Isid. Serv. Your steward puts me off, my And I am sent expressly to your lordship. Tim. Give me breath :

I do beseech you, good my lords, keep on ;

lord;

[Exeunt ALCIBIADES and Lords.

I'll wait upon you instantly.-Come hither, pray you;

[To FLAVIUS.

How goes the world, that I am thus encountered
With clamorous demands of date-broke bonds,1
And the detention of long-since-due debts,
Against my honor?

Flav.
Please you, gentlemen,
The time is unagreeable to this business.
Your importunacy cease, till after dinner;
That I may make his lordship understand
Wherefore you are not paid.

Tim.

See them well entertained.

Flav.

Do so, my friends.

[Exit TIMON.

I pray, draw near.

[Exit FLAVIUS.

Enter APEMANTUS and a Fool.2

Caph. Stay, stay, here comes the fool with Apemantus; let's have some sport with 'em.

Var. Serv. Hang him, he'll abuse us.
Isid. Serv. A plague upon him, dog!
Var. Serv. How dost, fool?

Apem. Dost dialogue with thy shadow?
Var. Serv. I speak not to thee.

Apem. No; 'tis to thyself.-Come away.

Isid. Serv. [To VAR. Serv.] hangs on your back already.

1 The old copy reads:

66

[To the Fool. There's the fool

of debt, broken bonds."

The emendation, which was made by Malone, is well supported by corresponding passages in the Poet.

2 Johnson thought that a scene or passage had been here lost, in which the audience were informed that the fool and the page that follows him belonged to Phrynia, Timandra, or some other courtesan; upon the knowledge of which depends the greater part of the ensuing jocularity.

Apem. No, thou stand'st single; thou art not on him

yet.

Caph. Where's the fool now?

Apem. He last asked the question.-Poor rogues, and usurers' men! bawds between gold and want! All Serv. What are we, Apemantus ?

Apem. Asses.

All Serv. Why?

Apem. That you ask me what you are, and do not know yourselves.-Speak to 'em, fool.

Fool. How do you, gentlemen?

All Serv. Gramercies, good fool. How does your mistress?

Fool. She's e'en setting on water to scald such chickens as you are. 'Would we could see you at

Corinth.1

Apem. Good! gramercy.

Enter Page.

Fool. Look you, here comes my mistress' page. Page. [To the Fool.] Why, how now, captain? what do you in this wise company?-How dost thou, Apemantus?

Apem. 'Would I had a rod in my mouth, that I might answer thee profitably.

Page. Pr'ythee, Apemantus, read me the superscription of these letters; I know not which is which. Apem. Canst not read?

Page. No.

Apem. There will little learning die then, that day thou art hanged. This is to lord Timon; this to Alcibiades. Go; thou wast born a bastard, and thou❜lt die a bawd.

Page. Thou wast whelped a dog; and thou shalt famish, a dog's death. Answer not; I am gone. [Exit Page.

1 The reputation of the ladies of Corinth for gallantry caused the term

to be anciently used for a house of ill repute.

Apem. Even so thou outrun'st grace. Fool, I will go with you to lord Timon's.

Fool. Will you leave me there?

Apem. If Timon stay at home.-You three serve three usurers ?

All Serv. Ay; 'would they served us!

Apem. So would I, as good a trick as ever hangman served thief.

my

Fool. Are you three usurers' men?

All Serv. Ay, fool.

Fool. I think no usurer but has a fool to his servant; mistress is one, and I am her fool. When men come to borrow of your masters, they approach sadly, and go away merry; but they enter my mistress' house merrily, and go away sadly. The reason of this?

Var. Serv. I could render one.

Apem. Do it, then, that we may account thee a whoremaster and a knave; which, notwithstanding, thou shalt be no less esteemed.

Var. Serv. What is a whoremaster, fool?

Fool. A fool in good clothes, and something like thee. 'Tis a spirit: sometime, it appears like a lord; sometime, like a lawyer; sometime, like a philosopher, with two stones more than his artificial one.1 He is very often like a knight; and, generally in all shapes, that man goes up and down in, from fourscore, to thirteen, this spirit walks in.

Var. Serv. Thou art not altogether a fool. Fool. Nor thou altogether a wise man. foolery as I have, so much wit thou lackest.

As much

Apem. That answer might have become Apemantus. All Serv. Aside, aside; here comes lord Timon.

1 Meaning the celebrated object of all alchymical research, the philosopher's stone, at that time much talked of. Sir Thomas Smith was one of those who lost considerable sums in seeking of it. Sir Richard Steele was one of the last eminent men who entertained hopes of being successful in this pursuit. His laboratory was at Poplar.

Re-enter TIMON and FLAVIUS.

Apem. Come with me, fool, come.

Fool. I do not always follow lover, elder brother, and woman; sometime, the philosopher.

[Exeunt APEMANTUS and Fool. Flav. 'Pray you, walk near; I'll speak with you anon.

[Exeunt Serv. Tim. You make me marvel. Wherefore, ere this

time,

Had you not fully laid my state before me;

That I might so have rated my expense,

As I had leave of means?

Flav.

At many leisures I proposed.

Tim.

You would not hear me,

Go to.

Perchance, some single vantages you took,
When my indisposition put you back;
And that unaptness made your minister,1
Thus to excuse yourself.

Flav.
O my good lord!
At many times I brought in my accounts,

Laid them before you; you would throw them off,
And say, you found them in mine honesty.

When, for some trifling present, you have bid me
Return so much, I have shook my head, and wept;
Yea, 'gainst the authority of manners, prayed you
To hold your hand more close. I did endure
Not seldom, nor no slight checks, when I have
Prompted you, in the ebb of your estate,

And your great flow of debts. My dear-loved lord,
Though you hear now (too late!) yet now's a time,2
The greatest of your having lacks a half

To

pay your present debts. Tim.

Let all my land be sold.

Flav. 'Tis all engaged, some forfeited and gone; And what remains will hardly stop the mouth

Of present dues; the future comes apace.

1 The construction is, " And made that unaptness your minister." 2 "Yet now your affairs are in such a state."

What shall defend the interim? and at length
How goes our reckoning?1

Tim. To Lacedæmon did my land extend.

Flav. O my good lord, the world is but a word; 2 Were it all yours to give it in a breath,

How quickly were it gone!

Tim.

You tell me true.

Flav. If you suspect my husbandry, or falsehood, Call me before the exactest auditors,

And set me on the proof. So the gods bless me,
When all our offices have been oppressed

3

With riotous feeders; when our vaults have wept
With drunken spilth of wine; when every room
Hath blazed with lights, and brayed with minstrelsy;
I have retired me to a wasteful cock,*

And set mine eyes at flow.

Tim.

Pr'ythee, no more.

Flav. Heavens, have I said, the bounty of this lord! How many prodigal bits have slaves and peasants This night englutted! Who is not Timon's?

What heart, head, sword, force, means, but is lord Timon's?

Great Timon, noble, worthy, royal Timon!

Ah! when the means are gone that buy this praise,
The breath is gone whereof this praise is made.
Feast-won, fast-lost; one cloud of winter showers,
These flies are couched.

Tim.

Come, sermon me no further. No villanous bounty yet hath passed my heart; Unwisely, not ignobly, have I given.

Why dost thou weep? Canst thou the conscience lack,

1 "How will you be able to subsist in the time intervening between the payment of the present demands and the claim of future dues; and, finally, on the settlement of all accounts, in what a wretched plight will you be?"

2 i. e. as the world itself may be comprised in a word, you might give it away in a breath.

3 The cellar and the buttery are probably meant.

4 A wasteful cock is possibly what we now call a waste pipe, a pipe which is continually running, and thereby prevents the overflow of cisterns, &c., by carrying off their superfluous water. Hanmer supposed the phrase to mean "an unoccupied cockloft."