Timon of Athens
ACT V SCENE I | The woods before Timon’s cave. | |
[ Enter Poet and Painter; TIMON watching them from his cave ] | ||
Painter | As I took note of the place, it cannot be far where | |
he abides. | ||
Poet | What’s to be thought of him? does the rumour hold | |
for true, that he’s so full of gold? | ||
Painter | Certain: Alcibiades reports it; Phrynia and | 5 |
Timandra had gold of him: he likewise enriched poor | ||
straggling soldiers with great quantity: ’tis said | ||
he gave unto his steward a mighty sum. | ||
Poet | Then this breaking of his has been but a try for his friends. | |
Painter | Nothing else: you shall see him a palm in Athens | 10 |
again, and flourish with the highest. Therefore | ||
’tis not amiss we tender our loves to him, in this | ||
supposed distress of his: it will show honestly in | ||
us; and is very likely to load our purposes with | ||
what they travail for, if it be a just true report | 15 | |
that goes of his having. | ||
Poet | What have you now to present unto him? | |
Painter | Nothing at this time but my visitation: only I will | |
promise him an excellent piece. | ||
Poet | I must serve him so too, tell him of an intent | 20 |
that’s coming toward him. | ||
Painter | Good as the best. Promising is the very air o’ the | |
time: it opens the eyes of expectation: | ||
performance is ever the duller for his act; and, | ||
but in the plainer and simpler kind of people, the | 25 | |
deed of saying is quite out of use. To promise is | ||
most courtly and fashionable: performance is a kind | ||
of will or testament which argues a great sickness | ||
in his judgment that makes it. | ||
[TIMON comes from his cave, behind] | ||
TIMON | [Aside] Excellent workman! thou canst not paint a | 30 |
man so bad as is thyself. | ||
Poet | I am thinking what I shall say I have provided for | |
him: it must be a personating of himself; a satire | ||
against the softness of prosperity, with a discovery | ||
of the infinite flatteries that follow youth and opulency. | 35 | |
TIMON | [Aside] Must thou needs stand for a villain in | |
thine own work? wilt thou whip thine own faults in | ||
other men? Do so, I have gold for thee. | ||
Poet | Nay, let’s seek him: | |
Then do we sin against our own estate, | 40 | |
When we may profit meet, and come too late. | ||
Painter | True; | |
When the day serves, before black-corner’d night, | ||
Find what thou want’st by free and offer’d light. Come. | ||
TIMON | [Aside] I’ll meet you at the turn. What a | 45 |
god’s gold, | ||
That he is worshipp’d in a baser temple | ||
Than where swine feed! | ||
‘Tis thou that rigg’st the bark and plough’st the foam, | ||
Settlest admired reverence in a slave: | 50 | |
To thee be worship! and thy saints for aye | ||
Be crown’d with plagues that thee alone obey! | ||
Fit I meet them. | ||
[Coming forward] | ||
Poet | Hail, worthy Timon! | |
Painter | Our late noble master! | 55 |
TIMON | Have I once lived to see two honest men? | |
Poet | Sir, | |
Having often of your open bounty tasted, | ||
Hearing you were retired, your friends fall’n off, | ||
Whose thankless natures–O abhorred spirits!– | 60 | |
Not all the whips of heaven are large enough: | ||
What! to you, | ||
Whose star-like nobleness gave life and influence | ||
To their whole being! I am rapt and cannot cover | ||
The monstrous bulk of this ingratitude | 65 | |
With any size of words. | ||
TIMON | Let it go naked, men may see’t the better: | |
You that are honest, by being what you are, | ||
Make them best seen and known. | ||
Painter | He and myself | 70 |
Have travail’d in the great shower of your gifts, | ||
And sweetly felt it. | ||
TIMON | Ay, you are honest men. | |
Painter | We are hither come to offer you our service. | |
TIMON | Most honest men! Why, how shall I requite you? | 75 |
Can you eat roots, and drink cold water? no. | ||
Both | What we can do, we’ll do, to do you service. | |
TIMON | Ye’re honest men: ye’ve heard that I have gold; | |
I am sure you have: speak truth; ye’re honest men. | ||
Painter | So it is said, my noble lord; but therefore | 80 |
Came not my friend nor I. | ||
TIMON | Good honest men! Thou draw’st a counterfeit | |
Best in all Athens: thou’rt, indeed, the best; | ||
Thou counterfeit’st most lively. | ||
Painter | So, so, my lord. | 85 |
TIMON | E’en so, sir, as I say. And, for thy fiction, | |
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: | 90 | |
Marry, ’tis not monstrous in you, neither wish I | ||
You take much pains to mend. | ||
Both | Beseech your honour | |
To make it known to us. | ||
TIMON | You’ll take it ill. | 95 |
Both | Most thankfully, my lord. | |
TIMON | Will you, indeed? | |
Both | Doubt it not, worthy lord. | |
TIMON | There’s never a one of you but trusts a knave, | |
That mightily deceives you. | 100 | |
Both | Do we, my lord? | |
TIMON | 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. | 105 | |
Painter | I know none such, my lord. | |
Poet | Nor I. | |
TIMON | 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, | 110 | |
Confound them by some course, and come to me, | ||
I’ll give you gold enough. | ||
Both | Name them, my lord, let’s know them. | |
TIMON | You that way and you this, but two in company; | |
Each man apart, all single and alone, | 115 | |
Yet an arch-villain keeps him company. | ||
If where thou art two villains shall not be, | ||
Come not near him. If thou wouldst not reside | ||
But where one villain is, then him abandon. | ||
Hence, pack! there’s gold; you came for gold, ye slaves: | 120 | |
[To Painter] | ||
You have work’d for me; there’s payment for you: hence! | ||
[To Poet] | ||
You are an alchemist; make gold of that. | ||
Out, rascal dogs! | ||
[Beats them out, and then retires to his cave] | ||
[Enter FLAVIUS and two Senators] | ||
FLAVIUS | It is in vain that you would speak with Timon; | |
For he is set so only to himself | 125 | |
That nothing but himself which looks like man | ||
Is friendly with him. | ||
First Senator | Bring us to his cave: | |
It is our part and promise to the Athenians | ||
To speak with Timon. | 130 | |
Second Senator | At all times alike | |
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, | 135 | |
And chance it as it may. | ||
FLAVIUS | 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: | 140 | |
Speak to them, noble Timon. | ||
[TIMON comes from his cave] | ||
TIMON | Thou sun, that comfort’st, burn! Speak, and | |
be hang’d: | ||
For each true word, a blister! and each false | ||
Be as cauterizing to the root o’ the tongue, | 145 | |
Consuming it with speaking! | ||
First Senator | Worthy Timon,– | |
TIMON | Of none but such as you, and you of Timon. | |
First Senator | The senators of Athens greet thee, Timon. | |
TIMON | I thank them; and would send them back the plague, | 150 |
Could I but catch it for them. | ||
First Senator | 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 | 155 | |
On special dignities, which vacant lie | ||
For thy best use and wearing. | ||
Second Senator | They confess | |
Toward thee forgetfulness too general, gross: | ||
Which now the public body, which doth seldom | 160 | |
Play the recanter, feeling in itself | ||
A lack of Timon’s aid, hath sense withal | ||
Of its own fail, restraining aid to Timon; | ||
And send forth us, to make their sorrow’d render, | ||
Together with a recompense more fruitful | 165 | |
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. | 170 | |
TIMON | 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. | ||
First Senator | Therefore, so please thee to return with us | 175 |
And of our Athens, thine and ours, to take | ||
The captainship, thou shalt be met with thanks, | ||
Allow’d with absolute power and thy good name | ||
Live with authority: so soon we shall drive back | ||
Of Alcibiades the approaches wild, | 180 | |
Who, like a boar too savage, doth root up | ||
His country’s peace. | ||
Second Senator | And shakes his threatening sword | |
Against the walls of Athens. | ||
First Senator | Therefore, Timon,– | 185 |
TIMON | 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 be sack fair Athens, | ||
And take our goodly aged men by the beards, | 190 | |
Giving our holy virgins to the stain | ||
Of contumelious, beastly, mad-brain’d 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, | 195 | |
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 in the unruly camp | ||
But I do prize it at my love before | ||
The reverend’st throat in Athens. So I leave you | 200 | |
To the protection of the prosperous gods, | ||
As thieves to keepers. | ||
FLAVIUS | Stay not, all’s in vain. | |
TIMON | Why, I was writing of my epitaph; | |
it will be seen to-morrow: my long sickness | 205 | |
Of health and living now begins to mend, | ||
And nothing brings me all things. Go, live still; | ||
Be Alcibiades your plague, you his, | ||
And last so long enough! | ||
First Senator | We speak in vain. | 210 |
TIMON | But yet I love my country, and am not | |
One that rejoices in the common wreck, | ||
As common bruit doth put it. | ||
First Senator | That’s well spoke. | |
TIMON | Commend me to my loving countrymen,– | 215 |
First Senator | These words become your lips as they pass | |
thorough them. | ||
Second Senator | And enter in our ears like great triumphers | |
In their applauding gates. | ||
TIMON | Commend me to them, | 220 |
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: | 225 | |
I’ll teach them to prevent wild Alcibiades’ wrath. | ||
First Senator | I like this well; he will return again. | |
TIMON | 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, | 230 | |
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, | ||
And hang himself. I pray you, do my greeting. | 235 | |
FLAVIUS | Trouble him no further; thus you still shall find him. | |
TIMON | Come not to me again: but say to Athens, | |
Timon hath made his everlasting mansion | ||
Upon the beached verge of the salt flood; | ||
Who once a day with his embossed froth | 240 | |
The turbulent surge shall cover: thither come, | ||
And let my grave-stone be your oracle. | ||
Lips, let sour words go by and language end: | ||
What is amiss plague and infection mend! | ||
Graves only be men’s works and death their gain! | 245 | |
Sun, hide thy beams! Timon hath done his reign. | ||
[Retires to his cave] | ||
First Senator | His discontents are unremoveably | |
Coupled to nature. | ||
Second Senator | Our hope in him is dead: let us return, | |
And strain what other means is left unto us | 250 | |
In our dear peril. | ||
First Senator | It requires swift foot. | |
[Exeunt] |
Timon of Athens, Act 5, Scene 2