Who seeks for better of thee, sauce his palate With thy most operant poison! What is here? Gold? yellow, glittering, precious gold? No, gods, I am no idle votarist*. Roots, you clear heavens ! Thus much of this will make black, white; foul, fair. Wrong, right; base, noble; old, young; coward, valiant. Ha, you gods! why this? What this, you gods? Why this Will lug your priests and servants from your sides; Will knit and break religions; bless the accurs'd; . That makes the wappen'd† widow wed again; TIMON TO ALCIBIADES. Go on, here's gold,—go on; Will o'er some high-vic'd city hang his poison * No insincere or inconstant supplicant. Gold will not serve me instead of roots. + Sorrowful. i. e. Gold restores her to all the sweetness and freshness of youth. He's an usurer: Strike me the counterfeit matron; It is her habit only that is honest, Herself's a bawd: Let not the virgin's cheek Make soft thy trenchant* sword; for those milkpaps, That through the window-bars bore at men's eyes, Are not within the leaf of pity writ, [babe, Set them down horrible traitors: Spare not the Whose dimpled smiles from fools exhaust their Think it a bastardt, whom the oracle [mercy; Hath doubtfully pronounc'd thy throat shall cut, And mince it sans remorset: Swear against objects§; Put armour on thine ears, and on their eyes; Whose proof nor yells of mothers, maids, nor babes, Nor sight of priests in holy vestments bleeding, Shall pierce à jot. There's gold to pay thy solMake large confusion; and, thy fury spent, [diers, Confounded be thyself! Speak not, begone. TO THE COURTESANS. Consumptions sow In hollow bones of man; strike their sharp shins, And mar men's spurring. Crack the lawyer's voice, That he may never more false title plead, Nor sound his quillets|| shrilly: hoar the flamen, And not believes himself: down with the nose, + An allusion to the tale of Oedipus. Smells from the general weal: make curl'd-pate ruffians bald: And let the unscarr'd braggarts of the war Derive some pain from you. HIS REFLECTIONS ON THE EARTH. That nature, being sick of man's unkindness, Should yet be hungry!-Common mother, thou, [Digging, Whose womb unmeasurable, and infinite breast*, Teems, and feeds all; whose self-same mettle, Whereof thy proud child, arrogant man, is puff'd, Engenders the black toad, and adder blue, The gilded newt, and eyeless venom'd worm†, With all the abhorred births below crisp‡ heaven Whereon Hyperion's quickening fire doth shine; Yield him, who all thy human sons doth hate, From forth thy plenteous bosom one poor root! Ensear thy fertile and conceptious womb, Let it no more bring out ingrateful man! Go great with tigers, dragons, wolves, and bears; Teem with new monsters, whom thy upward face Hath to the marbled mansion all above Never presented!-O, a root,-Dear thanks! Dry up thy marrows, vines, and plough-torn leas; Whereof ingrateful man, with liquorish draughts, And morsels unctuous, greases his pure That from it all consideration slips! HIS DISCOURSE WITH APEMANTUS, mind, Apem. This is in thee a nature but affected; A poor unmanly melancholy, sprung [place? From change of fortune. Why this spade? this * Boundless surface. The serpent called the blind worm. Bent. This slave-like habit? and these looks of care? Thou gav'st thine ears, like tapsters, that bid welcome, A madman so long, now a fool: What, think'st Candied with ice, caudle thy morning taste, Of wreakful heaven; whose bare unhoused trunks, Answer mere nature,-bid them flatter thee; Tim. Thou art a slave, whom Fortune's tender With favour never clasp'd; but bred a dog. [arm * i. e. Their diseased perfumed mistresess. Hadst thou, like us, from our first swath*, pro ceeded The sweet degrees that this brief world affords [men Freely command, thou wouldst have plung'd thyself hate men? They never flatter'd thee: What hast thou given? ON GOLD. O, thou sweet king-killer, and dear divorce [Looking on the Gold. 'Twixt natural son and sire; Thou bright defiler Of Hymen's purest bed! thou valiant Mars! Thou ever young, fresh, lov'd, and delicate wooer, *From infancy. The cold admonitions of cautious prudence |