The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 491
POET Hail, worthy Timon!
PAINTER Our late noble master!
TIMON Have I once liv’d to see two honest men?
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POET Sir,
Having often of your open bounty tasted,
Hearing you were retir’d, your friends fall’n off,
Whose thankless natures (O abhorred spirits!)
Not all the whips of heaven are large enough –
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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
With any size of words.
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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
Have travail’d in the great show’r of your gifts,
And sweetly felt it.
TIMON Ay, you are honest men.
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PAINTER We are hither come to offer you our service.
TIMON
Most honest men! Why, how shall I requite you?
Can you eat roots and drink cold water, no?
BOTH What we can do, we’ll do, to do you service.
TIMON
Y’are honest men. Y’ have heard that I have gold;
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I am sure you have; speak truth, y’are honest men.
PAINTER So it is said, my noble lord; but therefore
Came not my friend nor I.
TIMON Good honest men! Thou draw’st a counterfeit
Best in all Athens: th’art indeed the best;
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Thou counterfeit’st most lively.
PAINTER So, so, my lord.
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-natur’d friends,
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I must needs say you have a little fault;
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.
BOTH Most thankfully, my lord.
TIMON Will you indeed?
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BOTH Doubt it not, worthy lord.
TIMON There’s never a one of you but trusts a knave,
That mightily deceives you.
BOTH Do we, my lord?
TIMON Ay, and you hear him cog, see him dissemble,
Know his gross patchery, love him, feed him,
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Keep in your bosom; yet remain assur’d
That he’s a made-up villain.
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;
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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.
TIMON
You that way and you this, but two in company;
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Each man apart, all single and alone,
Yet an arch-villain keeps him company.
[to one] If, where thou art, two villains shall not be,
Come not near him.
[to the other] If thou wouldst not reside
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But where one villain is, then him abandon.
Hence, pack! There’s gold; you came for gold, ye
slaves.
[to Poet] You have work for me, there’s payment:
hence!
[to Painter] You are an alchemist, make gold of that!
Out, rascal dogs! Drives them out and then retires.
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Enter Steward and two Senators.
STEWARD It is vain that you would speak with Timon;
For he is set so only to himself,
That nothing but himself, which looks like man,
Is friendly with him.
1 SENATOR Bring us to his cave.
It is our part and promise to th’Athenians
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To speak with Timon.
2 SENATOR At all times alike
Men are not still the same. ’Twas time and griefs
That fram’d him thus: time with his fairer hand
Offering the fortunes of his former days
The former man may make him. Bring us to him,
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And chance it as it may.
STEWARD Here is his cave.
Peace and content be here! Lord Timon! Timon!
Look out, and speak to friends. Th’Athenians
By two of their most reverend senate greet thee.
Speak to them, noble Timon.
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Re-enter TIMON from his cave.
TIMON
Thou sun, that comforts, burn! Speak and be hang’d;
For each true word, a blister; and each false
Be as a cauterizing to the root o’th’ tongue,
Consuming it with speaking!
1 SENATOR Worthy Timon –
TIMON Of none but such as you, and you of Timon.
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1 SENATOR The senators of Athens greet thee, Timon.
TIMON
I thank them; and would send them back the plague,
Could I but catch it for them.
1 SENATOR O forget
What we are sorry for ourselves in thee.
The senators, with one consent of love,
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Entreat thee back to Athens, who have thought
On special dignities which vacant lie
For thy best use and wearing.
2 SENATOR They confess
Toward thee forgetfulness too general gross;
Which now the public body, which doth seldom
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Play the recanter, feeling in itself
A lack of Timon’s aid, hath sense withal
Of it own fall, restraining aid to Timon,
And send forth us, to make their sorrowed render
Together with a recompense more fruitful
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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.
TIMON You witch me in it;
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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 SENATOR Therefore so please thee to return with us,
And of our Athens, thine and ours, to take
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The captainship, thou shalt be met with thanks,
Allowed with absolute power, and thy good name
Live with authority. So soon we shall drive back
Of Alcibiades th’approaches wild,
Who like a boar too savage doth root up
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His country’s peace.
2 SENATOR And shakes his threat’ning sword
Against the walls of Athens.
1 SENATOR Therefore Timon –
TIMON Well, sir, I will; therefore, I will, sir, thus:
If Alcibiades kill my countrymen,
Let Alcibiades know this of Timon,
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That Timon cares not. But if he sack fair Athens,
And take our goodly aged men by th’ beards,
Giving our holy virgins to the stain
Of contumelious, beastly, mad-brain’d war,
Then let him know (and tell him Timon speaks it,
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In pity of our aged and our youth)
I cannot choose but tell him, that I care not,
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 th’unruly camp
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But I do prize it at my love before
The reverend’st throat in Athens. So I leave you
To the protection of the prosperous gods,
As thieves to keepers.
STEWARD Stay not; all’s in vain.
TIMON Why, I was writing of my epitaph;
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It will be seen to-morrow. My long sickness
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.
1 SENATOR We speak in vain.
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TIMON But yet I love my country, and am not
One that rejoices in the common wrack,
As common bruit doth put it.
1 SENATOR That’s well spoke.
TIMON Commend me to my loving countrymen.
1 SENATOR
These words become your lips as they pass through them.
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2 SENATOR And enter in our ears like great triumphers
In their applauding gates.
TIMON 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
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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.
1 SENATOR I like this well; he will return again.
TIMON I have a tree which grows here in my close,
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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,
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Come hither, ere my tree hath felt the axe,
And hang himself. I pray you, do my greeting.
STEWARD
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
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Upon the beached verge of the salt flood,
Who once a day with his embossed froth
The turbulent surge shall cover. Thither come,
And let my grave-stone be your oracle.
Lips, let four words go by and language end:
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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.
1SENATOR His discontents are unremoveably
Coupled to nature.
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2SENATOR Our hope in him is dead. Let us return,
And strain what other means is left unto us
In our dear peril.
1SENATOR It requires swift foot. Exeunt.
5.2 Enter two other Senators with a Messenger.
3 SENATOR Thou hast painfully discover’d; are his files
As full as thy report?
MESSENGER I have spoke the least;
Besides, his expedition promises
Present approach.
4 SENATOR
We stand much hazard if they bring not Timon.
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MESSENGER I met a courier, one mine ancient friend,
Whom, though in general part we were oppos’d,
Yet our old love made a particular force,
And made us speak like friends. This man was riding
From Alcibiades to Timon’s cave,
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With letters of entreaty, which imported
His fellowship i’th’ cause against your city,
In part for his sake mov’d.
Enter the two other Senators.
3 SENATOR Here come our brothers.
1SENATOR No talk of Timon, nothing of him expect.
The enemy’s drum is heard, and fearful scouring
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Doth choke the air with dust. In, and prepare.