Have travelled in the great shower of your gifts,
And sweetly felt it.
Tim.
Ay, you are honest men.
Pain. We are hither come to offer you our service.
Tim. Most honest men! Why, how shall I requite
you?

Can you eat roots, and drink cold water? no.

Both. What we can do, we'll do, to do you service. Tim. You are honest men. You have heard that I have gold;

I am sure you have.

Speak truth; you are honest men. Pain. So it is said, my noble lord; but therefore Came not my friend, nor I.

Tim. Good honest men.-Thou draw'st a counterfeit1 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-natured 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.

Tim.

Beseech your honor

You'll take it ill.

Will you, indeed?

Both. Most thankfully, my lord.
Tim.

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 assured,

That he's a made-up villain."

1 It should be remembered that a portrait was called a counterfeit. 2 i. e. a complete, a finished 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 company;

Each man apart, all single and alone,

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 wouldst 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 ! 3
You are an alchymist, make gold of that:-

Out, rascal dogs! [Exit, beating and driving them out.

SCENE II. The same.

Enter FLAVIUS and two Senators.

Flav. It is in vain that you would speak with Timon; For he is set so only to himself,

That nothing but himself, which looks like man,

Is friendly with him.

1 Sen.

It is our part, and promise to the Athenians,

To speak with Timon.

2 Sen.

1 i. e. a jakes.

Bring us to his cave:

At all times alike

2 The plain and simple meaning of this is, "where each of you is, a villain must be in his company."

3 The word done is omitted, by accident, in the old copy. This line is addressed to the painter, the next to the poet.

Men are not still the same. 'Twas time and griefs That framed him thus; time, with his fairer hand, Offering the fortunes of his former days,

The former man may make him. Bring us to him, And chance it as it may.

Flav.

Here is his cave.

Peace and content be here! Lord Timon! Timon! Look out, and speak to friends. The Athenians, By two of their most reverend senate, greet thee: Speak to them, noble Timon.

Enter TIMON.

Tim. Thou sun, that comfort'st, burn!—Speak, and be hanged:

For each true word, a blister! and each false
Be as a cauterizing to the root o' the tongue,
Consuming it with speaking!

1 Sen.

Worthy Timon

Tim. Of none but such as you, and you of Timon. 2 Sen. The senators of Athens greet thee, Timon. Tim. I thank them; and would send them back the plague,

Could I but catch it for them.

1 Sen.

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.

2 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;

1 Which should be and. It is now vain to inquire whether the mistake be attributable to the Poet, or to a careless transcriber or printer.

2 The Athenians have a sense of the danger of their own fall by the arms of Alcibiades, by their withholding aid that should have been given to Timon.

And send forth us, to make their sorrowed render,1
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;

Surprise 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,
Allowed 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 threatening 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,

That-Timon cares not. But if he sack fair Athens,

And take our goodly, aged men by the beards,

Giving our holy virgins to the stain

Of contumelious, beastly, mad-brained 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 take't at worst; for their knives care not, While you have throats to answer; for myself,

There's not a whittle 3 in the unruly camp,

But I do prize it at my love, before
The reverend'st throat in Athens.

1 Render is confession.

So I leave you

2 Allowed here signifies confirmed
3 A whittle is a clasp-knife.

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,

2

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

In life's uncertain voyage, I will some kindness do them.
I'll teach them to prevent wild Alcibiades' wrath.
2 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,

3

And hang himself: 3—I pray you,

pray you, do my greeting.

1 "The prosperous gods" undoubtedly here mean the propitious or favorable gods, Dii secundi.

2 He means "the disease of life begins to promise me a period."

3 This was suggested by a passage in Plutarch's Life of Antony, where it is said Timon addressed the people of Athens in similar terms from the