From forth thy plenteous bosom, one poor root.
Ensear thy fertile and conceptious womb;
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Let it no more bring out ingrateful man.
Go great with tigers, dragons, wolves and bears;
Teem with new monsters, whom thy upward face
Hath to the marbled mansion all above
Never presented. O, a root; dear thanks!
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Dry up thy marrows, vines and plough-torn leas,
Whereof ingrateful man, with liquorish draughts
And morsels unctuous, greases his pure mind,
That from it all consideration slips –
Enter APEMANTUS.
More man? Plague, plague!
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APEMANTUS I was directed hither. Men report
Thou dost affect my manners, and dost use them.
TIMON ’Tis then because thou dost not keep a dog
Whom I would imitate. Consumption catch thee!
APEMANTUS This is in thee a nature but infected,
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A poor unmanly melancholy sprung
From change of future. Why this spade? This place?
This slave-like habit, and these looks of care?
Thy flatterers yet wear silk, drink wine, lie soft,
Hug their diseas’d perfumes, and have forgot
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That ever Timon was. Shame not these woods
By putting on the cunning of a carper.
Be thou a flatterer now, and seek to thrive
By that which has undone thee. Hinge thy knee,
And let his very breath whom thou’lt observe
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Blow off thy cap; praise his most vicious strain,
And call it excellent. Thou wast told thus.
Thou gav’st thine ears, like tapsters that bade
welcome,
To knaves, and all approachers. ’Tis most just
That thou turn rascal; hadst thou wealth again,
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Rascals should have’t. Do not assume my likeness.
TIMON Were I like thee I’d throw away myself.
APEMANTUS
Thou hast cast away thyself, being like thyself
A madman so long, now a fool. What, think’st
That the bleak air, thy boisterous chamberlain,
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Will put thy shirt on warm? Will these moist trees,
That have outliv’d the eagle, page thy heels
And skip when thou point’st out? Will the cold
brook,
Candied with ice, caudle thy morning taste
To cure thy o’er-night’s surfeit? Call the creatures
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Whose naked natures live in all the spite
Of wreakful heaven, whose bare unhoused trunks,
To the conflicting elements expos’d,
Answer mere nature; bid them flatter thee.
O thou shalt find –
TIMON A fool of thee. Depart.
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APEMANTUS I love thee better now than e’er I did.
TIMON I hate thee worse.
APEMANTUS Why?
TIMON Thou flatter’st misery.
APEMANTUS I flatter not, but say thou art a caitiff.
TIMON Why dost thou seek me out?
APEMANTUS To vex thee.
TIMON Always a villain’s office, or a fool’s.
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Dost please thyself in’t?
APEMANTUS Ay.
TIMON What, a knave too?
APEMANTUS If thou didst put this sour cold habit on
To castigate thy pride ’twere well; but thou
Dost it enforcedly. Thou’dst courtier be again
Wert thou not beggar. Willing misery
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Outlives incertain pomp, is crown’d before;
The one is filling still, never complete,
The other, at high wish. Best state, contentless,
Hath a distracted and most wretched being,
Worse than the worst, content.
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Thou shouldst desire to die, being miserable.
TIMON Not by his breath that is more miserable.
Thou art a slave, whom Fortune’s tender arm
With favour never clasp’d, but bred a dog.
Hadst thou like us from our first swath proceeded
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The sweet degrees that this brief world affords
To such as may the passive drugs of it
Freely command, thou wouldst have plung’d thyself
In general riot, melted down thy youth
In different beds of lust, and never learn’d
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The icy precepts of respect, but followed
The sugar’d game before thee. But myself –
Who had the world as my confectionary,
The mouths, the tongues, the eyes and hearts of men
At duty, more than I could frame employment:
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That numberless upon me stuck, as leaves
Do on the oak, have with one winter’s brush
Fell from their boughs and left me open, bare,
For every storm that blows – I, to bear this,
That never knew but better, is some burthen.
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Thy nature did commence in sufferance, time
Hath made thee hard in’t. Why shouldst thou hate
men?
They never flatter’d thee. What hast thou given?
If thou wilt curse, thy father (that poor rag)
Must be thy subject, who in spite put stuff
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To some she-beggar and compounded thee
Poor rogue hereditary. Hence, be gone!
If thou hadst not been born the worst of men,
Thou hadst been a knave and flatterer.
APEMANTUS Art thou proud yet?
TIMON Ay, that I am not thee.
APEMANTUS I, that I was
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No prodigal.
TIMON I, that I am one now.
Were all the wealth I have shut up in thee,
I’ld give thee leave to hang it. Get thee gone.
That the whole life of Athens were in this!
Thus would I eat it. [eating a root]
APEMANTUS Here, I will mend thy feast.
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[offering food]
TIMON First mend my company, take away thyself.
APEMANTUS
So I shall mend mine own, by th’ lack of thine.
TIMON ’Tis not well mended so, it is but botch’d;
If not, I would it were.
APEMANTUS What wouldst thou have to Athens?
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TIMON Thee thither in a whirlwind. If thou wilt,
Tell them there I have gold; look, so I have.
APEMANTUS Here is no use for gold.
TIMON The best and truest;
For here it sleeps, and does no hired harm.
APEMANTUS Where liest a nights, Timon?
TIMON Under that’s above me.
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Where feed’st thou a days, Apemantus?
APEMANTUS Where my stomach finds meat; or, rather,
where I eat it.
TIMON Would poison were obedient and knew my mind!
APEMANTUS Where wouldst thou send it?
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TIMON To sauce thy dishes.
APEMANTUS The middle of humanity thou never
knewest, but the extremity of both ends. When thou
wast in thy gilt and thy perfume, they mock’d thee for
too much curiosity; in thy rags thou know’st none, but
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art despis’d for the contrary. There’s a medlar for thee;
eat it.
TIMON On what I hate I feed not.
APEMANTUS Dost hate a medlar?
TIMON Ay, though it look like thee.
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APEMAN
TUS And th’ hadst hated meddlers sooner, thou
shouldst have loved thyself better now. What man
didst thou ever know unthrift that was beloved after
his means?
TIMON Who, without those means thou talk’st of, didst
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thou ever know belov’d?
APEMANTUS Myself.
TIMON I understand thee; thou hadst some means to
keep a dog.
APEMANTUS What things in the world canst thou
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nearest compare to thy flatterers?
TIMON Women nearest, but men – men are the things
themselves. What wouldst thou do with the world,
APEMANTUS, if it lay in thy power?
APEMANTUS Give it the beasts, to be rid of the men.
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TIMON Wouldst thou have thyself fall in the confusion
of men, and remain a beast with the beasts?
APEMANTUS Ay, Timon.
TIMON A beastly ambition, which the gods grant thee
t’attain to. If thou wert the lion, the fox would beguile
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thee; if thou wert the lamb, the fox would eat thee; if
thou wert the fox, the lion would suspect thee, when
peradventure thou wert accus’d by the ass; if thou wert
the ass, thy dulness would torment thee, and still thou
liv’dst but as a breakfast to the wolf; if thou wert the
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wolf, thy greediness would afflict thee, and oft thou
shouldst hazard thy life for thy dinner; wert thou the
unicorn, pride and wrath would confound thee and
make thine own self the conquest of thy fury; wert
thou a bear, thou wouldst be kill’d by the horse; wert
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thou a horse, thou wouldst be seiz’d by the leopard;
wert thou a leopard, thou wert germane to the lion,
and the spots of thy kindred were jurors on thy life. All
thy safety were remotion, and thy defence absence.
What beast couldst thou be that were not subject to a
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beast? And what a beast art thou already, that seest not
thy loss in transformation!
APEMANTUS If thou couldst please me with speaking to
me, thou mightst have hit upon it here; the
commonwealth of Athens is become a forest of beasts.
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TIMON How has the ass broke the wall, that thou art out
of the city?
APEMANTUS Yonder comes a poet and a painter. The
plague of company light upon thee! I will fear to catch
it, and give way. When I know not what else to do, I’ll
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see thee again.
TIMON When there is nothing living but thee, thou
shalt be welcome. I had rather be a beggar’s dog than
Apemantus.
APEMANTUS Thou art the cap of all the fools alive.
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TIMON Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon!
APEMANTUS A plague on thee, thou art too bad to curse.
TIMON All villains that do stand by thee are pure.
APEMANTUS
There is no leprosy but what thou speak’st.
TIMON If I name thee.
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I’ll beat thee, but I should infect my hands.
APEMANTUS I would my tongue could rot them off!
TIMON Away, thou issue of a mangy dog!
Choler does kill me that thou art alive;
I swound to see thee.
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APEMANTUS Would thou wouldst burst!
TIMON
Away, thou tedious rogue, I am sorry I shall lose a
stone by thee. [throwing a stone at him]
APEMANTUS Beast!
TIMON Slave!
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APEMANTUS Toad!
TIMON Rogue, rogue, rogue!
I am sick of this false world, and will love nought
But even the mere necessities upon’t.
Then, Timon, presently prepare thy grave;
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Lie where the light foam of the sea may beat
Thy grave-stone daily: make thine epitaph,
That death in me at others’ lives may laugh.
[looking on the gold]
O thou sweet king-killer, and dear divorce
’Twixt natural son and sire, thou bright defiler
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Of Hymen’s purest bed, thou valiant Mars,
Thou ever young, fresh, loved and delicate wooer,
Whose blush doth thaw the consecrated snow
That lies on Dian’s lap! Thou visible god,
That sold’rest close impossibilities,
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And mak’st them kiss; that speak’st with every
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 489