TIMON OF ATHENS.

Other Lords, Senators, Officers, Soldiers, Banditti, and Attendants.

SCENE-Athens, and the woods adjoining.

TIMON OF ATHENS.

ACT I.

SCENE I. Athens. A hall in TIMON's house.

Enter Poet, Painter, Jeweller, Merchant, and others, at several doors.

Poet. Good day, sir.

Pain.

I am glad you're well.

Poet. I have not seen you long: how goes the world?
Pain. It wears, sir, as it grows.

Poet.

Ay, that's well known:

But what particular rarity? what strange,
Which manifold record not matches? See,
Magic of bounty! all these spirits thy power
Hath conjur❜d to attend. I know the merchant.
Pain. I know them both; th' other's a jeweller.
Mer. O, 'tis a worthy lord.

Jew.

Nay, that's most fix'd.
Mer. A most incomparable man; breath'd, as it were,
To an untirable and continuate goodness:

Mer. O, pray, let's see 't: for the Lord Timon, sir?

Jew. If he will touch the estimate: but, for that

Poet [reciting to himself]. "When we for recompense have prais'd the vile,

It stains the glory in that happy verse

Which aptly sings the good."

Mer.

'Tis a good form. [Looking at the jewel.

Jew. And rich: here is a water, look ye.

Pain. You are rapt, sir, in some work, some dedication

To the great lord.

Poet.

A thing slipp'd idly from me.
Our poesy is as a gum, which oozes (1)

From whence 'tis nourish'd: the fire i' the flint
Shows not till it be struck; our gentle flame
Provokes itself, and, like the current, flies
Each bound it chafes.-What have you there?

Pain. A picture, sir.-When comes your book forth?
Poet. Upon the heels of my presentment, sir.-
Let's see your piece.

Pain.

"Tis a good piece.

Poet. So 'tis: this comes off well and excellent.
Pain. Indifferent.

Poet.

Admirable: how this

grace

Speaks his own standing! what a mental power
This eye shoots forth! how big imagination
Moves in this lip! to the dumbness of the gesture
One might interpret.

Pain. It is a pretty mocking of the life.
Here is a touch; is't good?

It tutors nature: artificial strife

Lives in these touches, livelier than life.

Enter certain Senators, and pass over.

Pain. How this lord is follow'd!

Poet. The senators of Athens:-happy man!(2)

Pain. Look, more!

Poet. You see this confluence, this great flood of visitors.

I have, in this rough work, shap'd out a man,

Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug

With amplest entertainment: my free drift

Halts not particularly, but moves itself

In a wide sea of wax: no levell'd malice

Infects one comma in the course I hold;
But flies an eagle flight, bold, and forth on,
Leaving no tract behind.

Pain. How shall I understand you?

Poet.

I will unbolt to you.

You see how all conditions, how all minds
(As well of glib and slippery creatures as
Of grave and austere quality) tender down
Their services to Lord Timon: his large fortune,
Upon his good and gracious nature hanging,
Subdues and properties to his love and tendance
All sorts of hearts; yea, from the glass-fac'd flatterer
To Apemantus, that few things loves better
Than to abhor himself: even he drops down
The knee before him, and returns in peace
Most rich in Timon's nod.

Pain.

I saw them speak together.

Poet. Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill
Feign'd Fortune to be thron'd: the base o' the mount

Is rank'd with all deserts, all kind of natures,
That labour on the bosom of this sphere
To propagate their states: amongst them all,
Whose eyes are on this sovereign lady fix'd,
One do I personate of Lord Timon's frame,
Whom Fortune with her ivory hand wafts to her;
Whose present grace to present slaves and servants
Translates his rivals.

Pain.

'Tis conceiv'd to scope.

This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks,
With one man beckon'd from the rest below,
Bowing his head against the steepy mount

To climb his happiness, would be well express'd
In our condition.

Poet.

Nay, sir, but hear me on.

All those which were his fellows but of late

(Some better than his value), on the moment
Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tendance,
Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear,

Make sacred even his stirrup, and through him
Drink the free air.

Pain.

Ay, marry, what of these?

Poet. When Fortune, in her shift and change of mood, Spurns down her late belov'd, all his dependants,