Rotten humidity; below thy sister’s orb
Infect the air! Twinn’d brothers of one womb,
Whose procreation, residence, and birth,
Scarce is dividant, touch them with several fortunes;
The greater scorns the lesser: not nature,
To whom all sores lay siege, can bear great fortune,
But by contempt of nature.
Raise me this beggar, and deny ’t that lord;
The senator shall bear contempt hereditary,
The beggar native honour.
It is the pasture lards the rother’s sides,
The want that makes him lean. Who dares, who dares,
In purity of manhood stand upright,
And say ‘This man’s a flatterer?’ if one be,
So are they all; for every grise of fortune
Is smooth’d by that below: the learned pate
Ducks to the golden fool: all is oblique;
There’s nothing level in our cursed natures,
But direct villany. Therefore, be abhorr’d
All feasts, societies, and throngs of men!
His semblable, yea, himself, Timon disdains:
Destruction fang mankind! Earth, yield me roots!
Digging
Who seeks for better of thee, sauce his palate
With thy most operant poison! What is here?
Gold? yellow, glittering, precious gold? No, gods,
I am no idle votarist: roots, you clear heavens!
Thus much of this will make black white, foul fair,
Wrong right, base noble, old young, coward valiant.
Ha, you gods! why this? what this, you gods? Why, this
Will lug your priests and servants from your sides,
Pluck stout men’s pillows from below their heads:
This yellow slave
Will knit and break religions, bless the accursed,
Make the hoar leprosy adored, place thieves
And give them title, knee and approbation
With senators on the bench: this is it
That makes the wappen’d widow wed again;
She, whom the spital-house and ulcerous sores
Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices
To the April day again. Come, damned earth,
Thou common whore of mankind, that put’st odds
Among the route of nations, I will make thee
Do thy right nature.
March afar off
Ha! a drum ? Thou’rt quick,
But yet I’ll bury thee: thou’lt go, strong thief,
When gouty keepers of thee cannot stand.
Nay, stay thou out for earnest.
Keeping some gold
Enter Alcibiades, with drum and fife, in warlike manner; Phrynia and Timandra
Alcibiades
What art thou there? speak.
Timon
A beast, as thou art. The canker gnaw thy heart,
For showing me again the eyes of man!
Alcibiades
What is thy name? Is man so hateful to thee,
That art thyself a man?
Timon
I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind.
For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog,
That I might love thee something.
Alcibiades
I know thee well;
But in thy fortunes am unlearn’d and strange.
Timon
I know thee too; and more than that I know thee,
I not desire to know. Follow thy drum;
With man’s blood paint the ground, gules, gules:
Religious canons, civil laws are cruel;
Then what should war be? This fell whore of thine
Hath in her more destruction than thy sword,
For all her cherubim look.
Phrynia
Thy lips rot off!
Timon
I will not kiss thee; then the rot returns
To thine own lips again.
Alcibiades
How came the noble Timon to this change?
Timon
As the moon does, by wanting light to give:
But then renew I could not, like the moon;
There were no suns to borrow of.
Alcibiades
Noble Timon,
What friendship may I do thee?
Timon
None, but to
Maintain my opinion.
Alcibiades
What is it, Timon?
Timon
Promise me friendship, but perform none: if thou wilt not promise, the gods plague thee, for thou art a man! if thou dost perform, confound thee, for thou art a man!
Alcibiades
I have heard in some sort of thy miseries.
Timon
Thou saw’st them, when I had prosperity.
Alcibiades
I see them now; then was a blessed time.
Timon
As thine is now, held with a brace of harlots.
Timandra
Is this the Athenian minion, whom the world
Voiced so regardfully?
Timon
Art thou Timandra?
Timandra
Yes.
Timon
Be a whore still: they love thee not that use thee;
Give them diseases, leaving with thee their lust.
Make use of thy salt hours: season the slaves
For tubs and baths; bring down rose-cheeked youth
To the tub-fast and the diet.
Timandra
Hang thee, monster!
Alcibiades
Pardon him, sweet Timandra; for his wits
Are drown’d and lost in his calamities.
I have but little gold of late, brave Timon,
The want whereof doth daily make revolt
In my penurious band: I have heard, and grieved,
How cursed Athens, mindless of thy worth,
Forgetting thy great deeds, when neighbour states,
But for thy sword and fortune, trod upon them,—
Timon
I prithee, beat thy drum, and get thee gone.
Alcibiades
I am thy friend, and pity thee, dear Timon.
Timon
How dost thou pity him whom thou dost trouble?
I had rather be alone.
Alcibiades
Why, fare thee well:
Here is some gold for thee.
Timon
Keep it, I cannot eat it.
Alcibiades
When I have laid proud Athens on a heap,—
Timon
Warr’st thou ’gainst Athens?
Alcibiades
Ay, Timon, and have cause.
Timon
The gods confound them all in thy conquest;
And thee after, when thou hast conquer’d!
Alcibiades
Why me, Timon?
Timon
That, by killing of villains,
Thou wast born to conquer my country.
Put up thy gold: go on,— here’s gold,— go on;
Be as a planetary plague, when Jove
Will o’er some high-viced city hang his poison
In the sick air: let not thy sword skip one:
Pity not honour’d age for his white beard;
He is an usurer: strike me the counterfeit matron;
It is her habit only that is honest,
Herself’s a bawd: let not the virgin’s cheek
Make soft thy trenchant sword; for those milk-paps,
That through the window-bars bore at men’s eyes,
Are not within the leaf of pity writ,
But set them down horrible traitors: spare not the babe,
Whose dimpled smiles from fools exhaust their mercy;
Think it a bastard, whom the oracle
Hath doubtfully pronounced thy throat shall cut,
And mince it sans remorse: swear against objects;<
br />
Put armour on thine ears and on thine eyes;
Whose proof, nor yells of mothers, maids, nor babes,
Nor sight of priests in holy vestments bleeding,
Shall pierce a jot. There’s gold to pay soldiers:
Make large confusion; and, thy fury spent,
Confounded be thyself! Speak not, be gone.
Alcibiades
Hast thou gold yet? I’ll take the gold thou givest me, Not all thy counsel.
Timon
Dost thou, or dost thou not, heaven’s curse upon thee!
Phrynia
Timandra
Give us some gold, good Timon: hast thou more?
Timon
Enough to make a whore forswear her trade,
And to make whores, a bawd. Hold up, you sluts,
Your aprons mountant: you are not oathable,
Although, I know, you ’ll swear, terribly swear
Into strong shudders and to heavenly agues
The immortal gods that hear you,— spare your oaths,
I’ll trust to your conditions: be whores still;
And he whose pious breath seeks to convert you,
Be strong in whore, allure him, burn him up;
Let your close fire predominate his smoke,
And be no turncoats: yet may your pains, six months,
Be quite contrary: and thatch your poor thin roofs
With burthens of the dead;— some that were hang’d,
No matter:— wear them, betray with them: whore still;
Paint till a horse may mire upon your face,
A pox of wrinkles!
Phrynia
Timandra
Well, more gold: what then?
Believe’t, that we’ll do any thing for gold.
Timon
Consumptions sow
In hollow bones of man; strike their sharp shins,
And mar men’s spurring. Crack the lawyer’s voice,
That he may never more false title plead,
Nor sound his quillets shrilly: hoar the flamen,
That scolds against the quality of flesh,
And not believes himself: down with the nose,
Down with it flat; take the bridge quite away
Of him that, his particular to foresee,
Smells from the general weal: make curl’d-pate ruffians bald;
And let the unscarr’d braggarts of the war
Derive some pain from you: plague all;
That your activity may defeat and quell
The source of all erection. There’s more gold:
Do you damn others, and let this damn you,
And ditches grave you all!
Phrynia
Timandra
More counsel with more money, bounteous Timon.
Timon
More whore, more mischief first; I have given you earnest.
Alcibiades
Strike up the drum towards Athens! Farewell, Timon:
If I thrive well, I’ll visit thee again.
Timon
If I hope well, I’ll never see thee more.
Alcibiades
I never did thee harm.
Timon
Yes, thou spokest well of me.
Alcibiades
Call’st thou that harm?
Timon
Men daily find it. Get thee away, and take
Thy beagles with thee.
Alcibiades
We but offend him. Strike!
Drum beats. Exeunt Alcibiades, Phrynia, and Timandra
Timon
That nature, being sick of man’s unkindness,
Should yet be hungry! Common mother, thou,
Digging
Whose womb unmeasurable, and infinite breast,
Teems, and feeds all; whose self-same mettle,
Whereof thy proud child, arrogant man, is puff’d,
Engenders the black toad and adder blue,
The gilded newt and eyeless venom’d worm,
With all the abhorred births below crisp heaven
Whereon Hyperion’s quickening fire doth shine;
Yield him, who all thy human sons doth hate,
From forth thy plenteous bosom, one poor root!
Ensear thy fertile and conceptious womb,
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!—
Dry up thy marrows, vines, and plough-torn leas;
Whereof ungrateful man, with liquorish draughts
And morsels unctuous, greases his pure mind,
That from it all consideration slips!
Enter Apemantus
More man? plague, plague!
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;
A poor unmanly melancholy sprung
From change of fortune. 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 diseased perfumes, and have forgot
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,
Blow off thy cap; praise his most vicious strain,
And call it excellent: thou wast told thus;
Thou gavest thine ears like tapsters that bid welcome
To knaves and all approachers: ’tis most just
That thou turn rascal; hadst thou wealth again,
Rascals should have ’t. Do not assume my likeness.
Timon
Were I like thee, I’ld 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,
Will put thy shirt on warm? will these moss’d trees,
That have outlived the eagle, page thy heels,
And skip where 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
Whose naked natures live in an the spite
Of wreakful heaven, whose bare unhoused trunks,
To the conflicting elements exposed,
Answer mere nature; bid them flatter thee;
O, thou shalt find —
Timon
A fool of thee: depart.
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.
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’ldst courtier be again,
Wert thou not beggar. Willing misery
Outli
ves encertain 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.
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
The sweet degrees that this brief world affords
To such as may the passive drugs of it
Freely command, thou wouldst have plunged thyself
In general riot; melted down thy youth
In different beds of lust; and never learn’d
The icy precepts of respect, but follow’d
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,
That numberless upon me stuck as leaves
Do on the oak, hive 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 burden:
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
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
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.
Offering him a root
Timon
First mend my company, take away thyself.
Apemantus
So I shall mend mine own, by the 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?
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.
Complete Plays, The Page 122