And cut your trusters' throats! Bound servants, steal!
Large-handed robbers your grave masters are,
And pill by law ! maid, to thy master's bed;
Thy mistress is o'the brothel ! son of sixteen,
Pluck the lin'd crutch from the old limping sire,
With it beat out his brains! piety, and fear,
Religion to the gods, peace, justice, truth,
Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighbourhood,
Instruction, manners, mysteries, and trades,
Degrees, observances, customs, and laws,
Decline to your confounding contraries,
And yet confusion live !9-Plagues, incident to men,
Your potent and infectious fevers heap

On Athens, ripe for stroke! Thou cold sciatica,
Cripple our senators, that their limbs may halt
As lamely as their manners! lust and liberty
Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth;
That 'gainst the stream of virtue they may strive,
And drown themselves in riot! itches, blains,
Sow all the Athenian bosoms; and their crop
Be general leprosy! breath infect breath;
That their society, as their friendship, may
Be merely poison! Nothing I'll bear from thee,
But nakedness, thou détestable town!

Take thou that too, with multiplying banns !'
Timon will to the woods; where he shall find
The unkindest beast more kinder than mankind.
The gods confound (hear me, you good gods all,)
The Athenians both within and out that wall!
And grant, as Timon grows, his hate may grow
To the whole race of mankind, high, and low!
Amen.

SCENE II.

[Exit.

Athens. A Room in TIMON's House. Enter FLAVIUS2 with two or three Servants.

1 Ser. Hear you, master steward, where's our master? Are we undone? cast off? nothing remaining?

[9] Though by such confusion all things seem to hasten to dissolution, yet let not dissolution come, but the miseries of confusion continue. JOHNS.

[1] Accumulated curses. Multiplying for multiplied: the active participle with a passive signification. STEEV.

[2] Nothing contributes more to the exaltation of Timon's character than the zeal and fidelity of his servants. Nothing but real virtue can be honoured by domestics; nothing but impartial kindness can gain affection from dependants. JOHNS.

Flav. Alack, my fellows, what should I say to you? Let me be recorded by the righteous gods,

I am as poor as you.

1 Serv. Such a house broke!

So noble a master fallen! all gone! and not
One friend, to take his fortune by the arm,
And go along with him.

2 Serv. As we do turn our backs

From our companion, thrown into his grave;
So his familiars to his buried fortunes

Slink all away; leave their false vows with him,
Like empty purses pick'd: and his poor self,
A dedicated beggar to the air,

With his disease of all-shunn'd poverty,

Walks, like contempt, alone.-More of our fellows.

Enter other Servants.

Flav. All broken implements of a ruin'd house.
3 Serv. Yet do our hearts wear Timon's livery,
That see I by our faces; we are fellows still,
Serving alike in sorrow: Leak'd is our bark;
And we, poor mates, stand on the dying deck,
Hearing the surges threat: we must all part
Into this sea of air.

Flav. Good fellows all,

The latest of my wealth I'll share amongst you.
Wherever we shall meet, for Timon's sake,

Let's yet be fellows; let's shake our heads, and say,
As 'twere a knell unto our master's fortunes,
We have seen better days. Let each take some ;
[Giving them money.
Nay, put out all your hands. Not one word more :
Thus part we rich in sorrow, parting poor. [Exe.Serv:
-O, the fierce wretchedness that glory brings us !2
Who would not wish to be from wealth exempt,
Since riches point to misery and contempt ?
Who'd be so mock'd with glory? or to live
But in a dream of friendship?

To have his pomp, and all what state compounds,
But only painted, like his varnish'd friends?
Poor honest lord, brought low by his own heart;
Undone by goodness! Strange, unusual blood, 3
When man's worst sin is, he does too much good!

STEEV.

[2] Fierce-I believe, is here used for hasty, precipitate. [3] Throughout these plays blood is frequently used in the sense of natural propensity or disposition. MAL

Who then dares to be half so kind again?
For bounty, that makes gods, does still mar men
My dearest lord,-bless'd, to be most accurs'd,
Rich, only to be wretched ;-thy great fortunes
Are made thy chief afflictions. Alas, kind lord!
He's flung in rage from this ungrateful seat
Of monstrous friends: nor has he with him to
Supply his life, or that which can command it.
I'll follow, and inquire him out:

I'll serve his mind with my best will;

Whilst I have gold, I'll be his steward still.

SCENE III.

The Woods. Enter TIMON.

[Exit.

Tim. O blessed breeding sun, draw from the earthRotten humidity; below thy sister's orb

Infect the air! Twinn'd brothers of one womb,

Whose procreation, residence, and birth,

Scarce is dividant,-touch them with several fortunes;

The greater scorns the lesser: Not nature,

To whom all sores lay siege, can bear great fortune,
But by contempt of nature.

Raise me this beggar, and denude that lord;
The senator shall bear contempt hereditary,

The beggar native honour.

It is the pasture lards the brother's sides,

The want that makes him lean. Who dares, who dares,
In purity of manhood stand upright,

And say, This man's a flatterer ? if one be,
So are they all; for every grize of fortune?
Is smooth'd by that below: the learned pate
Ducks to the golden fool: All is oblique ;
There's nothing level in our cursed natures,
But direct villainy. Therefore, be abhorr’d
All feasts, societies, and throngs of men!
His semblable, yea, himself, Timon disdains :
Destruction fang mankind !-Earth, yield me roots!
[Digging.

[5] That is, the moon's, this sublunary world.

JOHNS.

[6] The meaning I take to be this: Brother, when his fortune is enlarged, will scorn brother; for this is the general depravity of human nature, which, besieged as it is by misery, admonished as it is of want and imperfection, when elevated by fortune,will despise beings of nature like its own. JOHNS. [7] Grize for step or degree. РОРЕ.

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 ;9
Pluck stout men's pillows from below their heads. 1
This yellow slave

Will knit and break religions; bless the accurs'd;
Make the hoar leprosy ador'd; place thieves,
And give them title, knee, and approbation,
With senators on the bench: this is it,

That makes the wappen'd widow wed again;2
She, whom the spital-house, and ulcerous sores
Would cast the gorge at, this enbalms and spices
To the April day again.3 Come, damned earth,
Thou common whore of mankind, that put'st odds
Among the rout of nations, I will make thee

Do thy right nature.[March afar off]-Ha! a drum ?-Thou'rt quick, 5

But yet I'll bury thee. Thou'lt go, strong thief,
When gouty keepers of thee cannot stand :-

Nay, stay thou out for earnest.

[Keeping some gold.

Enter ALCIBIADES, with drum and fife, in warlike manner; PHRYNIA and TIMANDRA.

Alcib. What art thou there?

Speak.

Tim. A beast as thou art. The canker gnaw thy heart, For showing me again the eyes of man!

Alcib. What is thy name? Is man so hateful to thee, That art thyself a man?

Tim. I am misanthropos, and hate mankind.

[8] No insincere or inconstant supplicant. Gold will not serve me instead of roots. JOHNS.

[9] Aristophanes, in his Plutus, Act V, Scene 2, makes the priest of Jupiter desert his service to live with Plutus. WARB.

[1] Men who have strength yet remaining to struggle with their distemper. This alludes to an old custom of drawing away the pillow from under the heads of men in their last agonies, to make their departure the easier. WARB.

[2] The wappened widow is one who is no longer alive to those pleasures, the desire of which was her first inducement to marry. HENLEY. [3] That is, to the wedding day, called by the poet, satirically, April day, or Fool's day. JOHNS.

[4] Lie in the earth where nature laid thee. JOHNS.

Thou hast life and motion in thee. JOHNS.

For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog,
That I might love thee something.

Aleib. I know thee well;

But in thy fortunes am unlearn'd and strange.

Tim.I know thee too; and more, than that I know thee, I not desire to know. Follow thy drum;

With man's blood paint the ground, gules, gules:
Religious canons, civil laws are cruel;

Then what should war be? This fell whore of thine
Hath in her more destruction than thy sword,

For all her cherubin look.

Phry. Thy lips rot off!

Tim. I will not kiss thee; then the rot returns To thine own lips again.

Alcib. How came the noble Timon to this change? Tim. As the moon does, by wanting light to give : But then renew I could not, like the moon ; There were no suns to borrow of.

Alcib. Noble Timon,

What friendship may I do thee?

Tim. None, but to

Maintain my opinion.

Alcib. What is it, Timon?

Tim. Promise me friendship, but perform none: If Thou wilt not promise, the gods plague thee, for Thou art a man! if thou dost perform, confound thee, For thou'rt a man!

Alcib. I have heard in some sort of thy miseries. Tim. Thou saw'st them, when I had prosperity. Alcib. I see them now; then was a blessed time. Tim. As thine is now, held with a brace of harlots. Timan. Is this the Athenian minion, whom the world Voic'd so regardfully?

Tim. Art thou Timandra ?

Timan. Yes.

Tim.Be a whore still! they love thee not,that use thee; Give them diseases, leaving with thee their lust. Make use of thy salt hours: season the slaves

For tubs, and baths; bring down rose-cheeked youth To the tub-fast, and the diet.

Timan. Hang thee, monster!

Alcib. Pardon him, sweet Timandra; for his wits Are drown'd and lost in his calamities.

[6] That is, however thou may'st act, since thou art man, hated man, K wish thee evil.

5*

JOHNS..

VOL. VIE