Descend, and open your uncharged ports: Both. 'Tis most nobly spoken. Alcib. Descend, and keep your words. The Senators descend, and open the gates. Enter a Soldier. Sol. My noble general, Timon is dead; And, on his grave-stone, this insculpture; which T Alcib. [Reads.] Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft: Seek not my name: A plague consume you wicked 51 caitiff's left! Here lie I Timon; who, alive, all living men did hate: Pass by, and curse thy fill; but pass, and stay not here thy gait. These well express in thee thy latter spirits: Though thou abhorr'dst in us our human griefs, Scorn'dst our brain's flow, and those our droplets which From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye Hereafter more.-Bring me into your city, And I will use the olive with my sword: Make war breed peace; make peace stint war; make each Prescribe to other, as each other's leech. Let our drums strike. [Exeunt. ANNOTATIONS UPON TIMON OF ATHENS. BREATH'D as it were-] Breath'd is inured by constant practice; so trained as not to be wearied. To breathe a horse, is to exercise him for the course. JOHNSON. 2 When we for recompence, &c.] We must here suppose the poet busy in reading his own work; and that these three lines are the introduction of the poem addressed to Timon, which he afterwards gives the painter an account of. WARBURTON. 3 In a wide sea of wax:] In ancient times men wrote upon tablets of wax with a graver or stile. This custom does not seem to have ceased in England till as late as the reign of Richard II. * I'll unbolt to you.] I'll explain; I'll unlock my mind. -properties-] Appropriates, makes his own. even he drops down, &c.] Either Shakspeare meant to put a falshood into the mouth of his poet, or had not yet thoroughly planned the character of Apemantus; for in the ensuing scenes, his behaviour is as cynical to Timon as to the rest. STEEVENS. 7-conceiv'd to scope.] Imagined properly. 8 -our condition.] Our art; The subject would be well expressed in a picture. 9 A thousand moral paintings I can shew.] Shakspeare seems to intend in this dialogue to express some competition between the two great arts of imitation. Whatever the poet declares himself to have shewn, the painter thinks he could have shewn better. JOHNSON. 10 'Tis not enough, &c.] This thought is better expressed by Dr. Madden in his elegy on archbishop Boulter. -He thought it mean Only to help the poor to beg again. JOHNSON. Mr. Steevens hints, that Madden paid ten guineas to Johnson for correcting this Elegy. Therefore he will be, Timon:] The thought is closely expressed, and obscure: but this seems the meaning, If the man be honest, my lord, for that reuson he will be so in this; and not endeavour at the injustice of gaining my daughter without my consent. WARBURTON. 12 It would unclew me -] To unclew, is to unwind a ball of thread. To unclew a man, is to draw out the whole mass of his fortunes. 13. Enter APEMANTUS.] See this character of a cynic JOHNSON. |