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Then, if thou grant'st thou 'rt a man, I have forgot thee.

Flav. An honest poor servant of yours.

Tim. Then I know thee not.

I ne'er had honest man about me, I; all

I kept were knaves, to serve in meat to villains.
Flav. The gods are witness,

Ne'er did poor steward wear a truer grief
For his undone lord, than mine eyes for you.
Tim. What, dost thou weep?-Come nearer :-
then I love thee,

Because thou art a woman, and disclaim'st
Flinty mankind; whose eyes do never give
But thorough lust and laughter. Pity's sleeping:
Strange times, that weep with laughing, not with
weeping!

Flav. I beg of you to know me, good my lord, To accept my grief, and, whilst this poor wealth

lasts,

To entertain me as your steward still.

Tim. Had I a steward

So true, so just, and now so comfortable?
It almost turns my dangerous nature wild.
Let me behold thy face.-Surely this man
Was born of woman.-

Forgive my general and exceptless rashness,
Perpetual-sober gods! I do proclaim
One honest man,-mistake me not,-but one;
No
more, I pray; and he's a steward.-
How fain would I have hated all mankind,
And thou redeem'st thyself: but all, save thee,
I fell with curses.

Methinks thou art more honest now than wise;
For, by oppressing and betraying me,
Thou mightst have sooner got another service:
For many so arrive at second masters,

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Expecting in return twenty for one?

Flav. No, my most worthy master, in whose

breast

Doubt and suspect, alas! are placed too late; You should have feared false times when you did

feast;

Suspect still comes where an estate is least.
That which I shew, Heaven knows, is merely love,
Duty and zeal, to your unmatchéd mind;
Care of your food and living; and believe it,
My most honoured lord,

For any benefit that points to me,

Either in hope or present, I'd exchange
For this one wish, that you had power and wealth
To requite me, by making rich yourself.

Tim. Look thee, 't is so!-Thou singly honest

man,

Here, take the gods out of my misery
Have sent thee treasure. Go, live rich and happy:
But thus conditioned: thou shalt build from men;
Hate all, curse all; shew charity to none;
But let the famished flesh slide from the bone,
Ere thou relieve the beggar: give to dogs
What thou deny'st to men; let prisons swallow
them,

Debts wither them to nothing: be men like
blasted woods,
And
may diseases lick up
their false bloods!
And so farewell, and thrive.

Flav. O, let me stay and comfort you, my master!

Tim. If thou hat'st curses,

Stay not; fly while thou 'rt blessed and free: Ne'er see thou man, and let me ne'er see thee.

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SCENE I.-Before TIMON's Cave.

Enter Poet and Painter; TIMON behind, unseen. Pain. As I took note of the place, it cannot be far where he abides.

Poet. What's to be thought of him? Does the rumour hold for true, that he is so full of gold? Pain. Certain : Alcibiades reports it; Phrynia and Timandra had gold of him: he likewise enriched poor straggling soldiers with great quantity: 't is said, he gave unto his steward a mighty sum.

Poet. Then this breaking of his has been but a try for his friends.

Pain. Nothing else: you shall see him a palm in Athens again, and flourish with the highest. Therefore, 't is not amiss we tender our loves to him, in this supposed distress of his : it will shew honesty in us; and is very likely to load our purposes with what they travel for, if it be a just and true report that goes of his having.

Poet. What have you now to present unto him? Pain. Nothing at this time but my visitation: only I will promise him an excellent piece.

Poet. I must serve him so too; tell him of an intent that's coming toward him.

Pain. Good as the best. Promising is the very air o' the time: it opens the eyes of expectation:

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performance is ever the duller for his act; and, but in the plainer and simpler kind of people, the deed of saying is quite out of use. To promise is most courtly and fashionable: performance is a kind of will or testament, which argues a great sickness in his judgment that makes it.

Tim. Excellent workman! thou canst not paint a man so bad as is thyself.

Poet. I am thinking what I shall say I have provided for him. It must be a personating of himself: a satire against the softness of prosperity; with a discovery of the infinite flatteries that follow youth and opulency.

Tim. Must thou needs stand for a villain in thine own work? wilt thou whip thine own faults in other men? Do so; I have gold for thee. Poet. Nay, let's seek him:

Then do we sin against our own estate,
When we may profit meet, and come too late.
Pain. True;

When the day serves, before black-cornered night,
Find what thou want'st by free and offered light.
Come.

Tim. I'll meet you at the turn. What a god's gold, That he is worshipped in a baser temple Than where swine feed!

"Tis thou that rigg'st the bark, and plough'st the

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Tim. Have I once lived to see two honest men? Poet. Sir,

Having often of your open bounty tasted,
Hearing you were retired, your friends fall'n off,
Whose thankless natures-O, abhorréd spirits!
Not all the whips of heaven are large enough—
What! to you!

Whose starlike nobleness gave life and influence
To their whole being! I am rapt, and cannot cover
The monstrous bulk of this ingratitude
With any size of words.

Tim. Let it go naked; men may see 't the better: You that are honest, by being what you are, Make them best seen and known.

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Tim. Look you, I love you well; I'll give you gold,

Rid me these villains from your companies: Hang them, or stab them, drown them in a draught,

Confound them by some course, and come to me, I'll give you gold enough.

Both. Name them, my lord; let's know them. Tim. You that way, and you this; but two in company:

Each man apart, all single and alone, Yet an arch-villain keeps him company. If where thou art two villains shall not be, [To the Painter. Come not near him.-If thou wouldst not reside [To the Poet. But where one villain is, then him abandon.Hence! pack! there's gold; ye came for gold, ye slaves:

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Of its own fall, restraining aid to Timon;
And send forth us to make their sorrowed render,
Together with a recompense more fruitful
Than their offence can weigh down by the dram:
Ay, even such heaps and sums of love and wealth,
As shall to thee blot out what wrongs were theirs,
And write in thee the figures of their love,
Ever to read them thine.

Tim.

You witch me in it;
Surprise me to the very brink of tears:
Lend me a fool's heart, and a woman's eyes,
And I'll beweep these comforts, worthy senators.
1st Sen. Therefore, so please thee to return with us,
And of our Athens (thine and ours) to take
The captainship, thou shalt be met with thanks,
Allowed with absolute power, and thy good name
Live with authority. So, soon we shall drive back
Of Alcibiades the approaches wild;

Who, like a boar too savage, doth root up
His country's peace.

2nd Sen. And shakes his threat'ning sword Against the walls of Athens.

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If Alcibiades kill my countrymen,
Let Alcibiades know this of Timon,

That Timon cares not. But if he sack fair Athens,
And take our goodly agéd men by the beards,
Giving our holy virgins to the stain

Of contumelious, beastly, mad-brained war; Then let him know,-and tell him, Timon speaks it In pity of our aged and our youth,

I cannot choose but tell him, that I care not, And let him take 't at worst: for their knives care not,

While you have throats to answer: for myself,
There's not a whittle in the unruly camp,
But I do prize it at my love before
The reverend'st throat in Athens. So I leave you
To the protection of the prosperous gods,

As thieves to keepers.

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And tell them that, to ease them of their griefs,
Their fears of hostile strokes, their achés, 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.
2nd 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,
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.

Tim. Come not to me again: but say to Athens,
Timon hath made his everlasting mansion
Upon the beachéd verge of the salt flood;
Which once a day with his embosséd froth
The turbulent surge shall cover; thither come,
And let my gravestone 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. 1st Sen. His discontents are unremoveably Coupled to nature.

2nd Sen. Our hope in him is dead: let us return, And strain what other means is left unto us In our dear peril.

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