TIMON OF ATHENS.

ACT I.

SCENE I. Athens. A Hall in Timon's House.

Enter Poet, Painter, Jeweller, Merchant, and others, at several doors.

Poet. GOOD day, sir.

Pain..

I am glad you are well.

Poet. I have not seen you long; how goes the world? Pain. It wears, sir, as it grows.

Poet.

Ay, that's well known. But what particular rarity? what strange, Which manifold record not matches?1 See, Magic of bounty! all these spirits thy power Hath conjured to attend. I know the merchant. Pain. I know them both; t'other's a jeweller. Mer. O, 'tis a worthy lord!

Jew.

Nay, that's most fixed. Mer. A most incomparable man; breathed, as it

were,

To an untirable and continuate goodness.

He passes.

Jew. I have a jewel here.

Mer. O, pray, let's see't; for the lord Timon, sir?

1 The poet merely means to ask if any thing extraordinary or out of the common course of things has lately happened; and is prevented from waiting for an answer by observing so many conjured by Timon's bounty to attend.

2 Breathed is exercised, inured by constant practice. He passes, i. e. exceeds or goes beyond common bounds.

Jew. If he will touch the estimate.1 But for that

2

Poet. When we for recompense have praised the vile, It stains the glory in that happy verse

Which aptly sings the good.

Mer.

'Tis a good form.

[Looking at the jewel.

Jew. And rich; here is a water, look you.

Pain. You are rapt, sir, in some work, some ded

ication

To the great lord.

Poet.

A thing slipped idly from me.

Our poesy is as a gum, which oozes 3
From whence 'tis nourished.

The fire i'the flint

Shows not, till it be struck; our gentle flame
Provokes itself, and like the current, flies
Each bound it chafes. What have you there?
Pain. A picture, sir.-And when comes your book
forth?

Poet. Upon the heels of my presentment,5 sir.
Let's see your piece.

Pain.

"Tis a good piece.

6

Poet. So 'tis; this comes off well and excellent. Pain. Indifferent.

Poet.

Admirable. How this grace

Speaks his own standing? what a mental power
This eye shoots forth how big imagination

Moves in this lip! to the dumbness of the gesture
One might interpret.8

Pain. It is a pretty mocking of the life.

Here is a touch; is't good?

1 Touch the estimate, that is, come up to the price.

2 We must here suppose the poet busy in reciting part of his own

work.

3 The old copies read:

"Our poesie is a gowne which uses."

4 It is not certain whether this word is chafes or chases, in the folio.

5 i. e. as soon as my book has been presented to Timon.

6 This comes off well, apparently means this piece is well executed.

7 How the graceful attitude of this figure proclaims that it stands firm on its centre, or gives evidence in favor of its own fixture. Grace 18 introduced as bearing witness to propriety.

8 One might venture to supply words to such intelligible action.

Poet.

I'll say of it,

It tutors nature; artificial strife 1

1

Lives in these touches, livelier than life.

Enter certain Senators, and pass over.

Pain. How this lord's followed!

Poet. The senators of Athens;-happy men!

Pain. Look, more!

Poet. You see this confluence, this great flood of

visitors.

I have, in this rough work, shaped out a man,
Whom this beneath world2 doth embrace and hug
With amplest entertainment. My free drift
Halts not particularly, but moves itself

3

In a wide sea of wax.1 No levelled malice
Infects one comma in the course I hold ;
But flies an eagle flight, bold, and forth on,
Leaving no tract behind.

Pain. How shall I understand you?
Poet. I'll unbolt 5 to you.

You see how all conditions, how all minds,
(As well of glib and slippery creatures, as
Of grave and austere quality,) tender down
Their services to lord Timon. His large, fortune,
Upon his good and gracious nature hanging,
Subdues and properties to his love and tendance
All sorts of hearts; yea, from the glass-faced flatterer'
To Apemantus, that few things loves better

6

Than to abhor himself; even he drops down.
The knee before him, and returns in peace,
Most rich in Timon's nod.

1 i. e. the contest of art with nature.

2 So in Measure for Measure we have, "This under generation;" and in King Richard III., the lower world.

3 My design does not stop at any particular character.

4 An allusion to the Roman practice of writing with a style, on tablets covered with wax; a custom which also prevailed in England until about the close of the fourteenth century.

5 i. e. open, explain.

6 i. e. subjects and appropriates.

7 One who shows by reflection the looks of his patron.

Pain.

I saw them speak together.

Poet. Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill, Feigned Fortune to be throned. The base o' the mount Is ranked with all deserts, all kind of natures, That labor on the bosom of this sphere

To propagate their states.

Amongst them all,

Whose eyes are on this sovereign lady fixed,

One do I personate of lord Timon's frame,

Whom Fortune with her ivory hand wafts to her;
Whose present grace to present slaves and servants
Translates his rivals.

Pain.

'Tis conceived to scope.

2

This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks,
With one man beckoned from the rest below,
Bowing his head against the steepy mount
To climb his happiness, would be well expressed
In our condition.3

Poet.

Nay, sir, but hear me on.
All those which were his fellows but of late,
(Some better than his value,) on the moment
Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tendance,
Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear,
Make sacred even his stirrup, and through him
Drink the free air.5

Pain.

4

Ay, marry, what of these? Poet. When Fortune, in her shift and change of mood, Spurns down her late beloved, all his dependants, Which labored after him to the mountain's top, Even on their knees and hands, let him slip down, Not one accompanying his declining foot.

Pain. "Tis common.

A thousand moral paintings I can show,

That shall demonstrate these quick blows of fortune More pregnantly than words. Yet you do well,

1 i. e. to improve their conditions.

2 i. e. extensively imagined.

3 i. e. in our art, in painting. Condition was used for profession, quality. 4 Whisperings of officious servility, the incense of the worshipping parasite to the patron as a god.

5 To "drink the free air through another," is to breathe freely at his will only.

To show lord Timon, that mean eyes1 have seen
The foot above the head.

Trumpets sound. Enter TIMON attended; the Servant of VENTIDIUS talking with him.

Tim.

Imprisoned is he, say you?
Ven. Serv. Ay, my good lord: five talents is his debt;
His means most short, his creditors most strait.
Your honorable letter he desires

To those have shut him up; which failing to him,
Periods 2 his comfort.

Tim. Noble Ventidius! Well,

I am not of that feather, to shake off

My friend when he must need me. I do know him A gentleman that well deserves a help,

Which he shall have. I'll pay the debt, and free him. Ven. Serv. Your lordship ever binds him.

Tim. Commend me to him; I will send his ransom; And, being enfranchised, bid him come to me:

'Tis not enough to help the feeble up,

But to support him after.-Fare

you well. Ven. Serv. All happiness to your honor!

Enter an old Athenian.

Old Ath. Lord Timon, hear me speak.

Tim.

[Exit.

Freely, good father.

Old Ath. Thou hast a servant named Lucilius.

Tim. I have so. What of him?

Old Ath. Most noble Timon, call the man before.

thee.

Tim. Attends he here, or no?-Lucilius!

Enter LUCILIUS.

Luc. Here at your lordship's service.

Old Ath. This fellow here, lord Timon, this thy creature,

1 i. e. inferior spectators.

2 To period is perhaps a verb of Shakspeare's coinage.

3 Should we not read " When he most needs me?”