William Shakespeare

“ TIMON.
Wouldst thou have thyself fall in the confusion of men and remain a beast with the beasts?
APEMANTUS.
Ay, Timon.
TIMON.
A beastly ambition, which the gods grant thee t’ attain to. If thou wert the lion, the fox would beguile thee; if thou wert the lamb, the fox would eat thee; if thou wert the fox, the lion would suspect thee when peradventure thou wert accused by the ass; if thou wert the ass, thy dulness would torment thee, and still thou lived’st but as a breakfast to the wolf ”

“ Great men should drink with harness on their throats.
TIMON.
My lord, in heart, and let the health go round.
SECOND LORD.
Let it flow this way, my good lord.
APEMANTUS.
Flow this way? A brave fellow! He keeps his tides well. Those healths will make thee and thy state look ill, Timon.
Here’s that which is too weak to be a sinner,
Honest water, which ne’er left man i’ the mire.
This and my food are equals, there’s no odds.
Feasts are too proud to give thanks to the gods.
Apemantus’ grace
Immortal gods, I crave no pelf,
I pray for no man but myself. ”

“ SECOND LORD.
Fare thee well, fare thee well.
APEMANTUS.
Thou art a fool to bid me farewell twice.
SECOND LORD.
Why, Apemantus?
APEMANTUS.
Shouldst have kept one to thyself, for I mean to give thee none.
FIRST LORD.
Hang thyself!
APEMANTUS.
No, I will do nothing at thy bidding. Make thy requests to thy friend.
SECOND LORD.
Away, unpeaceable dog, or I’ll spurn thee hence.
APEMANTUS.
I will fly, like a dog, the heels o’ th’ ass.
[Exit.]
FIRST LORD.
He’s opposite to humanity. Come, shall we in
And taste Lord Timon’s bounty? He outgoes
The very heart of kindness. ”

“ Go great with tigers, dragons, wolves, and bears;
Teem with new monsters, whom thy upward face
Hath to the marbled mansion all above
Never presented. O, a root, dear thanks!
Dry up thy marrows, vines and plough-torn leas,
Whereof ingrateful man, with liquorish draughts
And morsels unctuous greases his pure mind,
That from it all consideration slips—
Enter Apemantus.
More man? Plague, plague!
APEMANTUS.
I was directed hither. Men report
Thou dost affect my manners and dost use them.
TIMON.
’Tis, then, because thou dost not keep a dog
Whom I would imitate. ”

“ Lend to each man enough, that one need not lend to another; for, were your godheads to borrow of men, men would forsake the gods. Make the meat be beloved more than the man that gives it. Let no assembly of twenty be without a score of villains. If there sit twelve women at the table, let a dozen of them be as they are. The rest of your foes, O gods, the senators of Athens, together with the common lag of people, what is amiss in them, you gods, make suitable for destruction. ”

“ Timon has been this lord’s father
And kept his credit with his purse,
Supported his estate, nay, Timon’s money
Has paid his men their wages. He ne’er drinks
But Timon’s silver treads upon his lip,
And yet—O, see the monstrousness of man
When he looks out in an ungrateful shape—
He does deny him, in respect of his,
What charitable men afford to beggars. ”

“ APEMANTUS.
An thou’dst hated medlars sooner, thou shouldst have loved thyself better now. What man didst thou ever know unthrift that was beloved after his means?
TIMON.
Who, without those means thou talk’st of, didst thou ever know beloved?
APEMANTUS.
Myself.
TIMON.
I understand thee. Thou hadst some means to keep a dog.
APEMANTUS.
What things in the world canst thou nearest compare to thy flatterers?
TIMON.
Women nearest; but men—men are the things themselves. What wouldst thou do with the world, Apemantus, if it lay in thy power? ”

“ TIMON.
You gods, reward them!
Prithee, man, look cheerly. These old fellows
Have their ingratitude in them hereditary.
Their blood is caked, ’tis cold, it seldom flows;
’Tis lack of kindly warmth they are not kind;
And nature, as it grows again toward earth,
Is fashioned for the journey, dull and heavy.
Go to Ventidius. Prithee, be not sad,
Thou art true and honest, ingenuously I speak,
No blame belongs to thee. ”

“ Enter Timon from his cave.
TIMON.
[Aside.] 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.
TIMON.
[Aside.] Must thou needs stand for a villain in thine own work? Wilt thou whip thine own faults in other men? ”

“ APEMANTUS.
Do it then, that we may account thee a whoremaster and a knave, which notwithstanding, thou shalt be no less esteemed.
VARRO’S SERVANT.
What is a whoremaster, fool?
FOOL.
A fool in good clothes, and something like thee. ’Tis a spirit; sometime ’t appears like a lord, sometime like a lawyer, sometime like a philosopher, with two stones more than’s artificial one. He is very often like a knight; and generally, in all shapes that man goes up and down in from fourscore to thirteen, this spirit walks in. ”

“ APEMANTUS.
I scorn thy meat, ’twould choke me, for I should ne’er flatter thee. O you gods, what a number of men eats Timon, and he sees ’em not! It grieves me to see so many dip their meat in one man’s blood; and all the madness is, he cheers them up too.
I wonder men dare trust themselves with men. ”

“ FLAMINIUS.
Faith, nothing but an empty box, sir, which in my lord’s behalf I come to entreat your honour to supply; who, having great and instant occasion to use fifty talents, hath sent to your lordship to furnish him, nothing doubting your present assistance therein.
LUCULLUS.
La, la, la, la! Nothing doubting, says he? Alas, good lord! A noble gentleman ’tis, if he would not keep so good a house. ”

“ Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tendance,
Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear,
Make sacred even his stirrup, and through him
Drink the free air.
PAINTER.
Ay, marry, what of these?
POET.
When Fortune in her shift and change of mood
Spurns down her late beloved, all his dependants,
Which laboured after him to the mountain’s top
Even on their knees and hands, let him slip down,
Not one accompanying his declining foot.
PAINTER.
’Tis common.
A thousand moral paintings I can show
That shall demonstrate these quick blows of Fortune’s
More pregnantly than words. ”

“ TIMON.
To sauce thy dishes.
APEMANTUS.
The middle of humanity thou never knewest, but the extremity of both ends. When thou wast in thy gilt and thy perfume, they mocked thee for too much curiosity; in thy rags thou know’st none, but art despised for the contrary. There’s a medlar for thee. Eat it. ”

“ Poor honest lord, brought low by his own heart,
Undone by goodness! Strange, unusual blood
When man’s worst sin is he does too much good!
Who then dares to be half so kind again?
For bounty, that makes gods, does still mar men. ”

“ He that loves to be flattered is worthy o’ th’ flatterer. Heavens, that I were a lord!
TIMON.
What wouldst do then, Apemantus?
APEMANTUS.
E’en as Apemantus does now, hate a lord with my heart.
TIMON.
What, thyself?
APEMANTUS.
Ay.
TIMON.
Wherefore?
APEMANTUS.
That I had no angry wit to be a lord. Art not thou a merchant?
MERCHANT.
Ay, Apemantus.
APEMANTUS.
Traffic confound thee, if the gods will not.
MERCHANT.
If traffic do it, the gods do it.
APEMANTUS.
Traffic’s thy god, and thy god confound thee!
Trumpet sounds. Enter a Messenger. ”

“ TIMON.
Each man to his stool with that spur as he would to the lip of his mistress. Your diet shall be in all places alike. Make not a city feast of it, to let the meat cool ere we can agree upon the first place. Sit, sit. The gods require our thanks:
You great benefactors, sprinkle our society with thankfulness. For your own gifts make yourselves praised, but reserve still to give, lest your deities be despised. ”

“ ALCIBIADES.
What is it, Timon?
TIMON.
Promise me friendship, but perform none. If thou wilt not promise, the gods plague thee, for thou art a man. If thou dost perform, confound thee, for thou art a man. ”

“ Wert thou the unicorn, pride and wrath would confound thee and make thine own self the conquest of thy fury; wert thou a bear, thou wouldst be killed by the horse; wert thou a horse, thou wouldst be seized by the leopard; wert thou a leopard, thou wert germane to the lion, and the spots of thy kindred were jurors on thy life. All thy safety were remotion, and thy defence absence. What beast couldst thou be that were not subject to a beast? ”

“ Make soft thy trenchant sword, for those milk paps
That through the window-bars bore at men’s eyes,
Are not within the leaf of pity writ,
But set them down horrible traitors. Spare not the babe,
Whose dimpled smiles from fools exhaust their mercy ”

“ O you gods, think I, what need we have any friends if we should ne’er have need of ’em? They were the most needless creatures living, should we ne’er have use for ’em, and would most resemble sweet instruments hung up in cases, that keep their sounds to themselves. Why, I have often wished myself poorer that I might come nearer to you. We are born to do benefits, and what better or properer can we call our own than the riches of our friends? O, what a precious comfort ’tis to have so many, like brothers, commanding one another’s fortunes. O joy’s e’en made away ere’t can be born! ”

“ APEMANTUS.
There will little learning die, then, that day thou art hanged. This is to Lord Timon, this to Alcibiades. Go, thou wast born a bastard, and thou’lt die a bawd.
PAGE.
Thou wast whelped a dog, and thou shalt famish a dog’s death. Answer not; I am gone. ”

“ Out, rascal dogs!
[Timon drives them out and then retires to his cave]
SCENE II. The same Enter Flavius and two Senators.
FLAVIUS.
It is vain that you would speak with Timon.
For he is set so only to himself
That nothing but himself which looks like man
Is friendly with him.
FIRST SENATOR.
Bring us to his cave.
It is our part and promise to th’ Athenians
To speak with Timon.
SECOND SENATOR.
At all times alike
Men are not still the same: ’twas time and griefs
That framed him thus. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Most honoured Timon,
It hath pleas'd the Gods to remember my Fathers age,
And call him to long peace:
He is gone happy, and has left me rich:
Then, as in gratefull Vertue I am bound
To your free heart, I do returne those Talents
Doubled with thankes and seruice, from whose helpe
I deriu'd libertie
Tim. O by no meanes,
Honest Ventigius: You mistake my loue,
I gaue it freely euer, and ther's none
Can truely say he giues, if he receiues:
If our betters play at that game, we must not dare
To imitate them: faults that are rich are faire
Vint. ”

“ You must eate men. Yet thankes I must you con,
That you are Theeues profest: that you worke not
In holier shapes: For there is boundlesse Theft
In limited Professions. Rascall Theeues
Heere's Gold. Go, sucke the subtle blood o'th' Grape,
Till the high Feauor seeth your blood to froth,
And so scape hanging. Trust not the Physitian,
His Antidotes are poyson, and he slayes
Moe then you Rob: Take wealth, and liues together,
Do Villaine do, since you protest to doo't.
Like Workemen, Ile example you with Theeuery:
The Sunnes a Theefe, and with his great attraction
Robbes the vaste Sea. ”

“ Lucius, Lucullus, and Sempronius, all.
I’ll once more feast the rascals.
FLAVIUS.
O my lord,
You only speak from your distracted soul;
There is not so much left to furnish out
A moderate table.
TIMON.
Be it not in thy care. Go,
I charge thee, invite them all. Let in the tide
Of knaves once more. My cook and I’ll provide.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE V. The same. The senate house Enter three Senators at one door, Alcibiades meeting them, with Attendants.
FIRST SENATOR.
My lord, you have my voice to ’t. The fault’s
Bloody. ’Tis necessary he should die. ”

“ Who liues, that's not depraued, or depraues;
Who dyes, that beares not one spurne to their graues
Of their Friends guift:
I should feare, those that dance before me now,
Would one day stampe vpon me: 'Tas bene done,
Men shut their doores against a setting Sunne.
The Lords rise from Table, with much adoring of Timon, and to shew their loues, each single out an Amazon, and all Dance, men with women, a loftie straine or two to the Hoboyes, and cease. ”

“ Good for their meat, and safer for their lives.
There’s much example for ’t. The fellow that sits next him, now parts bread with him, pledges the breath of him in a divided draft, is the readiest man to kill him. ”