Tim. I will not kiss thee; then the rot returns To thine own lips again.

Alcib. How came the noble Timon to this change? Tim. 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.

Alcib. Noble Timon, what friendship may I do thee?

Tim. None, but to maintain my opinion.
Alcib. What is it, Timon?

Tim. 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'rt a man!

Alcib. I have heard in some sort of thy miseries. Tim. Thou saw'st them when I had prosperity. Alcib.I see them now; then was a blessed time. Tim. As thine is now, held with a brace of

Tim. 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-cheekéd youth

To the tub-fast and the diet.

Timan. Hang thee, monster!

Alcib. Pardon him, sweet Timandra; for his wits Are drowned 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,Tim. I pr'y thee, beat thy drum, and get thee

gone.

Alcib. I am thy friend, and pity thee, dear Timon. Tim. How dost thou pity him whom thou dost

trouble?

I had rather be alone.

Alcib.

Ay, Timon, and have cause. Tim. The gods confound them all i'thy conquest; and thee after, when thou hast conquered! Alcib. Why me, Timon?

Tim. 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 honoured age for his white beard;
He's 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; 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 thy soldiers: Make large confusion; and, thy fury spent, Confounded be thyself! Speak not; be gone! Alcib. Hast thou gold yet? I'll take the gold thou giv'st me,

Not all thy counsel.

Tim. Dost thou, or dost thou not, heaven's curse upon thee!

Phry. Give us some gold, good Timon: hast Timan. S thou more?

Tim. Enough to make a whore forswear her

trade,

In hollow bones of men; 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 curled-pate
ruffians bald;

And let the unscarred 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!

Phry. More counsel with more money, boun-
Timan. S teous Timon.

Tim. More whore, more mischief, first; I have given you earnest.

Alcib. Strike up the drum towards Athens. Farewell, Timon;

If I thrive well, I'll visit thee again.

Tim. If I hope well, I'll never see thee more.
Alcib. I never did thee harm.
Tim. Yes, thou spok'st well of me.
Alcib. Call'st thou that harm?

Tim. Men daily find it.
Get thee away,
And take thy beagles with thee.
Alcib.
We but offend him.-

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!-0, a root; dear thanks!
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!

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 gav'st thine ears, like tapsters, that bid wel-

come

To knaves and all approachers: 'tis most just That thou turn rascal; hadst thou wealth again, Rascals should have 't. Do not assume my like

ness.

Tim. Were I like thee, I'd throw away myself. Apem. 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 mossed trees,

That have outlived 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,
Whose naked natures live in all the spite
Of wreakful heaven; whose bare unhouséd trunks,
To the conflicting elements exposed,
Answer mere nature; bid them flatter thee!
O! thou shalt find,-

Tim. A fool of thee: depart.

Apem. I love thee better now than e'er I did. Tim. I hate thee worse.

Apem. Why?

Tim. Thou flatterr'st misery.

Apem. I flatter not; but say, thou art a caitiff.
Tim. Why dost thou seek me out?
Apem. To vex thee.

Tim. Always a villain's office, or a fool's.
Dost please thyself in 't?

Apem. Ay.

Tim. What! a knave too?

Apem. If thou didst put this sour-cold habit on To castigate thy pride, 't were well but thou Dost it enforcedly; thou'dst courtier be again, Wert thou not beggar. Willing misery Outlives incertain pomp; is crowned 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.

Tim. Not by his breath that is more miserable.
Thou art a slave, whom Fortune's tender arm
With favour never clasped; 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 thy-
self

In general riot; melted down thy youth
In different beds of lust; and never learned
The icy precepts of respect, but followed
The sugared 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, 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 burden.
Thy nature did commence in sufferance; time
Hath made thee hard in 't. Why shouldst thou
hate men?

They never flattered 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.

Apem. Art thou proud yet?
Tim. Ay, that I am not thee.
Apem. I, that I was no prodigal.
Tim. I, that I am one now:

For here it sleeps, and does no hired harm.
Apem. Where ly'st o' nights, Timon?
Tim.
Under that's above me.
Where feed'st thou o' days, Apemantus?
Apem. Where my stomach finds meat; or ra-
ther, where I eat it.

Tim. Would poison were obedient, and knew
my mind!

Apem. Where wouldst thou send it?
Tim. To sauce thy dishes.

Apem. The middle of humanity thou never knewest, but the extremity of both ends: when thou wast in thy gilt and thy perfume, they mocked thee for too much curiosity; in thy rags thou knowest none, but art despised for the contrary. There's a medlar for thee; eat it. Tim. On what I hate, I feed not. Apem. Dost hate a medlar? Tim. Ay, though it look like thee.

Apem. An thou hadst hated meddlers sooner, thou shouldst have loved thyself better now. What man didst thou ever know unthrift, that was beloved after his means?

Tim. Who, without those means thou talkest of, didst thou ever know beloved? Apem. Myself.

Tim. I understand thee; thou hadst some means to keep a dog.

Apem. What things in the world canst thou nearest compare to thy flatterers?

Tim. Women nearest; but men, men are the things themselves. What wouldst thou do with the world, Apemantus, if it lay in thy power?

Apem. Give it the beasts, to be rid of the men. Tim. Wouldst thou have thyself fall in the confusion of men, and remain a beast with the beasts?

Apem. Ay, Timon.

Tim. A beastly ambition, which the gods grant thee to attain to! If thou wert the lion, the fox

would beguile 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 accused by the ass: if thou wert the ass, thy dulness would torment thee; and still thou livedst but as a breakfast to the wolf: if thou wert the 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 killed by the horse; wert thou a horse, thou wouldst be seized by the leopard; wert thou a leopard, thou wert german 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 beast? and what a beast art thou already, that see'st not thy loss in transformation ?

Apem. 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.

Tim. How! has the ass broke the wall, that thou art out of the city?

Apem. 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 see thee again.

Tim. When there is nothing living but thee, thou shalt be welcome. I had rather be a beggar's dog than Apemantus.

Apem. Thou art the cap of all the fools alive. Tim. 'Would thou wert clean enough to spit

But even the mere necessities upon it.
Then, Timon, presently prepare thy grave;
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.
O, thou sweet king-killer, and dear divorce

[Looking on the gold. "Twixt natural son and sire! thou bright defiler 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 solder'st close impossibilities,

And mak'st them kiss! that speak'st with every tongue,

To every purpose! O, thou touch of hearts!
Think, thy slave man rebels; and by thy virtue
Set them into confounding odds, that beasts
May have the world in empire!
'Would 't were so;

Apem.

Within this mile break forth a hundred springs: The oaks bear mast, the briars scarlet hips; The bounteous housewife, Nature, on each bush Lays her full mess before you. Want? why want? 1st Thief. We cannot live on grass, on berries, water,

As beasts, and birds, and fishes.

Tim. Nor on the beasts themselves, the birds, and fishes;

You must eat men. Yet thanks I must you con,
That you are thieves professed; that you work not
In holier shapes: for there is boundless theft
In limited professions. Rascal thieves,
Here's gold: go, suck the subtle blood of the grape,

Till the high fever seeth your blood to froth, And so 'scape hanging. Trust not the physician; His antidotes are poison, and he slays

More than you rob. Take wealth and lives together;

Do villany, do, since you profess to do't,
Like workmen. I'll example you with thievery :
The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
Robs the vast sea: the moon's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun :
The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt tears: the earth's a thief,
That feeds and breeds by a composture stolen
From general excrement: each thing's a thief:

The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power Have unchecked theft. Love not yourselves; away;

Rob one another. There's more gold: cut throats; All that you meet are thieves. To Athens go; Break open shops: nothing can you steal But thieves do lose it. Steal not less, for this I give you; and gold confound you howsoever! Amen. [TIMON retires to his cave. 3rd Thief. He has almost charmed me from my profession, by persuading me to it,

1st Thief. 'Tis in the malice of mankind that he thus advises us; not to have us thrive in our mystery.

2nd Thief. I'll believe him as an enemy, and give over my trade.

1st Thief. Let us first see peace in Athens: there is no time so miserable but a man may be [Exeunt Thieves.

true.

Enter FLAVIUS.
Flav. O you gods!

Is yon dispised and ruinous man my lord?
Full of decay and failing? O, monument
And wonder of good deeds evilly bestowed!
What an alteration of honour has
Desperate want made!

What viler thing upon the earth than friends
Who can bring noblest minds to basest ends!
How rarely does it meet with this time's guise,
When man was wished to love his enemies!
Grant I may ever love, and rather woo
Those that would mischief me, than those that do!
He has caught me in his eye: I will present
My honest grief unto him; and, as my lord,
Still serve him with my life.-My dearest master!

TIMON comes forward from his cave.
Tim. Away! what art thou?