Come hither, ere my tree hath felt the axe,

And hang himself:-I pray you, do my greeting.
Flav. Trouble him no further; thus you still shall find him.
Tim. Come not to me again: but say to Athens,
Timon hath made his everlasting mansion
Upon the beached verge of the salt flood;
Whom once a day with his embossed froth
The turbulent surge shall cover; thither come,
And let my gravestone 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.
[Exit TIMON.

1 Sen. His discontents are unremovably Coupled to nature.

2 Sen. Our hope in him is dead: let us return, And strain what other means is left unto us In our dear peril.

1 Sen.

It requires swift foot.

SCENE III. The Walls of Athens.

Enter two Senators and a Messenger.

[Exeunt.

1 Sen. Thou hast painfully discovered: are his files As full as thy report?

Mess.

I have spoke the least:

Besides, his expedition promises

Present approach.

2 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.

1 Sen.

Enter Senators fram TIMON.

Here come our brothers.

3 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.

SCENE IV.

The Woods. Timon's Cave, and a Tombstone seen.

Enter a Soldier, seeking Timon.

Sol. By all description this should be the place.
Who's here? speak, ho!-No answer?-What is this?
Timon is dead, who hath outstretched his span:
Some beast reared 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.

SCENE V. Before the Walls of Athens.

[Exit.

Trumpets sound. Enter ALCIBIADES, and Forces. Alcib. 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 filled 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 wandered with our traversed arms, and breathed
Our sufferance vainly. Now the time is flush,
When crouching marrow, in the bearer strong,
crouching_marrow,
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.

Noble and young,

1 Sen.
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.

2 Sen.

So did we woo

Transformed Timon to our city's love,

By humbled message, and by promised means;

We were not all unkind, nor all deserve

The common stroke of war.

1 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.

2 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,

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

Let. die the spotted.

1 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.

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

Than hew to 't with thy sword.

1 Sen.

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.

2 Sen.

Throw thy glove
Or any token of thine honor else,

That thou wilt use the wars as thy redress,
And not as our confusion, all thy powers
Shall make their harbor in our town, till we
Have sealed thy full desire.

Alcib.
Then there's my glove;
Descend, and open your uncharged ports.
Those enemies of Timon's and mine own,
Whom you yourself 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 remedied, to your public laws,
At heaviest answer.

Both.
'Tis most nobly spoken.
Alcib. Descend, and keep your words.

The Senators descend, and open the gates.
Enter a Soldier.

Sol. My noble general, Timon is dead;
Entombed upon the very hem o' the sea:
And on his gravestone, 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.

left!

Here lie I, Timon;

A plague consume you wicked caitiffs

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 brains' 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.

CORIOLANUS.

VOL. III.-31

(481)