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Timon of Athens: Act II, Scene 2

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Timon of Athens
Act II, Scene 2

Athens. A hall in Timon’s house.

  1. Enter Steward Flavius with many bills in his hand.

Flavius

1 - 9
  1. No care, no stop, so senseless of expense,
  2. That he will neither know how to maintain it,
  3. Nor cease his flow of riot. Takes no accompt
  4. How things go from him, nor resumes no care
  5. Of what is to continue. Never mind
  6. Was to be so unwise, to be so kind.
  7. What shall be done, he will not hear, till feel.
  8. I must be round with him, now he comes from hunting.
  9. Fie, fie, fie, fie!
  1. Enter Caphis and the Servants of Isidore and Varro.

Caphis

10 - 11
  1.                     Good even, Varro. What,
  2. You come for money?

Varro’s First Servant

12
  1.                     Is’t not your business too?

Caphis

13
  1. It is; and yours too, Isidore?

Isidore’s Servant

14
  1.                                It is so.

Caphis

15
  1. Would we were all discharg’d!

Varro’s First Servant

16
  1.                               I fear it.

Caphis

17
  1. Here comes the lord.
  1. Enter Timon and his Train with Alcibiades.

Timon

18 - 19
  1. So soon as dinner’s done, we’ll forth again,
  2. My Alcibiades.—With me, what is your will?

Caphis

20
  1. My lord, here is a note of certain dues.

Timon

21
  1. Dues? Whence are you?

Caphis

22
  1.                       Of Athens here, my lord.

Timon

23
  1. Go to my steward.

Caphis

24 - 29
  1. Please it your lordship, he hath put me off
  2. To the succession of new days this month.
  3. My master is awak’d by great occasion
  4. To call upon his own, and humbly prays you
  5. That with your other noble parts you’ll suit
  6. In giving him his right.

Timon

30 - 31
  1.                          Mine honest friend,
  2. I prithee but repair to me next morning.

Caphis

32
  1. Nay, good my lord—

Timon

33
  1.                    Contain thyself, good friend.

Varro’s First Servant

34
  1. One Varro’s servant, my good lord—

Isidore’s Servant

35 - 36
  1.                                    From Isidore;
  2. He humbly prays your speedy payment.

Caphis

37
  1. If you did know, my lord, my master’s wants—

Varro’s First Servant

38 - 39
  1. ’Twas due on forfeiture, my lord, six weeks
  2. And past.

Isidore’s Servant

40 - 41
  1.           Your steward puts me off, my lord,
  2. And I am sent expressly to your lordship.

Timon

42 - 49
  1. Give me breath.
  2. I do beseech you, good my lords, keep on,
  3. I’ll wait upon you instantly.
  4. Exeunt Alcibiades and Lords.
  5. To Flavius.
  6.                               Come hither. Pray you,
  7. How goes the world, that I am thus encount’red
  8. With clamorous demands of debt, broken bonds,
  9. And the detention of long since due debts,
  10. Against my honor?

Flavius

50 - 54
  1.                   Please you, gentlemen,
  2. The time is unagreeable to this business.
  3. Your importunacy cease till after dinner,
  4. That I may make his lordship understand
  5. Wherefore you are not paid.

Timon

55
  1. Do so, my friends. See them well entertain’d.
  1. Exit.

Flavius

56
  1. Pray draw near.
  1. Exit.
  1. Enter Apemantus and Fool.

Caphis

57 - 58
  1. Stay, stay, here comes the Fool with
  2. Apemantus, let’s ha’ some sport with ’em.

Varro’s First Servant

59
  1. Hang him, he’ll abuse us.

Isidore’s Servant

60
  1. A plague upon him, dog!

Varro’s First Servant

61
  1. How dost, Fool?

Apemantus

62
  1. Dost dialogue with thy shadow?

Varro’s First Servant

63
  1. I speak not to thee.

Apemantus

64 - 65
  1. No, ’tis to thyself.
  2. To the Fool.
  3. Come away.

Isidore’s Servant

66
  1. To Varro’s Servant.
  2. There’s the Fool hangs on your back already.

Apemantus

67
  1. No, thou stand’st single, th’ art not on him yet.

Caphis

68
  1. Where’s the Fool now?

Apemantus

69 - 70
  1. He last ask’d the question. Poor rogues, and usurers’ men,
  2. bawds between gold and want!

All Servants

71
  1. What are we, Apemantus?

Apemantus

72
  1. Asses.

All Servants

73
  1. Why?

Apemantus

74 - 75
  1. That you ask me what you are, and do not know yourselves.
  2. Speak to ’em, Fool.

Fool

76
  1. How do you, gentlemen?

All Servants

77
  1. Gramercies, good Fool; how does your mistress?

Fool

78 - 79
  1. She’s e’en setting on water to scald such chickens as you
  2. are. Would we could see you at Corinth!

Apemantus

80
  1. Good, gramercy.
  1. Enter Timon’s Page.

Fool

81
  1. Look you, here comes my master’s page.

Timon’s Page

82 - 83
  1. To the Fool.
  2. Why, how now, captain? What do you in this wise company? How
  3. dost thou, Apemantus?

Apemantus

84 - 85
  1. Would I had a rod in my mouth, that I might answer thee
  2. profitably.

Timon’s Page

86 - 87
  1. Prithee, Apemantus, read me the superscription of these
  2. letters, I know not which is which.

Apemantus

88
  1. Canst not read?

Timon’s Page

89
  1. No.

Apemantus

90 - 92
  1. There will little learning die then that day thou art
  2. hang’d. This is to Lord Timon, this to Alcibiades. Go, thou
  3. wast born a bastard, and thou’t die a bawd.

Timon’s Page

93 - 94
  1. Thou wast whelp’d a dog, and thou shalt famish a dog’s
  2. death. Answer not, I am gone.
  1. Exit.

Apemantus

95 - 96
  1. E’en so thou outrun’st grace. Fool, I will go with you to
  2. Lord Timon’s.

Fool

97
  1. Will you leave me there?

Apemantus

98
  1. If Timon stay at home. You three serve three usurers?

All Servants

99
  1. Ay, would they serv’d us!

Apemantus

100
  1. So would I—as good a trick as ever hangman serv’d thief.

Fool

101
  1. Are you three usurers’ men?

All Servants

102
  1. Ay, Fool.

Fool

103 - 107
  1. I think no usurer but has a fool to his servant; my mistress
  2. is one, and I am her fool. When men come to borrow of your
  3. masters, they approach sadly, and go away merry; but they
  4. enter my master’s house merrily, and go away sadly. The
  5. reason of this?

Varro’s First Servant

108
  1. I could render one.

Apemantus

109 - 111
  1. Do it then, that we may account thee a whoremaster and a
  2. knave, which notwithstanding, thou shalt be no less
  3. esteem’d.

Varro’s First Servant

112
  1. What is a whoremaster, Fool?

Fool

113 - 118
  1. A fool in good clothes, and something like thee. ’Tis a
  2. spirit; sometime’t appears like a lord, sometime like a
  3. lawyer, sometime like a philosopher, with two stones more
  4. than ’s artificial one. He is very often like a knight; and,
  5. generally, in all shapes that man goes up and down in from
  6. fourscore to thirteen, this spirit walks in.

Varro’s First Servant

119
  1. Thou art not altogether a fool.

Fool

120 - 121
  1. Nor thou altogether a wise man; as much foolery as I have,
  2. so much wit thou lack’st.

Apemantus

122
  1. That answer might have become Apemantus.

All Servants

123
  1. Aside, aside, here comes Lord Timon.
  1. Enter Timon and Steward Flavius.

Apemantus

124
  1. Come with me, Fool, come.

Fool

125 - 126
  1. I do not always follow lover, elder brother, and woman;
  2. sometime the philosopher.
  1. Exeunt Apemantus and Fool.

Flavius

127
  1. Pray you walk near, I’ll speak with you anon.
  1. Exeunt Servants.

Timon

128 - 131
  1. You make me marvel wherefore ere this time
  2. Had you not fully laid my state before me,
  3. That I might so have rated my expense
  4. As I had leave of means.

Flavius

132 - 133
  1.                          You would not hear me;
  2. At many leisures I propos’d.

Timon

134 - 138
  1.                              Go to!
  2. Perchance some single vantages you took,
  3. When my indisposition put you back,
  4. And that unaptness made your minister
  5. Thus to excuse yourself.

Flavius

139 - 152
  1.                          O my good lord,
  2. At many times I brought in my accompts,
  3. Laid them before you; you would throw them off,
  4. And say you found them in mine honesty.
  5. When for some trifling present you have bid me
  6. Return so much, I have shook my head, and wept;
  7. Yea, ’gainst th’ authority of manners, pray’d you
  8. To hold your hand more close. I did endure
  9. Not seldom, nor no slight checks, when I have
  10. Prompted you in the ebb of your estate
  11. And your great flow of debts. My lov’d lord,
  12. Though you hear now (too late), yet now’s a time:
  13. The greatest of your having lacks a half
  14. To pay your present debts.

Timon

153
  1.                            Let all my land be sold.

Flavius

154 - 158
  1. ’Tis all engag’d, some forfeited and gone,
  2. And what remains will hardly stop the mouth
  3. Of present dues. The future comes apace;
  4. What shall defend the interim? And at length
  5. How goes our reck’ning?

Timon

159
  1. To Lacedaemon did my land extend.

Flavius

160 - 162
  1. O my good lord, the world is but a word;
  2. Were it all yours to give it in a breath,
  3. How quickly were it gone!

Timon

163
  1.                           You tell me true.

Flavius

164 - 172
  1. If you suspect my husbandry or falsehood,
  2. Call me before th’ exactest auditors,
  3. And set me on the proof. So the gods bless me,
  4. When all our offices have been oppress’d
  5. With riotous feeders, when our vaults have wept
  6. With drunken spilth of wine, when every room
  7. Hath blaz’d with lights and bray’d with minstrelsy,
  8. I have retir’d me to a wasteful cock,
  9. And set mine eyes at flow.

Timon

173
  1.                            Prithee no more.

Flavius

174 - 182
  1. Heavens, have I said, the bounty of this lord!
  2. How many prodigal bits have slaves and peasants
  3. This night englutted! Who is not Timon’s?
  4. What heart, head, sword, force, means, but is Lord Timon’s?
  5. Great Timon! Noble, worthy, royal Timon!
  6. Ah, when the means are gone that buy this praise,
  7. The breath is gone whereof this praise is made.
  8. Feast-won, fast-lost; one cloud of winter show’rs,
  9. These flies are couch’d.

Timon

183 - 191
  1.                          Come, sermon me no further.
  2. No villainous bounty yet hath pass’d my heart;
  3. Unwisely, not ignobly, have I given.
  4. Why dost thou weep? Canst thou the conscience lack
  5. To think I shall lack friends? Secure thy heart;
  6. If I would broach the vessels of my love,
  7. And try the argument of hearts, by borrowing,
  8. Men and men’s fortunes could I frankly use
  9. As I can bid thee speak.

Flavius

192
  1.                          Assurance bless your thoughts!

Timon

193 - 197
  1. And in some sort these wants of mine are crown’d,
  2. That I account them blessings; for by these
  3. Shall I try friends. You shall perceive how you
  4. Mistake my fortunes; I am wealthy in my friends.
  5. Within there! Flaminius! Servilius!
  1. Enter three servants: Flaminius, Servilius, and Timon’s
  2. Servant.

Three Servants

198
  1. My lord? My lord?

Timon

199 - 204
  1. I will dispatch you severally: to Servilius you to Lord
  2. Lucius; to Flaminius to Lord Lucullus you—I hunted with his
  3. honor today; to the other you to Sempronius. Commend me to
  4. their loves; and I am proud, say, that my occasions have
  5. found time to use ’em toward a supply of money. Let the
  6. request be fifty talents.

Flaminius

205
  1. As you have said, my lord.
  1. Exeunt the three servants.

Flavius

206
  1. Aside.
  2. Lord Lucius and Lucullus? Humh!

Timon

207 - 210
  1. Go you, sir, to the senators—
  2. Of whom, even to the state’s best health, I have
  3. Deserv’d this hearing—bid ’em send o’ th’ instant
  4. A thousand talents to me.

Flavius

211 - 215
  1.                           I have been bold
  2. (For that I knew it the most general way)
  3. To them to use your signet and your name,
  4. But they do shake their heads, and I am here
  5. No richer in return.

Timon

216
  1.                      Is’t true? Can ’t be?

Flavius

217 - 226
  1. They answer, in a joint and corporate voice,
  2. That now they are at fall, want treasure, cannot
  3. Do what they would, are sorry; you are honorable,
  4. But yet they could have wish’d—they know not—
  5. Something hath been amiss—a noble nature
  6. May catch a wrench—would all were well—’tis pity—
  7. And so, intending other serious matters,
  8. After distasteful looks, and these hard fractions,
  9. With certain half-caps and cold-moving nods,
  10. They froze me into silence.

Timon

227 - 245
  1.                             You gods, reward them!
  2. Prithee, man, look cheerly. These old fellows
  3. Have their ingratitude in them hereditary:
  4. Their blood is cak’d, ’tis cold, it seldom flows;
  5. ’Tis lack of kindly warmth they are not kind;
  6. And nature, as it grows again toward earth,
  7. Is fashion’d for the journey, dull and heavy.
  8. Go to Ventidius. (Prithee be not sad,
  9. Thou art true and honest; ingeniously I speak,
  10. No blame belongs to thee.) Ventidius lately
  11. Buried his father, by whose death he’s stepp’d
  12. Into a great estate. When he was poor,
  13. Imprison’d, and in scarcity of friends,
  14. I clear’d him with five talents. Greet him from me,
  15. Bid him suppose some good necessity
  16. Touches his friend, which craves to be rememb’red
  17. With those five talents. That had, give’t these fellows
  18. To whom ’tis instant due. Nev’r speak or think
  19. That Timon’s fortunes ’mong his friends can sink.

Flavius

246 - 247
  1. I would I could not think it! That thought is bounty’s foe;
  2. Being free itself, it thinks all others so.
  1. Exeunt.
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