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Timon of Athens: Act V, Scene 1

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Timon of Athens
Act V, Scene 1

Scene 1

The woods. Before Timon’s cave.

  1. Enter Poet and Painter; Timon watching them from his cave.

Painter

1 - 2
  1. As I took note of the place, it cannot be far
  2. Where he abides.

Poet

3 - 5
  1.                  What’s to be thought of him?
  2. Does the rumor hold for true that he’s
  3. So full of gold?

Painter

6 - 10
  1.                  Certain. Alcibiades reports it;
  2. Phrynia and Timandra had gold of him.
  3. He likewise enrich’d poor straggling soldiers with
  4. Great quantity. ’Tis said he gave unto
  5. His steward a mighty sum.

Poet

11 - 12
  1.                           Then this breaking of his
  2. Has been but a try for his friends?

Painter

13 - 20
  1.                                     Nothing else.
  2. You shall see him a palm in Athens again, and flourish
  3. With the highest. Therefore, ’tis not amiss
  4. We tender our loves to him in this suppos’d
  5. Distress of his; it will show honestly in us,
  6. And is very likely to load our purposes
  7. With what they travail for, if it be
  8. A just and true report that goes of his having.

Poet

21
  1. What have you now to present unto him?

Painter

22 - 23
  1. Nothing at this time but my visitation;
  2. Only I will promise him an excellent piece.

Poet

24 - 25
  1. I must serve him so too: tell him of an intent
  2. That’s coming toward him.

Painter

26 - 35
  1.                           Good as the best.
  2. Promising is the very air o’ th’ time;
  3. It opens the eyes of expectation.
  4. Performance is ever the duller for his act,
  5. And but in the plainer and simpler kind of people
  6. The deed of saying is quite out of use.
  7. To promise is most courtly and fashionable;
  8. Performance is a kind of will or testament
  9. Which argues a great sickness in his judgment
  10. That makes it.
  1. Enter Timon from his cave.

Timon

36 - 37
  1. Aside.
  2. Excellent workman! Thou canst not paint a man
  3. So bad as is thyself.

Poet

38 - 43
  1.                       I am thinking
  2. What I shall say I have provided for him.
  3. It must be a personating of himself;
  4. A satire against the softness of prosperity,
  5. With a discovery of the infinite flatteries
  6. That follow youth and opulency.

Timon

44 - 47
  1. Aside.
  2.                                 Must thou needs
  3. Stand for a villain in thine own work?
  4. Wilt thou whip thine own faults in other men?
  5. Do so, I have gold for thee.

Poet

48 - 50
  1.                              Nay, let’s seek him:
  2. Then do we sin against our own estate,
  3. When we may profit meet, and come too late.

Painter

51 - 54
  1. True:
  2. When the day serves, before black-corner’d night,
  3. Find what thou want’st by free and offer’d light.
  4. Come.

Timon

55 - 62
  1. Aside.
  2. I’ll meet you at the turn. What a god’s gold
  3. That he is worshipp’d in a baser temple
  4. Than where swine feed!
  5. ’Tis thou that rig’st the bark and plough’st the foam,
  6. Settlest admired reverence in a slave.
  7. To thee be worship, and thy saints for aye
  8. Be crown’d with plagues, that thee alone obey!
  9. Fit I meet them.
  1. Coming forward.

Poet

63
  1. Hail, worthy Timon!

Painter

64
  1.                     Our late noble master!

Timon

65
  1. Have I once liv’d to see two honest men?

Poet

66 - 75
  1. Sir,
  2. Having often of your open bounty tasted,
  3. Hearing you were retir’d, your friends fall’n off,
  4. Whose thankless natures (O abhorred spirits!)
  5. Not all the whips of heaven are large enough—
  6. What, to you,
  7. Whose star-like nobleness gave life and influence
  8. To their whole being! I am rapt and cannot cover
  9. The monstrous bulk of this ingratitude
  10. With any size of words.
Max Goschen's edition of Timon of Athens

Max Goschen's edition of Timon of Athens

Wyndham Lewis, 1912

Timon

76 - 78
  1. Let it go naked, men may see’t the better.
  2. You that are honest, by being what you are
  3. Make them best seen and known.

Painter

79 - 81
  1.                                He and myself
  2. Have travail’d in the great show’r of your gifts,
  3. And sweetly felt it.

Timon

82
  1.                      Ay, you are honest men.

Painter

83
  1. We are hither come to offer you our service.

Timon

84 - 85
  1. Most honest men! Why, how shall I requite you?
  2. Can you eat roots and drink cold water? No?

Both Poet and Painter

86
  1. What we can do, we’ll do, to do you service.

Timon

87 - 88
  1. Y’ are honest men; y’ have heard that I have gold,
  2. I am sure you have. Speak truth, y’ are honest men.

Painter

89 - 90
  1. So it is said, my noble lord, but therefore
  2. Came not my friend nor I.

Timon

91 - 93
  1. Good honest men! Thou draw’st a counterfeit
  2. Best in all Athens; th’ art indeed the best,
  3. Thou counterfeit’st most lively.

Painter

94
  1.                                  So, so, my lord.

Timon

95 - 101
  1. E’en so, sir, as I say.—And, for thy fiction,
  2. Why, thy verse swells with stuff so fine and smooth
  3. That thou art even natural in thine art.
  4. But for all this, my honest-natur’d friends,
  5. I must needs say you have a little fault;
  6. Marry, ’tis not monstrous in you, neither wish I
  7. You take much pains to mend.

Both Poet and Painter

102 - 103
  1.                              Beseech your honor
  2. To make it known to us.

Timon

104
  1.                         You’ll take it ill.

Both Poet and Painter

105
  1. Most thankfully, my lord.

Timon

106
  1.                           Will you indeed?

Both Poet and Painter

107
  1. Doubt it not, worthy lord.

Timon

108 - 109
  1. There’s never a one of you but trusts a knave
  2. That mightily deceives you.

Both Poet and Painter

110
  1.                             Do we, my lord?

Timon

111 - 114
  1. Ay, and you hear him cog, see him dissemble,
  2. Know his gross patchery, love him, feed him,
  3. Keep in your bosom; yet remain assur’d
  4. That he’s a made-up villain.

Painter

115
  1. I know none such, my lord.

Poet

116
  1.                            Nor I.

Timon

117 - 121
  1. Look you, I love you well, I’ll give you gold,
  2. Rid me these villains from your companies;
  3. Hang them, or stab them, drown them in a draught,
  4. Confound them by some course, and come to me,
  5. I’ll give you gold enough.

Both Poet and Painter

122
  1. Name them, my lord, let’s know them.

Timon

123 - 133
  1. You that way and you this; but two in company;
  2. Each man apart, all single and alone,
  3. Yet an arch-villain keeps him company.
  4. To one.
  5. If where thou art, two villains shall not be,
  6. Come not near him.
  7. To the other.
  8. If thou wouldst not reside
  9. But where one villain is, then him abandon.—
  10. Hence, pack! There’s gold; you came for gold, ye slaves.
  11. To one.
  12. You have work for me; there’s payment, hence!
  13. To the other.
  14. You are an alcumist, make gold of that.
  15. Out, rascal dogs!
  1. Exeunt both, driven out by Timon, who retires to his cave.
  1. Enter Steward Flavius and two Senators.

Flavius

134 - 137
  1. It is vain that you would speak with Timon;
  2. For he is set so only to himself,
  3. That nothing but himself which looks like man
  4. Is friendly with him.

Out, rascal dogs!

John Masey Wright, circa 1900

First Senator

138 - 140
  1.                       Bring us to his cave.
  2. It is our part and promise to th’ Athenians
  3. To speak with Timon.

Second Senator

141 - 146
  1.                      At all times alike
  2. Men are not still the same; ’twas time and griefs
  3. That fram’d him thus. Time with his fairer hand,
  4. Offering the fortunes of his former days,
  5. The former man may make him. Bring us to him,
  6. And chance it as it may.

Flavius

147 - 151
  1.                          Here is his cave.
  2. Peace and content be here! Lord Timon! Timon,
  3. Look out and speak to friends. Th’ Athenians
  4. By two of their most reverend Senate greet thee.
  5. Speak to them, noble Timon.
  1. Enter Timon out of his cave.

Timon

152 - 155
  1. Thou sun that comforts, burn! Speak and be hang’d.
  2. For each true word, a blister, and each false
  3. Be as a cantherizing to the root o’ th’ tongue,
  4. Consuming it with speaking!

First Senator

156
  1.                             Worthy Timon—

Timon

157
  1. Of none but such as you, and you of Timon.

First Senator

158
  1. The senators of Athens greet thee, Timon.

Timon

159 - 160
  1. I thank them, and would send them back the plague,
  2. Could I but catch it for them.

First Senator

161 - 166
  1.                                O, forget
  2. What we are sorry for ourselves in thee.
  3. The senators with one consent of love
  4. Entreat thee back to Athens, who have thought
  5. On special dignities, which vacant lie,
  6. For thy best use and wearing.

Second Senator

167 - 179
  1.                               They confess
  2. Toward thee forgetfulness too general gross;
  3. Which now the public body, which doth seldom
  4. Play the recanter, feeling in itself
  5. A lack of Timon’s aid, hath sense withal
  6. Of it own fall, restraining aid to Timon,
  7. And send forth us to make their sorrowed render,
  8. Together with a recompense more fruitful
  9. Than their offense can weigh down by the dram;
  10. Ay, even such heaps and sums of love and wealth
  11. As shall to thee blot out what wrongs were theirs,
  12. And write in thee the figures of their love,
  13. Ever to read them thine.

Timon

180 - 183
  1.                          You witch me in it;
  2. Surprise me to the very brink of tears.
  3. Lend me a fool’s heart and a woman’s eyes,
  4. And I’ll beweep these comforts, worthy senators.

First Senator

184 - 191
  1. Therefore so please thee to return with us,
  2. And of our Athens, thine and ours, to take
  3. The captainship, thou shalt be met with thanks,
  4. Allow’d with absolute power, and thy good name
  5. Live with authority; so soon we shall drive back
  6. Of Alcibiades th’ approaches wild,
  7. Who, like a boar too savage, doth root up
  8. His country’s peace.

Second Senator

192 - 193
  1.                      And shakes his threat’ning sword
  2. Against the walls of Athens.

First Senator

194
  1.                              Therefore, Timon—

Timon

195 - 211
  1. Well, sir, I will; therefore I will, sir, thus:
  2. If Alcibiades kill my countrymen,
  3. Let Alcibiades know this of Timon,
  4. That Timon cares not. But if he sack fair Athens,
  5. And take our goodly aged men by th’ beards,
  6. Giving our holy virgins to the stain
  7. Of contumelious, beastly, mad-brain’d war,
  8. Then let him know, and tell him Timon speaks it,
  9. In pity of our aged and our youth,
  10. I cannot choose but tell him that I care not,
  11. And let him take’t at worst—for their knives care not,
  12. While you have throats to answer. For myself,
  13. There’s not a whittle in th’ unruly camp
  14. But I do prize it at my love before
  15. The reverend’st throat in Athens. So I leave you
  16. To the protection of the prosperous gods,
  17. As thieves to keepers.

Hail, worthy Timon!

Georg Goldberg; Cassell & Company, limited; John McL. Ralston; unknown date

Flavius

212
  1.                        Stay not, all’s in vain.

Timon

213 - 218
  1. Why, I was writing of my epitaph;
  2. It will be seen tomorrow. My long sickness
  3. Of health and living now begins to mend,
  4. And nothing brings me all things. Go, live still;
  5. Be Alcibiades your plague, you his,
  6. And last so long enough!

First Senator

219
  1.                          We speak in vain.

Timon

220 - 222
  1. But yet I love my country, and am not
  2. One that rejoices in the common wrack,
  3. As common bruit doth put it.

First Senator

223
  1.                              That’s well spoke.

Timon

224
  1. Commend me to my loving countrymen—

First Senator

225
  1. These words become your lips as they pass thorough them.

Second Senator

226 - 227
  1. And enter in our ears like great triumphers
  2. In their applauding gates.

Timon

228 - 234
  1.                            Commend me to them,
  2. And tell them that, to ease them of their griefs,
  3. Their fears of hostile strokes, their aches, losses,
  4. Their pangs of love, with other incident throes
  5. That nature’s fragile vessel doth sustain
  6. In life’s uncertain voyage, I will some kindness do them:
  7. I’ll teach them to prevent wild Alcibiades’ wrath.

First Senator

235
  1. I like this well, he will return again.

Timon

236 - 243
  1. I have a tree, which grows here in my close,
  2. That mine own use invites me to cut down,
  3. And shortly must I fell it. Tell my friends,
  4. Tell Athens, in the sequence of degree,
  5. From high to low throughout, that whoso please
  6. To stop affliction, let him take his haste,
  7. Come hither, ere my tree hath felt the axe,
  8. And hang himself. I pray you do my greeting.

Flavius

244
  1. Trouble him no further, thus you still shall find him.

Timon

245 - 254
  1. Come not to me again, but say to Athens,
  2. Timon hath made his everlasting mansion
  3. Upon the beached verge of the salt flood,
  4. Who once a day with his embossed froth
  5. The turbulent surge shall cover; thither come,
  6. And let my grave-stone be your oracle.
  7. Lips, let four words go by and language end!
  8. What is amiss, plague and infection mend!
  9. Graves only be men’s works, and death their gain!
  10. Sun, hide thy beams, Timon hath done his reign.
  1. Exit Timon.

First Senator

255 - 256
  1. His discontents are unremovably
  2. Coupled to nature.

Second Senator

257 - 259
  1. Our hope in him is dead. Let us return,
  2. And strain what other means is left unto us
  3. In our dear peril.

First Senator

260
  1.                    It requires swift foot.
  1. Exeunt.
Mr. Barry as Timon

Thou sun that comforts, burn!

Mr. Barry as Timon

E. and J. Wright; Vernor & Hood, booksellers; 1808

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