It comes in charity to thee; for all thy living
Is 'mongst the dead, and all the lands thou hast
Lie in a pitch'd field.

Alcib. Ay, defil'd land, my lord.

1 Lord. We are so virtuously bound, Tim. And so am I to you.

2 Lord. So infinitely endear'd,

Tim. All to you." - Lights! more lights!

1 Lord.

The best of happiness,

Honour, and fortunes, keep with you, lord Timon! Tim. Ready for his friends.

[Exeunt ALCIBIADES, Lords, &c.

Apem. What a coil's here!

Serving of becks, 22 and jutting out of bums!
I doubt whether their legs 23 be worth the sums
That are given for 'em. Friendship's full of dregs:
Methinks, false hearts should never have sound legs.
Thus honest fools lay out their wealth on courtesies.
Tim. Now, Apemantus, if thou wert not sullen,
I would be good to thee.

Apem. No, I'll nothing; for, if I should be brib'd too, there would be none left to rail upon thee, and then thou would'st sin the faster. Thou giv❜st so long, Timon, I fear me thou wilt give away thyself in paper shortly: What need these feasts, pomps, and vain glories?

Tim. Nay, an you begin to rail on society once, I am sworn not to give regard to you.

and come with better music.

Farewell; [Exit.

Apem. So ;—thou wilt not hear me now;

21 That is, all good wishes to you, or all happiness attend you. 22 A beck is a nod or salutation with the head.

23 He plays upon the word leg, as it signifies a limb, and a bow; to "make a leg" being formerly a ceremony of respect.

Thou shalt not then; I'll lock thy heaven 24 from

Enter a Senator, with Papers in his Hand.

Sen. And late, five thousand, -to Varro and to

Isidore

He owes nine thousand,

sum,

Still in motion

Which makes it five-and-twenty.

Of raging waste! It cannot hold; it will not.
If I want gold, steal but a beggar's dog,
And give it Timon, why, the dog coins gold:
If I would sell my horse, and buy twenty more
Better than he, why, give my horse to Timon;
Ask nothing, give it him, it foals me straight,'
And able horses. No porter at his gate;

But rather one that

All that pass by.2

smiles, and still invites
It cannot hold; no reason

24 By his heaven he means good advice; the only thing by which he could be saved.

1 We have the same thought, differently expressed, before: "No gift to him but breeds the giver a return exceeding all use of quittance."

н.

2 Sternness was the characteristic of a porter. There appeared

Can sound his state in safety.3 Caphis, ho!

Caphis, I say!

Caph.

Enter CAPHIS.

Here, sir: What is your pleasure?

Sen. Get on your cloak, and haste you to lord

Timon:

Importune him for my moneys; be not ceas'd
With slight denial; nor then silenc'd, when
"Commend me to your master
and the cap

Plays in the right hand, thus:- but tell him,
My uses cry to me; I must serve my turn
Out of mine own: his days and times are past,
And my reliances on his fracted dates"
Have smit my credit. I love and honour him,
But must not break my back to heal his finger:
Immediate are my needs; and my relief
Must not be toss'd and turn'd to me in words,
But find supply immediate. Get you gone:
Put on a most importunate aspect,

A visage of demand; for I do fear,
When every feather sticks in his own wing,

at Kenilworth Castle, 1575, "a porter tall of parson, big of lim, and stearn of countinauns." And in Dekker's play of A Knight's Conjuring: "You mistake, if you imagine that Plutoe's porter is like one of those big fellowes that stand like gyants at lordes gates. Yet hee's surly as those key-turners are.'

3 Johnson altered this to "found his state in safety." But the reading of the folio is evidently sound; which will bear explanation thus: No reason can proclaim his state in safety, or not dangerous. So in King Henry VIII., Act v. sc. 2: "Pray heaven, he sound not my disgrace! Again in Julius Cæsar, Act i. sc. 2: Why should that name be sounded more than yours?" 4 Fracted dates are bonds that have run past their date unpaid, and so are broken.

H.

5 To catch the full sense of this line, the reader should remem. ber that in the Poet's time his was continually used for its, as in the English Bible; its not being then a legitimate word. See 2 Henry IV., Act i. sc. 2, note 16.

H.

Lord Timon will be left a naked gull, 6

Which flashes now a phoenix.

Caph. I go, sir.

Get you gone.

Sen. Ay, go, sir:-Take the bonds along with

you,

And have the dates in compt.

Caph. I will, sir.

Sen. Go.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

The Same. A Hall in TIMON'S House.

Enter FLAVIUS, with many Bills in his Hand. Flav. No care, no stop! so senseless of expense, That he will neither know how to maintain it, Nor cease his flow of riot; takes no account How things go from him; no reserve, no care Of what is to continue: Never mind

Was truly so unwise, to be so kind.2

6 This passage has been thus explained by Roger Wilbraham in his Glossary of words used in Cheshire: "Gull, naked gull; so are called all nestling birds in quite an unfledged state. They have a yellowish cast; and the word is, I believe, derived from the Anglo Saxon geole, yellow. The commentators, not aware of the meaning of the term naked gull, blunder in their attempts to explain those words in Timon of Athens." Mr. Boswell observes that in the Black Book, 1604, a young heir is termed a gull-finch; and that it is probably used with the same meaning in When You See Me You Know Me, by Samuel Rowley, 1633: "The angels have flown about to night, and two gulls are light into my hands."

7 Which for who; referring to Timon, not to gull.

H.

The original gives this passage thus: "Nor resume no care of what is to continue." Modern editors affix an s to resume, and make no further change. Nor resumes no care is, to say the least, very clumsy both in language and in sense. The emendation is from Mr. Collier's second folio. We think there can be little doubt of its correctness.

H.

2 The original has,-"Never minde, was to be so unwise, to

What shall be done? He will not hear, till feel:

I must be round with him,3 now he comes from

hunting.

Fie, fie, fie, fie!

Enter CAPHIS, and the Servants of ISIDORE and VARRO.

Caph. Good even, Varro :1 What! you come for money?

V. Serv. Is't not your business too?

Caph. It is: And yours too, Isidore?
I. Serv. It is so.

Caph. 'Would we were all discharg'd!
V. Serv. I fear it.

Caph. Here comes the lord.

Enter TIMON, ALCIBIADES, and Lords, &c.

Tim. So soon as dinner's done, we'll forth again," My Alcibiades.— With me! What is your will?

Caph. My lord, here is a note of certain dues.

be so kinde." It is difficult to make any sense out of this. The common explanation goes thus: "Never mind was made to be unwise in order to be so kind." Truly is found written in a copy of the second folio belonging to Mr. Singer. It removes all the difficulty, and might easily have been misprinted to be. Mr. Collier's second folio has surely, which gives nearly the same sense as truly, but infers a much less likely misprint.

H.

3 That is, frank, plain, outspoken with him. Round was often so used.

H.

4 Servants were often addressed by the name of their masters. - Good even, or good den was the common salutation from noon, the moment of time when good morrow or good morning ceased to be proper.

H.

5 That is, to hunting; in our author's time it was the custom to hunt as well after dinner as before. Thus in Tancred and Gismunda, 1592: "He means this evening in the park to hunt." Queen Elizabeth, during her stay at Kenilworth Castle, always hunted in the afternoon.