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 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.

Tim. Excellent workman! Thou canst not paint a 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.

Tim. 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,

When we may profit meet, and come too late.
Pain. True;

When the day serves, before black-corner'd night,
Find what thou want'st, by free and offer'd light.
Come.

Tim. I'll meet you at the turn. What a god's gold, That he is worshipp'd in a baser temple,

Than where swine feed!

Tim. Have I once liv'd 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!
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'm rapt, and cannot cover
The monstrous bulk of this ingratitude
With any size of words.

Tim. 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.

Pain.

He, and myself, Have travell'd 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 re-
quite 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 counterfeit ?

Best in all Athens: thou art, indeed, the best;
Thou counterfeit'st most lively.

The doing of that we said we would do.

A portrait was so called.

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:

A lack of Timon's aid, hath sense withal
Of its own fall, restraining aid to Timon:

And send forth us, to make their sorrow'd render",

Together with a recompence 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, Allow'd 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 threat'ning 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-brain'd war;

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,
And hang himself: — I pray you, do my greeting.
Flav. Trouble him no further, thus you still shall
find him.

Tim. Come not to me again: but say to Athens,
Timon hath made his everlasting mansion
Upon the beached verge of the salt flood;
Which once a day with his embossed froth
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!
Sun, hide thy beams! Timon hath done his reign.
[Exit TIMON.
1 Sen. His discontents are unremoveably
Coupled to nature.

And strain what other means is left unto us 2 Sen. Our hope in him is dead: let us return, In our dear9 peril. 1 Sen.

SCENE III.

It requires swift foot. [Exeunt.

The Walls of Athens.
Enter two Senators, and a Messenger.

1 Sen. Thou hast painfully discovered; are his files

In pity of our aged, and our youth,

I cannot choose but tell him, that
And let him take't at worst; for their knives care

SCENE V. - Before the Walls of Athens.
Trumpets sound. Enter ALCIBIADES, and Forces.
Alcib. Sound to this coward and lascivious town
Our terrible approach.
[A Parley sounded.
Enter Senators on the Walls.
Till now you have gone on, and fill'd the time
With all licentious measure, making your wills
The scope of justice; till now, myself, and such
As slept within the shadow of your power,
Have wander'd with our travers'd arms', and
breath'd

Our sufferance vainly; Now the time is flush 2,
When crouching marrow,
in the bearer strong,
Cries, of itself, No more: now breathless wrong,
Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease;
And pursy insolence shall break his wind,
With fear and horrid flight.

1 Sen.

Noble and young, When thy first griefs were but a mere conceit, Ere thou hadst power, or we had cause of fear, We sent to thee; to give thy rages balm, To wipe out our ingratitude with loves Above their quantity.

2 Sen.

So did we woo

Transformed Timon to our city's love,

By humble message, and by promis'd means;
We were not all unkind, nor all deserve
The common stroke of war.

1 Sen. These walls of ours Were not erected by their hands, from whom You have receiv'd your griefs: nor are they such, That these great towers, trophies, and schools should fall

For private faults in them.

2 Sen.
Nor are they living
Who were the motives that you first went out;
Shame, that they wanted cunning, in excess
Hath broke their hearts. March, noble lord,
Into our city with thy banners spread :
By decimation, and a tithed death,
(If thy revenges hunger for that food,

Alcib. Then there's my glove; Descend, and open your uncharged ports +; Those enemies of Timon's, and mine own, Whom you yourselves shall set out for reproof, Fall, and no more: and,- to atone your fears With my more noble meaning,. Shall pass his quarter, or offend the stream Of regular justice in your city's bounds, But shall be remedied, to your publick laws At heaviest answer.

not a man

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;
Entomb'd upon the very hem o'the sea;
And on his gravestone, this insculpture; which
With wax I brought away, whose soft impression
Interprets for my poor ignorance.

Alcib. [Reads.] Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft :

Seek not my name: A plague consume you wicked 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
On thy low grave, on faults forgiven. Dead
Is noble Timon; of whose memory
Hereafter more.

Bring me into your city, And I will use the olive with my sword: Make war breed peace; make peace stint war;