To the protection of the prosperous gods,
As thieves to keepers.
Flav.

Stay not, all's in vain.

Tim. Why, I was writing of my epitaph, It will be seen to-morrow; My long sickness3 Of health, and living, now begins to mend, And nothing brings me all things. Go, live still; Be Alcibiades your plague, you his,

And last so long enough!

1 Sen.

We speak in vain.

Tim. But yet I love my country, and am not

One that rejoices in the common wreck,

As common bruit doth put it.

1 Sen.

That's well spoke. Tim. Commend me to my loving countrymen,1 Sen. These words become your lips as they pass

through them.

2 Sen. And enter in our ears, like great triúmphers In their applauding gates.

Tim.

Commend me to them;

And tell them, that, to ease them of their griefs, Their fears of hostile strokes, their aches, losses, Their pangs of love, with other incident throes That nature's fragile vessel doth sustain

In life's uncertain voyage, I will some kindness do

them:

I'll teach them to prevent wild Alcibiades' wrath.
2 Sen. I like this well, he will return again.
Tim. I have a tree, which grows here in my close,

That mine own use invites me to cut down,
And shortly must I fell it; Tell my friends,

Tell Athens, in the sequence of degree,'

3

- My long sickness - The disease of life begins to pro

mise me a period.

4

5

bruit-] i. e. report, rumour.

in the sequence of degree,] Methodically, from highest

From high to low throughout, that whoso please
To stop affliction, let him take his haste,
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.

6

Tim. Come not to me again: but say to Athens, Timon hath made his everlasting mansion Upon the beached verge of the salt flood; Which once a day with his embossed froth The turbulent surge shall cover; thither come, And let my grave-stone 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 unremoveably

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."

2 Sen.

It requires swift foot. [Exeunt.

SCENE III.

The Walls of Athens.

Enter Two Senators, and a Messenger.

1 Sen. Thou hast painfully discover'd; are his files As full as thy report.

- embossed froth - Embossed froth, is swollen froth; from bosse, Fr. a tumour.

7 In our dear peril.] Dear, in Shakspeare's language, is dire, dreadful, but may, in the present instance, signify immediate, or imminent.

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 oppos'd, 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 mov'd.

1 Sen.

Enter Senators from 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 Tomb-stone seen.

Enter a Soldier, seeking TIMON.

Sold. By all description this should be the place. Who's here? speak, ho!-No answer? - What is

this?

Timon is dead, who hath outstretch'd his span: Some beast rear'd 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 ag'd 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 fill'd 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 wander'd with our travers'd arms, and breath'd
Our sufferance vainly: Now the time is flush,'
When crouching marrow, in the bearer strong,
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.

1 Sen.

Noble, and young,

When thy first griefs were but a mere conceit,

8 I cannot read, &c.] There is something elaborately unskilful in the contrivance of sending a Soldier, who cannot read, to take the epithet in wax, only that it may close the play by being read

with more solemnity in the last scene.

travers'd arms,] Arms across.

JOHNSON.

the time is flush,) A bird is flush when his feathers are

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 humble message, and by promis'd 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 receiv'd 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 loaths,) take thou the destin'd 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

• Shame, that they wanted cunning, in excess

Hath broke their hearts.] Shame in excess (i. e. extremity of shame) that they wanted cunning (i. e. that they were not wise

enough not to banish you) hath broke their hearts.

3

not square,] Not regular, not equitable.