Timon has so recklessly squandered his gifts on the unworthy, and lest, if restored to wealth, he should again become the prey of parasites.

Here follows at some length a keen encounter of wits between Mercury and Plutus, touching the use of riches and the folly of men in regard to them. On coming near the place of Timon, Plutus hearing a noise like the clinking of iron against stone, and asking what it is, Mercury answers, "It is Timon, digging up a piece of rocky land hard by us"; adding, "And see, along with him are Poverty, Labor, Courage, Wisdom, and all the virtues that go in the train of indigence; a stronger body-guard, I fear, than yours." Plutus thereupon begs to be off at once, alleging that they can do no good to a man who has such an army about him. The god of riches being held to the task by Mercury, Poverty then interferes in behalf of her charge: "Shall Plutus, then," says she, "come to Timon, after I have taken him under my discipline, spoiled as he was with luxury and sloth? Will you thus rob me of the man whom, with so much care, I have formed to virtue, and put him into the hands of Plutus, who will soon make him as idle and wicked as ever, and, when he is spoiled, give him back to me again? Soon shall he know the worth of her whom he has lost; who has blessed him with a sound mind and a healthy body, taught him to live as he ought, and to look upon things as they really are. At first Timon rejects the offer of their godships, calls

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them rascals, upbraids them for disturbing him, and threatens to pelt them handsomely with stones: whereupon Plutus entreats for heaven's sake to be gone, declaring that the fellow appears to be stark mad. Being further urged and exhorted, Timon persists that he has no need of them; that his spade is all the riches he desires; and that he shall deem himself the happiest of men, if none come near him. That Plutus had been the cause of all his past troubles, having given him up to flatterers, undermined him with temptations, made him an object of envy and hate, and then basely deserted him; while Poverty, on the other hand, had been his best friend, exercising him with wholesome labors, supplying him with what was needful, and teaching him what true riches were, such as neither time-servers, nor sycophants, nor tyrants could ever wrest from him. But the arguments of Plutus, backed up by the prospect which Mercury holds out, of making his rascally flatterers burst with envy, prove too much for him; and he at last consents to be rich again, since the gods will have it so; though still fearing that so much wealth, on a sudden, and so much care will make him miserable.

The gods thereupon leave him, Plutus having first exhorted him to keep on digging, and having commanded treasure to put itself in his way. Timon then resumes his spade, and presently overhauls a mass of treasure, whereupon he breaks forth as follows: "It is, it must be gold, fine, yellow, noble gold; heavy, sweet to look upon. Burning like fire, thou shinest day and night: come to me, thou dear delightful treasure! Now do I believe that Jove himself was once turned into gold: what virgin would not spread forth her bosom to receive so beautiful a lover? You, my spade and blanket, shall be hung up as my votive acknowledgment to the great deity. I will purchase some retired spot, and there build a tower to keep my gold in: this shall be my habitation, and, when dead, my grave also. From this time forth I will despise acquaintance, friendship, compassion; to pity the distressed, to relieve the indigent, I shall hold a crime: my life, like the beasts of the

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