ACT IV. SCENE I.

Without the Walls of Athens.

Enter TIMON.

Tim. Let me look back upon thee, O thou wall,
That girdlest in those wolves! Dive in the earth,
And fence not Athens! Matrons, turn incontinent;
Obedience fail in children! flaves, and fools,
Pluck the grave wrinkled fenate from the bench,
And minister in their steads! to general filths
Convert o'the inftant, green virginity!

Do't in your parents' eyes! bankrupts, hold fast;
Rather than render back, out with your knives,
And cut your trufters' throats! bound fervants, steal!
Large-handed robbers your grave masters are,
And pill by law! maid, to thy master's bed;
Thy mistress is o'the brothel! fon of fixteen,
Pluck the lin'd crutch from thy old limping fire,
With it beat out his brains! piety, and fear,
Religion to the gods, peace, justice, truth,
Domestick awe, night-reft, and neighbourhood,
Inftruction, manners, mysteries, and trades,
Degrees, obfervances, customs, and laws,
Decline to your confounding contraries,
And yet confufion live!-Plagues, incident to men,
Your potent and infectious fevers heap

On Athens, ripe for stroke! thou cold fciatica,
Cripple our fenators, that their limbs may halt
As lamely as their manners! luft and liberty

Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth;
That 'gainst the stream of virtue they may strive,
And drown themfelves in riot! itches, blains,
Sow all the Athenian bosoms; and their crop
Be general leprofy! breath infect breath;
That their fociety, as their friendship, may
Be merely poifon! Nothing I'll bear from thee,
But nakedness, thou détestable town!

Take thou that too, with multiplying banns!
Timon will to the woods; where he shall find
The unkindeft beast more kinder than mankind.
The gods confound (hear me, you good gods all,)
The Athenians both within and out that wall!
And grant, as Timon grows, his hate may grow
To the whole race of mankind, high, and low!
Amen.

[Exit.

SCENE II.

Athens. A Room in Timon's House.

Enter FLAVIUS, with two or three Servants.

1 Serv. Hear you, mafter steward, where's our master ? Are we undone? caft off? nothing remaining?

Flav. Alack, my fellows, what should I fay to you? Let me be recorded by the righteous gods,

I am as poor as you.

I Serv.

Such a houfe broke!

So noble a mafter fallen! All gone! and not
One friend, to take his fortune by the arm,
And go along with him!

2 Serv.

As we do turn our backs

From our companion, thrown into his grave;

So

So his familiars to his buried fortunes

Slink all away; leave their falfe vows with him,
Like empty purses pick'd: and his poor felf,
A dedicated beggar to the air,

With his disease of all-fhunn'd poverty,

Walks, like contempt, alone.-More of our fellows.

Enter other Servants.

Flav. All broken implements of a ruin'd house.
3 Serv. Yet do our hearts wear Timon's livery,
That fee I by our faces; we are fellows still,
Serving alike in forrow: Leak'd is our bark;
And we, poor mates, stand on the dying deck,
Hearing the furges threat: we must all part
Into this fea of air.

The latest of my wealth I'll fhare amongst you.
Wherever we shall meet, for Timon's fake,
Let's yet be fellows; let's fhake our heads, and say,
As 'twere a knell unto our mafter's fortunes,
We have feen better days. Let each take fome;

[Giving them money. Nay, put out all your hands. Not one word more : Thus part we rich in forrow, parting poor.

[Exeunt Servants. O, the fierce wretchedness that glory brings us! Who would not wish to be from wealth exempt, Since riches point to mifery and contempt ? Who be fo mock'd with glory? or to live

But in a dream of friendship?

To have his pomp, and all what state compounds,
But only painted, like his varnish'd friends?
Poor honeft lord, brought low by his own heart;

A breeding fun, draw from the earth
; below thy fifter's orb
Twinn'd brothers of one womb,—
on, refidence, and birth,

t,-touch them with feveral fortunes;
ns the leffer: Not nature,

res lay fiege, can bear great fortunė, t of nature.

ggar, and denude that lord;

1 bear contempt hereditary, ve honour.

lards the brother's fides,

makes him lean. Who dares, who dares,

hood stand upright,

And

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Rivers delin

Timon of A

Act IV. Scene III