Phryn. Thy lips rot off! Tim. I will not kiss thee; then, the rot returns To thine own lips again.13 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 art 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 harlots. Timan. Is this the Athenian minion, whom the world Voic'd so regardfully? Tim. Art thou Timandra? Timan. Yes. Tim. Be a whore still! they love thee not, that Give them diseases, leaving with thee their lust. 13 This alludes to the old erroneous prevalent opinion, that infection communicated to another left the infecter free. "I will not," says Timon, "take the rot from thy lips by kissing thee." 14 The diet was a customary term for the regimen prescribed in the secases. See Act ii. sc. 2, note 8.- In this scene we trace Timan. Hang thee, monster! Alcib. Pardon him, sweet Timandra; for his wits Are drown'd and lost in his calamities. - I have but little gold of late, brave Timon, Tim. I pr'ythee, 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. Why, fare thee well: Here is some gold for thee. Tim. Keep it, I cannot eat it. Alcib. When I have laid proud Athens on a heap, the Poet's reading to Plutarch's Life of Alcibiades, North's translation; there being no mention made of the courtesans in either of the sources whence, as shown in our Introduction, the other materials of the play were drawn. For the showing of this, the following from Plutarch will suffice: "Now was Alcibiades in a certaine village of Phrygia with a concubine of his called Timandra. So he dreamed one night that he had put on his concubines apparell, and how she had dressed his head, frizeled his haire, and painted his face, as he had bene a woman; and the voice goeth, this vision was but a litle before his death. Those that were sent to kill him durst not enter the house where he was, but set it on fire round about. Alcibiades, spying the fire, got such apparell and hangings as he had, and threw it on the fire, thinking to put it out; and so, casting his cloke about his left arme, tooke his naked sword in his other hand, and ranne out of the house, himselfe not once touched with the fire, saving his clothes were a litle singed. These murtherers, so soone as they spied him, drew backe, and stood asunder, and durst not one of them come neere him, to stand and fight with him; but afarre off they bestowed so many arrowes and darts on him, that they killed him there. Now, when they had left him, Timandra went and tooke his body, which she wrapped up in the best linen she had, and buried him as honourably as she could." H. Tim. Warr'st thou 'gainst Athens ? Tim. The gods confound them all in thy conquest; and thee after, when thou hast conquer'd! Alcib. Why me, Timon? Tim. That, by killing of villains, go on; Thou wast born to conquer my country. Will o'er some high-vic'd city hang his poison He's an usurer: Strike me the counterfeit matron; Herself's a bawd: Let not the virgin's cheek 15 But set them down horrible traitors: Spare not the babe, Whose dimpled smiles from fools exhaust their mercy; Think it a bastard, 16 whom the oracle Hath doubtfully pronounc'd thy throat shall cut, And mince it sans remorse: Swear against objects; " 17 15 By window-bars the Poet probably means "the partlet, gorget, or kerchief, which women put about their neck, and piu down over their paps," sometimes called a niced, and translated Mamillare or fascia pectoralis; and described as made of fine linen : from its semitransparency arose the simile of window bars. This is the best explanation I have to offer. Mr. Boswell thought that windows was used to signify a woman's breasts, in a passage he has cited from Weaver's Plantagenet's Tragical Story, but it seems to me doubtful. I can hardly think the passage warrants Johnson's explanation, "The virgin shows her bosom through the lattice of her chamber." SINGER. 16 An allusion to the tale of Edipus. 17 That is, against objects of charity and compassion. So, in Put armour on thine ears and on thine eyes, Not all thy counsel. Tim. Dost thou or dost thou not, Heaven's curse upon thee! Phryn. & Timan. Give us some gold, good Timon: hast thou more? Tim. Enough to make a whore forswear her trade, And to make whores, a bawd.18 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. months Yet may your pains six Be quite contrary : 19 and thatch your poor thin roofs Troilus and Cressida, Ulysses says: "For Hector, in his blaze of wrath, subscribes to tender objects." 18 That is, "enough to make whores leave whoring, and a bawd leave making whores." 19 The meaning of this passage appears to be as Steevens explains it: "Timon had been exhorting them to follow constantly their trade of debauchery, but he interrupts himself and imprecates upon them that for half the year their pains may be quite contrary, that they may suffer such punishment as is usually inflicted upon harlots. He then continues his exhortations." With burdens of the dead; some that were hang'd, 20 No matter; -wear them, betray with them whore still; Paint till a horse may mire upon your face : Phryn. & Timan. Well, more gold: then? Believe't, that we'll do any thing for gold. What 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: hoarse the flamen,21 And not believes himself: down with the nose, 20 The fashion of periwigs for women, which Stowe informs us "were brought into England about the time of the massacre of Paris," seems to have been a fertile source of satire. Stubbes, in his Anatomy of Abuses, says that it was dangerous for any child to wander, as nothing was more common than for women to entice such as had fine locks into private places, and there to cut them off. In A Mad World my Masters, 1608, the custom is decried as unnatural: "To wear periwigs made of another's hair, is not this against kind?" So Drayton, in his Mooncalf: "And with large sums they stick not to procure We have already met with several instances showing the Poet's mind towards this custom. See The Merchant of Venice, Act iii. sc. 2, note 6; and Much Ado about Nothing, Act ii. sc. 3, note 4. H. 21 Quillets are subtleties, nice and frivolous distinctions. - The old copy reads "hoar the flamen," which Steevens suggests may mean, give him the hoary leprosy. I have not scrupled to insert Upton's reading of hoarse into the text, because I think the whole construction of the speech shows that is the word the Poet wrote. To afflict him with leprosy would not prevent his scolding, to de- ́ prive him of his voice by hoarseness might. SINGER. |