Ser.

If I might beseech you, gentlemen,
To repair some other hour, I should much
Derive from it:3 for, take it on my soul,
My lord leans wond'rously to discontent.
His comfortable temper has forsook him;
He is much out of health, and keeps his chamber.

Luc. Serv. Many do keep their chambers, are not sick : And, if it be so far beyond his health,

Methinks, he should the sooner pay his debts,
And make a clear way to the gods.

Ser.

Good gods!

Tit. We cannot take this for an answer, sir.

Flam. [within] Servilius, help!-my lord! my lord!-
Enter TIMON, in a rage; FLAMINIUS following.
Tim. What, are my doors oppos'd against my passage?
Have I been ever free, and must my house
Be my retentive enemy, my gaol?

The place, which I have feasted, does it now,
Like all mankind, show me an iron heart?

3

Luc. Serv. Put in now, Titus.

Tit. My lord, here is my bill.

Luc. Serv. Here 's mine.

Hor. Serv. And mine, my lord,”
Both Var. Serv. And ours, my lord.

Derive much from it: &c.

For this slight transposition, by which the metre is restored, I am answerable. Steevens.

4

for an answer,] The article an, which is deficient in the old copy, was supplied by Sir Thomas Hanmer. Steevens.

5 Hor. Serv. And mine, my lord.] In the old copy this speech is given to Varro. I have given it to the servant of Hortensius, (who would naturally prefer his claim among the rest,) because to the following speech in the old copy is prefixed, 2 Var. which from the words spoken [And ours, my lord.] meant, I conceive, the two servants of Varro. In the modern editions this latter speech is given to Caphis, who is not upon the stage. Malone.

This whole scene perhaps was strictly metrical, when it came from Shakspeare; but the present state of it is such, that it cannot be restored but by greater violence than an editor may be allowed to employ. I have therefore given it without the least attempt at arrangement. Steevens.

Phi. All our bills.

Tim. Knock me down with 'em: cleave me to the

girdle.

Luc. Serv. Alas! my lord,

Tim. Cut my heart in sums.
Tit. Mine, fifty talents.

Tim. Tell out my blood.

Luc. Serv. Five thousand crowns, my lord.

Tim. Five thousand drops pays that.-

What yours?-and yours?

1 Var. Serv. My lord,

2 Var. Serv. My lord,

Tim. Tear me, take me, and the gods fall on you!

[Exit. Hor. 'Faith, I perceive, our masters may throw their caps at their money; these debts may well be called desperate ones, for a madman owes 'em.

Re-enter TIMON and FLAVIUS.

[Exeunt.

Tim. They have e'en put my breath from me, the

slaves:

Creditors!-devils.

Flav. My dear lord,

Tim. What if it should be so?

Flav. My lord,

Tim. I'll have it so:-My steward!

Flav. Here, my lord.

Tim. So fitly? Go, bid all my friends again, Lucius, Lucullus, and Sempronius; all:

I'll once more feast the rascals.

6 Knock me down with 'em.] Timon quibbles. They present their written bills; he catches at the word, and alludes to the bills or battle-axes, which the ancient soldiery carried, and were still used by the watch in Shakspeare's time. See the scene between Dogberry, &c. in Much Ado about Nothing, Vol. IV, p. 244, n. 4. Again, in Heywood's If you know not me you know Nobody, 1633, Second Part, Sir John Gresham says to his creditors: Friends, you cannot beat me down with your bills." Again, in Decker's Guls Hornbook, 1609; "they durst not strike down their customers with large bills." Steevens.

7 So fitly? Go, bid all my friends again,

Lucius, Lucullus, and Sempronius; all:

I'll once more feast the rascals.] Thus the second folio; except that, by an apparent error of the press, we have-add instead of and.

Flav.

O my lord,

You only speak from your distracted soul;
There is not so much left, to furnish out

A moderate table.

Tim.

Be 't not in thy care; go,
I charge thee; invite them all: let in the tide
Of knaves once more; my cook and I'll provide.

SCENE V.

The same. The Senate-House.

[Exeunt.

The Senate sitting. Enter ALCIBIADES, attended.

1 Sen. My lord, you have my voice to it; the fault 's Bloody; 'tis necessary he should die:

Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.

2 Sen. Most true; the law shall bruise him. Alcib. Honour, health, and compassion to the senate!

The first folio reads:

Lucius, Lucullus, and Sempronius Vllorxa: all,

I'll once more feast the rascals.

Regularity of metre alone would be sufficient to decide in favour of the present text, which, with the second folio, rejects the fortuitous and unmeaning aggregate of letters-Ullorxa. This Ullorxa, however, seems to have been considered as one of the "inestimable stones, unvalued jewels," which "emblaze the forehead" of that august publication, the folio, 1623; and has been set, with becoming care, in the text of Mr. Malone. For my own part, like the cock in the fable, I am content to leave this gem on the stercoraceous spot where it was discovered.-Ullorxa (a name unacknowledged by Athens or Rome) must (if meant to have been introduced at all) have been a corruption as gross as others that occur in the same book, where we find Billingsgate instead of Basing-stoke; Epton instead of Hyperion; and an ace instead of Até. Types, indeed, shook out of a hat, or shot from a dice-box, would often assume forms as legitimate as the proper names transmitted to us by Messieurs Hemings, Condell and Co. who very probably did not accustom themselves to spell even their own appellations with accuracy, or always in the same manner. Steevens.

8

shall bruise him.] The old copy reads-shall bruise 'em. The same mistake has happened often in these plays. In a subsequent line in this scene we have in the old copy-with him, instead of with 'em. For the correction, which is fully justified by the context, I am answerable. Malone.

Sir Thomas Hanmer also reads-bruise him. Steevens.

1 Sen. Now, captain?

Alcib. I am an humble suitor to your virtues;
For pity is the virtue of the law,

And none but tyrants use it cruelly.

It pleases time, and fortune, to lie heavy
Upon a friend of mine, who, in hot blood,
Hath stepp'd into the law, which is past depth
To those that, without heed, do plunge into it.
He is a man, setting his fate aside,

Of comely virtues:1

Nor did he soil the fact with cowardice;
(An honour in him, which buys out his fault,
But, with a noble fury, and fair spirit,
Seeing his reputation touch'd to death,
He did oppose his foe:

And with such sober and unnoted passion reprove He did behave his anger, ere 'twas spent, mved As if he had but"prov'd'an argument.

9

setting his fate aside,] i. e. putting this action of his, which was pre-determined by fate, out of the question. Steevens. 1 He is a man, &c.] I have printed these lines after the original copy, except that, for an honour, it is there, and honour. All the latter editions deviate unwarrantably from the original, and give the lines thus:

He is a man, setting his fault aside,

of virtuous honour, which buys out his fault;

Nor did he soil &c. Johnson.

This licentious alteration of the text, with a thousand others of the same kind, was made by Mr. Pope. Malone.

2 And with such sober and unnoted passion

He did behave his anger, ere 'twas spent, &c.] Unnoted for com mon, bounded. Behave, for curb, manage. Warburton. I would rather read:

and unnoted passion

He did behave, ere was his anger spent.

Unnoted passion means, I believe, an uncommon command of his
passion, such a one as has not hitherto been observed. Behave
his anger may, however, be right. In Sir W. D'Avenant's play of
The Just Italian, 1630, behave is used in as singular a manner:
"How well my stars behave their influence."

Again:

66

You an Italian, sir, and thus

"Behave the knowledge of disgrace!"

In both these instances, to behave is to manage. Steevens.

"Unnoted passion," I believe, means a passion operating inwardly, but not accompanied with any external or boisterous ap

1 Sen. You undergo too strict a paradox,3 Striving to make an ugly deed look fair:

Your words have took such pains, as if they labour'd
To bring manslaughter into form, set quarrelling
Upon the head of valour; which, indeed,

Is valour misbegot, and came into the world
When sects and factions were newly born:
He's truly valiant, that can wisely suffer

The worst that man can breathe; and make his wrongs His outsides; wear them like his raiment, carelessly;

pearances; so regulated and subdued, that no spectator could note, or observe, its operation.

The old copy reads-He did behoove &c. which does not afford any very clear meaning. Behave, which Dr. Warburton interprets, manage, was introduced by Mr. Rowe. I doubt the text is not yet right. Our author so very frequently converts nouns into verbs, that I have sometimes thought he might have written "He did behalve his anger,"---i. e. suppress it. So, Milton: yet put he not forth all his strength,

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"But check'd it mid-way."

Behave, however, is used by Spenser, in his Fairy Queen, B. I, c. iii, in a sense that will suit sufficiently with the passage before

us:

"But who his limbs with labours, and his mind
"Behaves with cares, cannot so easy miss "

To behave certainly had formerly a very different signification from that in which it is now used. Cole, in his Dictionary, 1679, renders it by tracto, which he interprets to govern, or manage.

Malone.

On second consideration, the sense of this passage, (however perversely expressed on account of rhyme,) may be this: "He managed his anger with such sober and unnoted passion [i.e. suf- ́ fering, forbearance,] before it was spent, [i. e. before that dispo sition to endure the insult he had received, was exhausted,] that it seemed as if he had been only engaged in supporting an argument he had advanced in conversation. Passion may as well be used to signify suffering, as any violent commotion of the mind: and that our author was aware of this, may be inferred from his introduction of the Latin phrase" hysterica passio,” in King Lear. See also Vol. XIV, p. 11, n. 7. Steevens.

3 You undergo too strict a paradox,] You undertake a paradox too hard. Johnson.

4

that man can breathe;] i. e. can utter. So afterwards: "You breathe in vain." Malone.

Again, in Hamlet:

Having ever seen, in the prenominate crimes,

"The youth you breathe of, guilty." Steeven..