TIMON OF ATHENS.

ACT I.

SCENE I. Athens. A Hall in Timon's House.

Enter Poet, Painter, Jeweller, Merchant, and Others, at several Doors.

Poet. Good day, sir.

Pain.

I am glad you are well.

Poet. I have not seen you long; How goes the

world?

Pain. It wears, sir, as it grows.
Poet.

Ay, that's well known:

But what particular rarity? what strange,
Which manifold record not matches? See,
Magick of bounty! all these spirits thy power
Hath conjur'd to attend. I know the merchant.
Pain. I know them both; t'other's a jeweller.

Mer. O, 'tis a worthy lord!

Jew.

Nay, that's most fix'd.

Mer. A most incomparable man; breath'd, as it

were,1

To an untirable and continuate goodness:

He passes.2

Jew.

I have a jewel here.

1-breath'd, as it were,] Breathed is inured by constant practice; so trained as not to be wearied. To breathe a horse, is to exercise him for the course. JOHNSON.

2 He passes.] i. e. exceeds, goes beyond common bounds.

c2

Mer. O, pray, let's see't: For the lord Timon, sir?

Jew. If he will touch the estimate: But, for that

Poet. When we for recompense* have prais'd the

vile,

It stains the glory in that happy verse

Which aptly sings the good.
Mer.

'Tis a good form.

[Looking at the Jewel.

Jew. And rich: here is a water, look you.
Pain. You are rapt, sir, in some work, some de-

dication

To the great lord.
Poet.

A thing slipp'd idly from me.

Our poesy is as a gum, which oozes

From whence 'tis nourished: The fire i'the flint
Shows not, till it be struck; our gentle flame
Provokes itself, and, like the current, flies

5

Each bound it chafes. What have you there?

Pain. A picture, sir. And when comes your

book forth?

Poet. Upon the heels of my presentment, sir.

Let's see your piece.

3

Pain.

'Tis a good piece.

Poet. So 'tis: this comes off well and excellent.

Pain. Indifferent.

Poet.

Admirable: How this grace

- touch the estimate:] Come up to the price.

* When we for recompense, &c.] We must here suppose the

poet busy in reading in his own work; and that these three lines are the introduction of the poem addressed to Timon, which he afterwards gives the Painter an account of. WARBURTON.

5

- and, like the current, flies

Each bound it chafes.] This jumble of incongruous images, seems to have been designed, and put into the mouth of the Poetaster, that the reader might appreciate his talents: his language therefore should not be considered in the abstract.

Speaks his own standing! what a mental power
This eye shoots forth! how big imagination
Moves in this lip! to the dumbness of the gesture

One might interpret.

Pain. It is a pretty mocking of the life.

Here is a touch; Is't good?

Poet.

I'll say of it,

It tutors nature: artificial strife
Lives in these touches, livelier than life.

Enter certain Senators, and pass over.

Pain. How this lord's follow'd!

Poet. The senators of Athens:-Happy men!
Pain. Look, more!

Poet. You see this confluence, this great flood of

visitors.

I have, in this rough work, shap'd out a man,
Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug
With amplest entertainment: My free drift
Halts not particularly, but moves itself
In a wide sea of wax:8 no levell'd malice 9
Infects one comma in the course I hold;
But flies an eagle flight, bold, and forth on,
Leaving no tract behind.

Pain. How shall I understand you?
Poet.

I'll unbolt1 to you.

You see how all conditions, how all minds,
(As well of glib and slippery creatures, as
Of grave and austere quality,) tender down
Their services to lord Timon: his large fortune,
Upon his good and gracious nature hanging,
Subdues and properties to his love and tendance
All sorts of hearts; yea, from the glass-fac'd flatterer
To Apemantus, that few things loves better
Than to abhor himself: even he drops down
The knee before him, and returns in peace
Most rich in Timon's nod.

Pain.

2

I saw them speak together.

Poet. Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill, Feign'd Fortune to be thron'd: The base o'the mount Is rank'd with all deserts, all kind of natures, That labour on the bosom of this sphere To propagate their states: amongst them all, Whose eyes are on this sovereign lady fix'd, One do I personate of lord Timon's frame, Whom Fortune with her ivory hand wafts to her; Whose present grace to present slaves and servants Translates his rivals.

Pain.

'Tis conceiv'd to scope.5 This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks, With one man beckon'd from the rest below, Bowing his head against the steepy mount

To climb his happiness, would be well express'd

In our condition."

2

Poet.

Nay, sir, but hear me on:

-glass-fac'd flatterer-] That shows in his look, as by reflection, the looks of his patron. JOHNSON.

3

of men.

rank'd with all deserts,] Cover'd with ranks of all kinds JOHNSON.

* To propagate their states:] To advance or improve their various conditions of life. JOHNSON.

conceiv'd to scope.] Properly imagined, appositely, to the

1

t

All those which were his fellows but of late,
(Some better than his value,) on the moment
Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tendance,
Rain sacrificial whisperings' in his ear,
Make sacred even his stirrop, and through him
Drink the free air.

Pain.

8

Ay, marry, what of these?

Poet. When Fortune, in her shift and change of
mood,

Spurns down her late belov'd, all his dependants,
Which labour'd after him to the mountain's top,
Even on their knees and hands, let him slip down,
Not one accompanying his declining foot.

Pain. 'Tis common:

A thousand moral paintings I can show,
That shall demonstrate these quick blows of fortune
More pregnantly than words. Yet you do well,
To show lord Timon, that mean eyes' have seen
The foot above the head.

Trumpets sound. Enter TIMON, attended; the Servant of VENTIDIUS talking with him.

Tim.

Imprison'd is he, say you? Ven. Serv. Ay, my good lord: five talents is his debt;

His means most short, his creditors most strait:
Your honourable letter he desires

To those have shut him up; which failing to him,

1 Rain sacrificial whisperings-] i. e. whisperings of officious servility, the incense of the worshipping parasite to the patron as to a god.

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through him

Drink the free air.] That is, breathe only with his permission. 9 A thousand moral paintings I can show,] Shakspeare seems to intend in this dialogue to express sonie competition between the two great arts of imitation. Whatever the poet declares himself

to have shown, the painter thinks he could have shown better.

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- mean eyes-] i. e. inferior spectators.