Present approach.

Sec. Sen. We stand much hazard, if they bring not Timon.
Mess. 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 Sen.

Here come our brothers.

Enter Senators from Timon.

ΙΟ

Third Sen. 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.

The woods.

Scene III.

Timon's cave, and a rude tomb seen.

Enter a Soldier, seeking Timon.

Sold. 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 read 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. 10

Scene IV.

Before the walls of Athens.

Trumpets sound. Enter Alcibiades with his powers.

Alcib. Sound to this coward and lascivious town

Our terrible approach.

[A parley sounded.

Enter Senators upon 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

Have 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 10
Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease,
And pursy insolence shall break his wind
With fear and horrid flight.

First Sen.

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.

Sec. Sen.

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.

20

First Sen.

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.

Sec. Sen.

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

30

Which nature loathes—take thou the destined tenth,
And by the hazard of the spotted die

Let die the spotted.

First Sen.

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.

Sec. Sen.

What thou wilt,
Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smile

Than hew to 't with thy sword.

First Sen.

Set but thy foot

Against our rampired gates, and they shall ope;
So thou wilt send thy gentle heart before,
To say thou 'It enter friendly.

40

Sec. Sen.

Throw thy glove,

50

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.

Alcib.

Both.

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.

'Tis most nobly spoken.

Alcib. Descend, and keep your words.

60

[The Senators descend, and open the gates.

Enter Soldier.

Sold. 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.

Alcib. [Reads]

'Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft : Seek not my name: a plague consume you wicked

caitiffs left!

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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,

80

Make war breed peace, make peace stint war, make each Prescribe to other as each other's leech.

Let our drums strike.

[Exeunt.