The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 484
PAGE [to the Fool] Why, how now, captain? What do
you in this wise company? How dost thou,
Apemantus?
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APEMANTUS Would I had a rod in my mouth, that I
might answer thee profitably.
PAGE Prithee, Apemantus, read me the superscription
of these letters: I know not which is which.
APEMANTUS Canst not read?
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PAGE No.
APEMANTUS There will little learning die then that day
thou art hang’d. This is to Lord Timon; this to
Alcibiades. Go, thou wast born a bastard, and thou’lt
die a bawd.
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PAGE Thou wast whelp’d a dog, and thou shalt famish a
dog’s death. Answer not; I am gone. Exit.
APEMANTUS E’en so thou outrun’st grace. Fool, I will
go with you to Lord Timon’s.
FOOL Will you leave me there?
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APEMANTUS If Timon stay at home. You three serve
three usurers?
ALL SERVANTS Ay; would they serv’d us.
APEMANTUS So would I – as good a trick as ever
hangman serv’d thief.
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FOOL Are you three usurers’ men?
ALL SERVANTS Ay, fool.
FOOL I think no usurer but has a fool to his servant; my
mistress is one, and I am her fool. When men come
to borrow of your masters, they approach sadly, and go
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away merry; but they enter my master’s house merrily,
and go away sadly. The reason of this?
VARRO’S SERVANT I could render one.
APEMANTUS Do it then, that we may account thee a
whoremaster and a knave; which notwithstanding,
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thou shalt be no less esteemed.
VARRO’S SERVANT What is a whoremaster, fool?
FOOL A fool in good clothes, and something like thee.
’Tis a spirit; sometime ’t appears like a lord, sometime
like a lawyer, sometime like a philosopher, with two
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stones moe than’s artificial one. He is very often like a
knight; and generally in all shapes that man goes up
and down in, from fourscore to thirteen, this spirit
walks in.
VARRO’S SERVANT Thou art not altogether a fool.
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FOOL Nor thou altogether a wise man. As much foolery
as I have, so much wit thou lack’st.
APEMANTUS That answer might have become Apemantus.
ALL SERVANTS Aside, aside; here comes Lord Timon.
Re-enter TIMON and Steward.
APEMANTUS Come with me, fool, come.
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FOOL I do not always follow lover, elder brother and
woman; sometime the philosopher.
STEWARD
Pray you, walk near: I’ll speak with you anon.
Exeunt Apemantus, Fool and Servants.
TIMON
You make me marvel wherefore ere this time
Had you not fully laid my state before me,
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That I might so have rated my expense
As I had leave of means.
STEWARD You would not hear me.
At many leisures I propos’d –
TIMON Go to.
Perchance some single vantages you took,
When my indisposition put you back,
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And that unaptness made your minister
Thus to excuse yourself.
STEWARD O my good lord,
At many times I brought in my accompts,
Laid them before you; you would throw them off,
And say you found them in mine honesty.
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When for some trifling present you have bid me
Return so much, I have shook my head and wept:
Yea, ’gainst th’authority of manners, pray’d you
To hold your hand more close. I did endure
Not seldom, nor no slight checks, when I have
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Prompted you in the ebb of your estate
And your great flow of debts. My lov’d lord,
Though you hear now, too late, yet now’s a time:
The greatest of your having lacks a half
To pay your present debts.
TIMON Let all my land be sold.
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STEWARD ’Tis all engag’d, some forfeited and gone,
And what remains will hardly stop the mouth
Of present dues. The future comes apace.
What shall defend the interim, and at length
How goes our reck’ning?
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TIMON To Lacedaemon did my land extend.
STEWARD O my good lord, the world is but a word:
Were it all yours, to give it in a breath,
How quickly were it gone!
TIMON You tell me true.
STEWARD If you suspect my husbandry or falsehood,
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Call me before th’exactest auditors,
And set me on the proof. So the gods bless me,
When all our offices have been oppress’d
With riotous feeders, when our vaults have wept
With drunken spilth of wine, when every room
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Hath blaz’d with lights and bray’d with minstrelsy,
I have retir’d me to a wasteful cock
And set mine eyes at flow.
TIMON Prithee no more.
STEWARD Heavens, have I said, the bounty of this lord!
How many prodigal bits have slaves and peasants
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This night englutted! Who is not Timon’s?
What heart, head, sword, force, means, but is Lord
Timon’s,
Great Timon, noble, worthy, royal Timon?
Ah, when the means are gone that buy this praise,
The breath is gone whereof this praise is made.
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Feast-won, fast-lost; one cloud of winter show’rs,
These flies are couch’d.
TIMON Come, sermon me no further.
No villainous bounty yet hath pass’d my heart;
Unwisely, not ignobly, have I given.
Why dost thou weep? Canst thou the conscience
lack,
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To think I shall lack friends? Secure thy heart.
If I would broach the vessels of my love,
And try the arguments of hearts by borrowing,
Men and men’s fortunes could I frankly use
As I can bid thee speak.
STEWARD Assurance bless your thoughts.
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TIMON
And in some sort these wants of mine are crown’d,
That I account them blessings; for by these
Shall I try friends. You shall perceive how you
Mistake my fortunes; I am wealthy in my friends.
Within there! Flaminius! Servilius!
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Enter FLAMINIUS, SERVILIUS and another Servant.
ALL SERVANTS My lord, my lord.
TIMON I will dispatch you severally: [to Servilius] you
to Lord Lucius; [to Flaminius] to Lord Lucullus you
(I hunted with his honour to-day); [to Third Servant]
you, to Sempronius. Commend me to their loves;
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and I am proud, say, that my occasions have found
time to use ’em toward a supply of money. Let the
request be fifty talents.
FLAMINIUS As you have said, my lord.
Exeunt Servants.
STEWARD [aside] Lord Lucius and Lucullus? Humh!
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TIMON [to Steward] Go you, sir, to the senators,
Of whom, even to the state’s b
est health, I have
Deserv’d this hearing: bid ’em send o’th’ instant
A thousand talents to me.
STEWARD I have been bold,
For that I knew it the most general way,
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To them to use your signet and your name;
But they do shake their heads, and I am here
No richer in return.
TIMON Is’t true? can’t be?
STEWARD They answer in a joint and corporate voice
That now they are at fall, want treasure, cannot
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Do what they would, are sorry; you are honourable,
But yet they could have wish’d – they know not;
Something hath been amiss – a noble nature
May catch a wrench – would all were well – ’tis pity –
And so, intending other serious matters,
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After distasteful looks, and these hard fractions,
With certain half-caps, and cold-moving nods,
They froze me into silence.
TIMON You gods reward them!
Prithee, man, look cheerly. These old fellows
Have their ingratitude in them hereditary;
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Their blood is cak’d, ’tis cold, it seldom flows;
’Tis lack of kindly warmth they are not kind;
And nature, as it grows again toward earth,
Is fashion’d for the journey, dull and heavy.
Go to Ventidius. Prithee, be not sad,
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Thou art true and honest; ingeniously I speak,
No blame belongs to thee. Ventidius lately
Buried his father, by whose death he’s stepp’d
Into a great estate. When he was poor,
Imprison’d, and in scarcity of friends,
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I clear’d him with five talents. Greet him from me,
Bid him suppose some good necessity
Touches his friend, which craves to be remember’d
With those five talents. That had, give’t these fellows
To whom ’tis instant due. Ne’er speak or think
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That Timon’s fortunes ’mong his friends can sink.
STEWARD I would I could not think it.
That thought is bounty’s foe;
Being free itself, it thinks all others so. Exeunt.
3.1 FLAMINIUS waiting to speak with Lucullus from his master. Enter a Servant to him.
SERVANT I have told my lord of you; he is coming down
to you.
FLAMINIUS I thank you, sir.
Enter LUCULLUS.
SERVANT Here’s my lord.
LUCULLUS [aside] One of Lord Timon’s men? A gift, I
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warrant. Why, this hits right: I dreamt of a silver basin
and ewer to-night. – Flaminius, honest Flaminius, you
are very respectively welcome, sir. Fill me some
wine. [Exit Servant.]
And how does that honourable, complete, free-
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hearted gentleman of Athens, thy very bountiful good
lord and master?
FLAMINIUS His health is well, sir.
LUCULLUS I am right glad that his health is well, sir.
And what hast thou there under thy cloak, pretty
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Flaminius?
FLAMINIUS Faith, nothing but an empty box, sir, which,
in my lord’s behalf, I come to entreat your honour to
supply; who, having great and instant occasion to
use fifty talents, hath sent to your lordship to furnish
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him, nothing doubting your present assistance
therein.
LUCULLUS La, la, la, la: ‘nothing doubting’, says he?
Alas, good lord; a noble gentleman ’tis, if he would not
keep so good a house. Many a time and often I ha’
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din’d with him, and told him on’t, and come again to
supper to him of purpose to have him spend less; and
yet he would embrace no counsel, take no warning by
my coming. Every man has his fault, and honesty is
his. I ha’told him on’t, but I could ne’er get him
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from’t.
Re-enter Servant, with wine.
SERVANT Please your lordship, here is the wine.
LUCULLUS Flaminius, I have noted thee always wise.
Here’s to thee.
FLAMINIUS Your lordship speaks your pleasure.
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LUCULLUS I have observed thee always for a towardly
prompt spirit, give thee thy due, and one that knows
what belongs to reason; and canst use the time well, if
the time use thee well. Good parts in thee. [to the