Complete Plays, The

by William Shakespeare

  Can you eat roots, and drink cold water? no.

  Both

  What we can do, we’ll do, to do you service.

  Timon

  Ye’re honest men: ye’ve heard that I have gold;

  I am sure you have: speak truth; ye’re 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: thou’rt, indeed, the best;

  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-natured friends,

  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?

  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,

  Keep in your bosom: yet remain assured

  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:

  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;

  Each man apart, all single and alone,

  Yet an arch-villain keeps him company.

  If where thou art two villains shall not be,

  Come not near him. If thou wouldst not reside

  But where one villain is, then him abandon.

  Hence, pack! there’s gold; you came for gold, ye slaves:

  To Painter

  You have work’d for me; there’s payment for you: hence!

  To Poet

  You are an alchemist; make gold of that.

  Out, rascal dogs!

  Beats them out, and then retires to his cave

  Enter Flavius and two Senators

  Flavius

  It is in 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.

  First Senator

  Bring us to his cave:

  It is our part and promise to the Athenians

  To speak with Timon.

  Second Senator

  At all times alike

  Men are not still the same: ’twas time and griefs

  That framed him thus: time, with his fairer hand,

  Offering the fortunes of his former days,

  The former man may make him. Bring us to him,

  And chance it as it may.

  Flavius

  Here is his cave.

  Peace and content be here! Lord Timon! Timon!

  Look out, and speak to friends: the Athenians,

  By two of their most reverend senate, greet thee:

  Speak to them, noble Timon.

  Timon comes from his cave

  Timon

  Thou sun, that comfort’st, burn! Speak, and be hang’d:

  For each true word, a blister! and each false

  Be as cauterizing to the root o’ the tongue,

  Consuming it with speaking!

  First Senator

  Worthy Timon,—

  Timon

  Of none but such as you, and you of Timon.

  First 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.

  First Senator

  O, forget

  What we are sorry for ourselves in thee.

  The senators with one consent of love

  Entreat thee back to Athens; who have thought

  On special dignities, which vacant lie

  For thy best use and wearing.

  Second Senator

  They confess

  Toward thee forgetfulness too general, gross:

  Which now the public body, which doth seldom

  Play the recanter, feeling in itself

  A lack of Timon’s aid, hath sense withal

  Of its own fail, restraining aid to Timon;

  And send forth us, to make their sorrow’d render,

  Together with a recompense more fruitful

  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;

  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.

  First Senator

  Therefore, so please thee to return with us

  And of our Athens, thine and ours, to take

  The captainship, thou shalt be met with thanks,

  Allow’d with absolute power and thy good name

  Live with authority: so soon we shall drive back

  Of Alcibiades the approaches wild,

  Who, like a boar too savage, doth root up

  His country’s peace.

  Second Senator

  And shakes his threatening sword

  Against the walls of Athens.

  First Senator

  Therefore, Timon,—

  Timon

  Well, sir, I will; therefore, I will, sir; thus:

  If Alcibiades kill my countrymen,

  Let Alcibiades know this of Timon,

  That Timon cares not. But if be sack fair Athens,

  And take our goodly aged men by the 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,

  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 the unruly camp

  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.

  Flavius

  Stay not, all’s in vain.

  Timon

  Why, I was writing of my epitaph;

  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!

  First Senator

  We speak in vain.

  Timon />
  But yet I love my country, and am not

  One that rejoices in the common wreck,

  As common bruit doth put it.

  First Senator

  That’s well spoke.

  Timon

  Commend me to my loving countrymen,—

  First Senator

  These words become your lips as they pass thorough them.

  Second 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

  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.

  First Senator

  I like this well; he will return again.

  Timon

  I have a tree, which grows here in my close,

  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,

  Come hither, ere my tree hath felt the axe,

  And hang himself. I pray you, do my greeting.

  Flavius

  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

  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 sour words go by and language end:

  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.

  Retires to his cave

  First Senator

  His discontents are unremoveably

  Coupled to nature.

  Second Senator

  Our hope in him is dead: let us return,

  And strain what other means is left unto us

  In our dear peril.

  First Senator

  It requires swift foot.

  Exeunt

  SCENE II. BEFORE THE WALLS OF ATHENS.

  Enter two Senators and a Messenger

  First Senator

  Thou hast painfully discover’d: are his files

  As full as thy report?

  Messenger

  have spoke the least:

  Besides, his expedition promises

  Present approach.

  Second Senator

  We stand much hazard, if they bring not Timon.

  Messenger

  I met a courier, one mine ancient friend;

  Whom, though in general part we were opposed,

  Yet our old love made a particular force,

  And made us speak like friends: this man was riding

  From Alcibiades to Timon’s cave,

  With letters of entreaty, which imported

  His fellowship i’ the cause against your city,

  In part for his sake moved.

  First Senator

  Here come our brothers.

  Enter the Senators from Timon

  Third Senator

  No talk of Timon, nothing of him expect.

  The enemies’ drum is heard, and fearful scouring

  Doth choke the air with dust: in, and prepare:

  Ours is the fall, I fear; our foes the snare.

  Exeunt

  SCENE III. THE WOODS. TIMON’S CAVE, AND A RUDE TOMB SEEN.

  Enter a Soldier, seeking Timon

  Soldier

  By all description this should be the place.

  Who’s here? speak, ho! No answer! What is this?

  Timon is dead, who hath outstretch’d his span:

  Some beast rear’d this; there does not live a man.

  Dead, sure; and this his grave. What’s on this tomb

  I cannot read; the character I’ll take with wax:

  Our captain hath in every figure skill,

  An aged interpreter, though young in days:

  Before proud Athens he’s set down by this,

  Whose fall the mark of his ambition is.

  Exit

  SCENE IV. BEFORE THE WALLS OF ATHENS.

  Trumpets sound. Enter Alcibiades with his powers

  Alcibiades

  Sound to this coward and lascivious town

  Our terrible approach.

  A parley sounded

  Enter Senators on the walls

  Till now you have gone on and fill’d the time

  With all licentious measure, making your wills

  The scope of justice; till now myself and such

  As slept within the shadow of your power

  Hav e wander’d with our traversed arms and breathed

  Our sufferance vainly: now the time is flush,

  When crouching marrow in the bearer strong

  Cries of itself ‘No more:’ now breathless wrong

  Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease,

  And pursy insolence shall break his wind

  With fear and horrid flight.

  First Senator

  Noble and young,

  When thy first griefs were but a mere conceit,

  Ere thou hadst power or we had cause of fear,

  We sent to thee, to give thy rages balm,

  To wipe out our ingratitude with loves

  Above their quantity.

  Second Senator

  So did we woo

  Transformed Timon to our city’s love

  By humble message and by promised means:

  We were not all unkind, nor all deserve

  The common stroke of war.

  First Senator

  These walls of ours

  Were not erected by their hands from whom

  You have received your griefs; nor are they such

  That these great towers, trophies and schools should fall

  For private faults in them.

  Second Senator

  Nor are they living

  Who were the motives that you first went out;

  Shame that they wanted cunning, in excess

  Hath broke their hearts. March, noble lord,

  Into our city with thy banners spread:

  By decimation, and a tithed death —

  If thy revenges hunger for that food

  Which nature loathes — take thou the destined tenth,

  And by the hazard of the spotted die

  Let die the spotted.

  First Senator

  All have not offended;

  For those that were, it is not square to take

  On those that are, revenges: crimes, like lands,

  Are not inherited. Then, dear countryman,

  Bring in thy ranks, but leave without thy rage:

  Spare thy Athenian cradle and those kin

  Which in the bluster of thy wrath must fall

  With those that have offended: like a shepherd,

  Approach the fold and cull the infected forth,

  But kill not all together.

  Second Senator

  What thou wilt,

  Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smile

  Than hew to’t with thy sword.

  First Senator

  Set but thy foot

  Against our rampired gates, and they shall ope;

  So thou wilt send thy gentle heart before,

  To say thou’lt enter friendly.

  Second Senator

  Throw thy glove,

  Or any token of thine
honour else,

  That thou wilt use the wars as thy redress

  And not as our confusion, all thy powers

  Shall make their harbour in our town, till we

  Have seal’d thy full desire.

  Alcibiades

  Then there’s my glove;

  Descend, and open your uncharged ports:

  Those enemies of Timon’s and mine own

  Whom you yourselves shall set out for reproof

  Fall and no more: and, to atone your fears

  With my more noble meaning, not a man

  Shall pass his quarter, or offend the stream

  Of regular justice in your city’s bounds,

  But shall be render’d to your public laws

  At heaviest answer.

  Both

  ’Tis most nobly spoken.

  Alcibiades

  Descend, and keep your words.

  The Senators descend, and open the gates

  Enter Soldier

  Soldier

  My noble general, Timon is dead;

  Entomb’d upon the very hem o’ the sea;

  And on his grave-stone this insculpture, which

  With wax I brought away, whose soft impression

  Interprets for my poor ignorance.

  Alcibiades

  [Reads the epitaph] ‘Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft:

  Seek not my name: a plague consume you wicked caitiffs left!

  Here lie I, Timon; who, alive, all living men did hate:

  Pass by and curse thy fill, but pass and stay not here thy gait.’

  These well express in thee thy latter spirits:

  Though thou abhorr’dst in us our human griefs,

  Scorn’dst our brain’s flow and those our droplets which

  From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit

  Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye

  On thy low grave, on faults forgiven. Dead

  Is noble Timon: of whose memory

  Hereafter more. Bring me into your city,

  And I will use the olive with my sword,

  Make war breed peace, make peace stint war, make each

  Prescribe to other as each other’s leech.

  Let our drums strike.

  Exeunt

  The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY

  ACT I

  SCENE I. ALEXANDRIA. A ROOM IN CLEOPATRA’S PALACE.

  SCENE II. THE SAME. ANOTHER ROOM.

  SCENE III. THE SAME. ANOTHER ROOM.

  SCENE IV. ROME. OCTAVIUS CAESAR’S HOUSE.

  SCENE V. ALEXANDRIA. CLEOPATRA’S PALACE.

  ACT II

  SCENE I. MESSINA. POMPEY’S HOUSE.

  SCENE II. ROME. THE HOUSE OF LEPIDUS.

  SCENE III. THE SAME. OCTAVIUS CAESAR’S HOUSE.

  SCENE IV. THE SAME. A STREET.

  SCENE V. ALEXANDRIA. CLEOPATRA’S PALACE.

  SCENE VI. NEAR MISENUM.

  SCENE VII. ON BOARD POMPEY’S GALLEY, OFF MISENUM.