PREFATORY NOTE1 TIMON OF ATHENS "TIMON OF ATHENS' was first printed, as far as we know, in the Folio of 1623. It there stands fifth among the tragedies, between Romeo and Juliet and Julius Cæsar. It is the only one out of the eleven tragedies printed in that edition (Pericles is absent) which is not styled 'a Tragedie' (one, Titus Andronicus, is styled 'A Lamentable Tragedie '). This play is simply called The Life of Timon of Athens. It is one of the worst printed of all the plays in that collection. We find that in the Stationers' Registers, 8th November 1623, it is among the plays which Mr. Blounte and Mr. Jaggarde mention as 'not entred to other men.' As to the sources, it is very probable that while reading the 'Life of Antonius' in North's Plutarch, Shakespeare may have hit on a passage in that life which perhaps led him to this subject. On pp. 1001-1002 (ed. 1595), after it has been related that Antonius said he would leade Timon's life, because he had the like wrong offered him that was before offered unto Timon,' etc., we read: "This Timon was a citizen of Athens that lived about the warre of Peloponessus, as appeareth by Plato and Aristophanes comedies in the which they mocked him, calling him a viper and malicious man unto mankind, to shunne all other men's companies, but the companie of young Alcibiades, a bold and insolent youth, whom he would greatly feast and make much of. of. . . . 1 A brief sketch of Shakespeare's career is prefixed to the first volume of this edition. 326647 |