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SCENE I.-The same. Before Timon's Cave. Enter Poet and Painter; TIMON behind, unseen. Pain. As I took note of the place, it cannot be far where he abides.

Poet. What's to be thought of him? Does the rumour hold for true, that he is so full of gold?

Pain. Certain Alcibiades reports it; Phrynia and Timandra had gold of him : he likewise enriched poor straggling soldiers with great quantity: 'Tis said, he gave unto his steward a mighty sum.

Poet. Then this breaking of his has been but a try for his friends.

Pain. Nothing else you shall see him a palm in Athens again, and flourish with the highest. Therefore, 'tis not amiss, we tender our loves to him, in this supposed distress of his: it will shew honestly in us; and is very likely to load our purposes with what they travel for, if it be a just and true report that goes of his having.

Poet. What have you now to present unto him? Pain. Nothing at this time but my visitation: only I will promise him an excellent piece. Poet. I must serve him so too; tell him of an intent that's coming toward him.

Pain. Good as the best. Promising is the very air o' the time; it opens the eyes of expectation: performance is ever the duller for his act; and, but in the plainer and simpler kind of people, the deed of saying is quite out of use. To promise is most courtly and fashionable performance is a kind of will, or testament, which argues a great sickness in his judgment that makes it.

Tim. Excellent workman! Thou canst not paint a man so bad as is thyself.

Poet. I am thinking, what I shall say I have provided for him: It must be a personating of himself: a satire against the softness of prosperity; with a discovery of the infinite flatteries, that follow youth and opulency.

Tim. Must thou needs stand for a villain in thine own work? Wilt thou whip thine own faults in other men? Do so, I have gold for thee.

Poet. Nay, let's seek him:

Then do we sin against our own estate,
When we may profit meet, and come too late.
Pain. True;

When the day serves, before black-corner'd night,
Find what thou want'st by free and offer'd light.
Come.

Tim. I'll meet you at the turn. What a god's gold,
That he is worshipp'd in a baser temple,
Than where swine feed!

'Tis thou that rigg'st the bark, and plough'st the foam; Settlest admired reverence in a siave:

To thee be worship! and thy saints for aye
Be crown'd with plagues, and thee alone obey!

'Fit 1 do meet them.

[Advancing.

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I am sure, you have: speak truth: you are honest meu. Pain. So it is said, my noble lord: but therefore Came not my friend, nor I.

Tim. Good honest men:-Thou draw'st a counterfeit Best in all Athens: thou art, indeed, the best : Thou counterfeit'st most lively.

Pain.

So, so, my lord. Tim. Even so, sir, as I say:-And, for thy fiction, [To the Poet. Why, thy verse swells with stuff so fine and smooth,

That thou art even natural in thine art.

But, for all this, my honest-natur'd friends,
I must needs say, you have a little fault :
Marry, 'tis not monstrous in you; neither wish I,
You take much pains to mend.
Both.

To make it known to us.

Beseech your honour,

Tim.
You'll take it ill.
Both. Most thankfully my lord
Tim.

Will you, indeed?

Both. Doubt it not, worthy lord. Tim. There's ne'er a one of you but trusts a knave, That mightily deceives you.

Both.
Do we, my lord?
Tim. Ay, and you hear him cog, see him dissemble
Know his gross patchery, love him, feed him,
Keep in your bosom: yet remain assur'd,
That he's a made-up villain.

Pain. I know none such, my lord.
Poet.

Nor I.
Tim. Look you, I love you well; I'll give you gold,
Rid me these villains from your companies:
Hang them, or stab them, drown them in a draught
Confound them by some course, and come to me,
I'll give you gold enough.

Both. Name them, my lord, let's know them. Tim. You that way, and you this, but two in comEach man apart, all single and alone, [pany:Yet an arch-villain keeps him company. If where thou art, two villains shall not be,

[To the Painter. Come not near him.--If thou would'st not reside [To the Poet. But where one villain is, then him abandon.Hence! pack! there's gold, ye came for gold, ye slaves: You have done work for me, there's payment: Hence

You are an alchymist, make gold of that :-
Out, rascal dogs! [Exit, beating and driving them out. And take our goodly aged men by the oeards,

That-Timon cares not. But if he sark fair Athens

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O, forget

What we are sorry for ourselves in thee.
The senators, with one consent of love,
Entreat thee back to Athens; who have thought
On special dignities, which vacant lie
For thy best use and wearing.

? Sen.
They confess,
Toward thee, forgetfulness too general, gross:
Which now the public body,-which doth seldom
Play the recanter,-feeling in itself

A lack of Timon's aid, hath sense withal
Of its own fall, restraining aid to Timon ;
And send forth us, to make their sorrowed render,
Together with a recompense more fruitful
Than their offence can weigh down by the dram;
Ay, even such heaps and sums of love and wealth,
As shall to thee blot out what wrongs were theirs.
And write in thee the figures of their love,
Ever to read them thine.

Tim.
You witch me in it;
Surprize me to the very brink of tears:
Lend me a fool's heart, and a woman's eyes,
And I'll beweep these comforts, worthy senators.
1 Sen. Therefore, so please thee to return with us,
And of our Athens (thine, and ours,) to take
The captainship, thou shalt be met with thanks,
Allow'd with absolute power, and thy good name
Live with authority:-so soon we shall drive back
Of Alcibiades the approaches wild;
Who, like a boar too savage, doth root up
His country's peace.

2 Sen.

And shakes his threat'ning sword Against the walls of Athens.

1 Sen.

Therefore, Timon,

Tim. Well, sir, I will; therefore, I will, sir; Thus,—

If Alcibiades kill my countrymen,

Let Alcibiades know this of Timon

Giving our holy virgins to the stain

Of contumelious, beastly, mad brain'd war;
Then, let him know, - and tell him, Timon speaks it,
In pity of our aged, and our youth,

I cannot choose but tell him, that I care not,
And let him tak 't at worst; for their knives care not,
While you have throats to answer for myself,
There's not a whittle in the unruly camp,

But I do prize it at my love, before

The reverend'st throat in Athens. So I leave you
To the protection of the prosperous gods,
As thieves to keepers.

Flav.

Stay not, all's in vain.
Tim. Why, I was writing of my epitaph,
It will be seen to-morrow: My long sickness
Of health, and living, now begins to mend,
And nothing brings me all things. Go, live still
Be Alcibiades your plague, you his,

And last so long enough!

1 Sen.
We speak in vain.
Tim. But yet I love my country, and am not
One that rejoices in the common wreck,
As common bruit doth put it.

1 Sen.
That's well spoke.
Tim. Commend me to my loving countrymen,-
1 Sen. These words become your lips as they pass
through them.

2 Sen. And enter in our ears, like great triumphers In their applauding gates.

Tim.

Commend me to them; And tell them, that, to ease them of their griefs, Their fears of hostile strokes, their aches, losses, Their pangs of love, with other incident throes That nature's fragile vessel doth sustain [them In life's uncertain voyage, I will some kindness do I'll teach them to prevent wild Alcibiades' wrath. Sen. I like this well, he will return again. Tim. I have a tree, which grows here in my close, That mine own use invites me to cut down, And shortly must I fell it; Tell my friends, Tell Athens, in the sequence of degree, From high to low throughout, that whoso please To stop affliction, let him take his haste, Come hither, ere my tree hath felt the axe, And hang himself:-I pray you, do my greeting. Flav. Trouble him no further, thus you still shall find him.

Tim. Come not to me again: but say to Athens, Timon hath made his everlasting mansion Upon the beached verge of the salt flood; Which once a day with his embossed froth The turbulent surge shall cover; thither come, And let my grave stone be your oracle.-Lips, let sour words go by, and language end: What is amiss, plague and infection mend! Graves, only be men's works; and death, their gain! Sun, hide thy beams! Timon hath done his reign. [Erit TIMON. 1 Sen. His discontents are unremoveably Coupled to nature.

2 Sen. Our hope in him is dead let us return, And strain what other means is left unto us In our dear peril. 1 Sen.

It requires swift foot.

[Exeunt

SCENE III.-The Walls of Athens.
Enter Two Senators, and a Messenger.

1 Sen. Thou hast painfully discover'd; are his files As full as thy report.

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SCENE IV.-The Woods. Timon's Cave, and a Tomb-stone seen.

Enter a Soldier, seeking TIMON. Sold. By all description this should be the place. Who's here? speak, ho!-No answer?-What is this? l'imon is dead, who hath outstretch'd his span: Some beast rear'd this; there does not live a man. Dead, sure; and this his grave.

What's on this tomb I cannot read; the character
I'll take with wax:

Our captain hath in every figure skill;
An ag'd interpreter, though young in days:
Before proud Athens he's set down by this,
Whose fall the mark of his ambition is.

[Exit.

SCENE V. Before the walls of Athens. Trumpets sound. Enter ALCIBIADES and Forces. Alcib. Sound to this coward and lascivious town Our terrible approach. [A parley sounded.

Enter Senators on the walls.
Till now you have gone on, and fill'd the time
With all licentious measure, making your wills
The scope of justice; till now, myself, and such
As slept within the shadow of your power,
Have wander'd with our travers'd arms, and breath'd
Our sufferance vainly: Now the time is flush,
in the bearer strong,
When crouching marrow,
Cries, of itself, No more: now breathless wrong
Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease;
And pursy insolence shall break his wind,
With fear, and horrid flight.

Noble and young,
1 Sen.
When thy first griefs were but a mere conceit,
Ere thou hadst power, or we had cause of fear,
We sent to thee; to give thy rages balm,
To wipe out our ingratitude with loves
Above their quantity.

z Sen.

So did we woo

Transtorned Timon to our city's love,

By humble message, and by promis'd means; We were not all unkind, nor all deserve The common stroke of war.

1 Sen.

These walls of ours

Were not erected by their hands, from whom
You have receiv'd your griefs: nor are they such
That these great as, trophies, and schools should
[fall
For private falts in them.

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2 Sen.

Nor are they living,

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Who were the motives that you first went out,
Shame that they wanted cunning, in excess
Hath broke their hearts. March, noble lord,
Into our city with thy banners spread:
By decimation, and a tithed death,
(If thy revenges hunger for that food,
Which nature loaths,) take thou the destin'd tenth;
And by the hazard of the spotted die,
Let die the spotted.

1 Sen.

All have not offended;

For those that were, it is not square, to take,
On those that are, revenges: crimes, like lands,
Are not inherited. Then, dear countryman,
Bring in thy ranks, but leave without thy rage:
Spare thy Athenian cradle, and those kin,
Which, in the bluster of thy wrath, must fall
With those that have offended: like a shepherd,
Approach the fold, and cull the infected forth,
But kill not all together.
What thou wilt,
Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smile,
Than hew to't with thy sword.

2 Sen

1 Sen.

Set but thy foot
Against our rampir'd gates, and they shall ope;
So thou wilt send thy gentle heart before,
To say thou'lt enter friendly.

2 Sen.

Throw thy glove;
Or any token of thine honour else,
That thou wilt use the wars as thy redress,
And not as our confusion, all thy powers
Shall make their harbour in our town, till we
Have seal'd thy full desire.

Alcib.

Then there's my glove;
Descend, and open your uncharged ports;
Those enemies of Timon's, and mine own,
Whom you yourselves shall set out for reproof,
Fall, and no more: and,-to atone your fears
With my more noble meaning,—not a man
Shall pass his quarter, or offend the stream
Of regular justice in your city's bounds,
But shall be remedied, to your public laws,
At heaviest answer.
Both.
"Tis most nobly spoken.
Alcib. Descend, and keep your words.

The Senators descend, and open the gates.
Enter a Soldier.

Sol. My noble general, Timon is dead;
Entombed upon the very hem o' the sea:
And, on his grave-stone, this insculpture; which
With wax I brought away, whose soft impression
Interprets for my poor ignorance.

Alcib. [Reads.] Here lies a wretched corse, of
wretched soul bereft :

[left!
Seek not my name: A plague consume you wicked caitif's
Here lie I Timon; who, alive, all living men did hate:
Pass by, and curse thy fill; but pass and stay not here
These well express in thee thy latter spirits: [thy gait.
Though thou abhorr'dst in us our human griefs,
Scorn'dst our brain's flow, and those our droplets which
From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit
Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye
On thy low grave, on faults forgiven. Dead
Is noble Timon; of whose memory
Hereafter more.-Bring me into your city,
And I will use the olive with my sword:
Make war breed peace; make peace stint war; make
[each
Prescribe to other, as each other's leech.
Let our drums strike.

[Exeunt.

THE play o Timon is a domestic tragedy, and therefore strongly fastens on the attention of the reader. In the plan there is The catastrophe affords a very powerfu. much art, br, the incidents are natural, and the characters various and exact. waring agai. that ostentatious liberality, which scatters bounty, but confers no benefits, and buys flattery, but not friendJOHNSON. ship-

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Cit. Resolved, resolved.

from which he has taken many passages with only such slight alterations as were necessary to throw them into blank verse. The play comprehends a period of about four years, commencing with the secession to the Mons Sacer in the year of Rome 262, and ending with the death of Coriolanus, A. U. C. 266.

2 Cit. Consider you what services he has done for his country?

1 Cit. Very well; and could be content to give him good report for't, but that he pays himself with being proud.

2 Cit. Nay, but speak not maliciously.

1 Cit. I say unto you, what he hath done famously, he did it to that end; though soft conscienc'd men can be content to say, it was for his country, he did it to please his mother, and to be partly proud; which he is, even to the altitude of his virtue.

2 Cit. What he cannot help in his nature, you account a vice in him: You must in no way say, he is

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rest were so!

Men. What work's, my countrymen, in hand' Where go you

With bats and clubs? The matter? Speak, I pray you. 1 Cit. Our business is not unknown to the senate; they have had inkling, this fortnight, what we intend to do, which now we 'll shew 'em in deeds. They say, poor suitors have strong breaths; they shall know, we have strong arms too.

Men. Why, masters, my good friends, mine honest Will you undo yourselves? [neighbours,

1 Cit. We cannot, sir, we are undone already. Men. I tell you, friends, most charitable care

1 Cit First you know, Caius Marcius is chief ene- Have the patricians of you. For your wants,

my to the people.

Cit. We know't, we know't.

1 Cit. Let us kill him, and we'll have corn at our own price. Is't a verdict?

Cit. No more talking on't let it be done: away, away.

2 Cit. One word, good citizens.

1 Cit. We are accounted poor citizens; the patricians good: What authority surfeits on, would relieve us; If they would yield us but the superfluity, while it were wholesome, we might guess, they relieved us humanely; but they think, we are too dear: the leanness that afflicts us, the object of our misery, is an inventory to particularize their abundance; our sufferance is a gain to them.-Let us revenge this with our pikes, ere we become rakes: for the gods know, I speak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge. 2 Cit. Would you proceed especially against Caius

Marcius?

Cit. Against him first; he's a very dog to the commonalty.

Your suffering in this dearth, you may as well
Strike at the heaven with your staves, as lift them
Against the Roman state; whose course will on
The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs
Of more strong link asunder, than can ever
Appear in your impediment: For the dearth,
The gods, not the patricians, make it; and
Your knees to them, not arms, must help. Alack,
You are transported by calamity
Thither where more attends you; and you slander
The helms o' the state, who care for you like fathers,
When you curse them as enemies.

1 Cit. Care for us!-True, indeed!-They ne'er cared for us yet. Suffer us to famish, and their storehouses crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to support usurers repeal daily any wholesome act established against the rich; and provide more piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain the poor If the wars eat us not up, they will; and there's all the love they bear us.

Me. Either you must

Confess yourselves wondrous malicious,
Or be accus'd of folly. I shall tell you
A pretty tale; it may be, you have heard it;
But, since it serves my purpose, I will venture
To stale 't a little more.

1 Cit. Well, I'll hear it, sir: yet you must not think to fob off our disgrace with a tale: but, an 't please you, deliver.

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Men. There was a time, when all the body's members
Rebell'd against the belly; thus accus'd it :-
That only like a gulf it did remain

I' the midst o' the body, idle and inactive,
Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing

Like labour with the rest; where the other instruments
Did see, and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel,
And, mutually participate, did minister
Unto the appetite and affection common
Of the whole body. The belly answered,-

1 Cit. Well, sir, what answer made the belly? Men. Sir, I shall tell you.—With a kind of smile, Which ne'er came from the lungs, but even thus, (For, look you, I may make the belly smile, As well as speak,) it tauntingly replied

To the discontented members, the mutinous parts
That envied his receipt; even so most fitly
As you malign our senators, for that
They are not such as you.

1 Cit.
Your belly's answer:
The kingly-crowned head, the vigilant eye,
The counsellor heart, the arm our soldier,
Our steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter,
With other muniments and petty helps

In this our fabric, if that they

Men.

What!

What then?

'Fore me, this fellow speaks!-what then? what then? 1 Cit. Should by the cormorant belly be restrain'd, Who is the sink o' the body,

Men.

Well, what then?

1 Cit. The former agents, if they did complain, What could the belly answer?

Men. I will tell you; If you'll bestow a small (of what you have little,) Patience, a while, you'll hear the belly's answer. 1 Cit. You are long about it. Men.

Note me this, good friend;
Your most grave belly was deliberate,
Not rash like his accusers, and thus answer'd.
True is it, my incorporate friends, quoth he,
That I receive the general food at first,
Which do live upon and fit it is;
you
Because I am the store-house, and the shop
Of the whole body: But if you do remember,
I send it through the rivers of your blood,

Even to the court, the heart,-to the seat o' the brain;
And, through the cranks and offices of man,
The strongest nerves, and small inferior veins,
From me receive that natural competency
Whereby they live: And though that all at once,
You, my good friends, (this says the belly), mark me,—
1 Cit. Ay, sir; well, well.
Men.
Though all at once cannot
See what I do deliver out to each;
Yet I can make my audit up, that all
From me do back receive the flower of all,
And leave me but the bran. What say you to 't;

1 Cit. It was an answer: How apply you this?
Men. The senators of Rome are this good belly,
And you the mutinous members: For examine
Their counsels, and their cares; digest things rightly,
Touching the weal o' the common; you shall find,
No public benefit, which you receive,
But it proceeds, or comes, from them to you,

And no way from yourselves.-What do you think? You, the great toe of this assembly ?—

1 Cit. I the great toe? Why the great toe?
Men. For that being one o'the lowest, basest, poorest,
Of this most wise rebellion, thou go'st foremost :
Thou rascal, that art worst in blood, to run
Lead'st first, to win some vantage.—

But make you ready your stiff bats and clubs;
Rome and her rats are at the point of battle,
The one side must have bale.-Hail, noble Marcius!
Enter CAIUS MARCIUS.

Mar. Thanks. What's the matter, you dissentious rogues,

That rubbing the poor itch of your opinion,
Make yourselves scabs ?

1 Cit.

We have ever your good word. Mar. He that will give good words to thee, will

flatter

Beneath abhorring.—What would you have, you curs,
That like nor peace, nor war? the one affrights you,
The other makes you proud. He that trusts you,
Where he should find you lions, finds you hares;
Where foxes, geese: You are no surer, no,
Than is the coal of fire upon the ice,

Or hailstone in the sun. Your virtue is,

[ye?

To make him worthy, whose offence subdues him,
And curse that justice did it. Who deserves great-
Deserves your hate and your affections are [ness,
A sick man's appetite, who desires most that
Which would increase his evil. He that depends
Upon your favours, swims with fins of lead,
And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye! Trust
With every minute you do change a mind;
And call him noble, that was now your hate,
Him vile, that was your garland. What's the matter,
That in these several places of the city
You cry against the noble senate, who,
Under the gods, keep you in awe, which else
Would feed on one another?-What's their seeking?
Men. For corn at their own rates; whereof, they say,
The city is well stor❜d.

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give out

Conjectural marriages; making parties strong,
And feebling such as stand not in their liking,
Below their cobbled shoes. They say, there's grain
Would the nobility lay aside their ruth, [enough?
And let me use my sword, I'd make a quarry
With thousands of these quarter'd slaves, as high
As I could pick my lance.

Men. Nay, these are almost thoroughly persuaded;
For though abundantly they lack discretion,
Yet are they passing cowardly. But, I beseech you,
What says the other troop?

Mar.

They are dissolved: Hang 'em! They said, they were an-hungry; sigh'd forth proverbs ;

That, hunger broke stone walls; that, dogs must eat; That, meat was made for mouths: that, the gods

sent not

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