Instruction, manners, mysteries, and trades,
Degrees, observances, customs, and laws,
Decline to your confounding contraries,1
And yet confusion live!-Plagues, incident to men,
Your potent and infectious fevers heap
On Athens, ripe for stroke! thou cold sciatica,
Cripple our senators, that their limbs may halt
As lamely as their manners! lust and liberty?
Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth;
That 'gainst the stream of virtue they may strive,
And drown themselves in riot! itches, blains,
Sow all the Athenian bosoms; and their crop
Be general leprosy! breath infect breath;
That their society, as their friendship, may
Be merely poison! Nothing I'll bear from thee,
But nakedness, thou detestable town!
Take thou that too, with multiplying banns! 3
Timon will to the woods; where he shall find
The unkindest beast more kinder than mankind.
The gods confound (hear me, you good gods all)
The Athenians both within and out that wall!
And grant, as Timon grows, his hate may grow
To the whole race of mankind, high and low!
Amen.
1 Contrarieties which destroy each other.
Enter FLAVIUS, with two or three SERVANTS.
1 Ser. Hear you, master steward, where 's our master?
Are we undone? cast off? nothing remaining?
Flav. Alack, my fellows, what should I say to
Let me be recorded by the righteous gods,
So noble a master fallen! All gone! and not
One friend, to take his fortune by the arm,
And go along with him!
As we do turn our backs
From our companion, thrown into his grave;
So his familiars to his buried fortunes
Slink all away; leave their false vows with him,
Like empty purses pick'd: and his poor self,
A dedicated beggar to the air,
With his disease of all-shunn'd poverty,
Walks, like contempt, alone.-More of our fellows.
Flav. All broken implements of a ruin'd house. 3 Ser. Yet do our hearts wear Timon's livery,
That see I by our faces; we are fellows still,
Serving alike in sorrow. Leak'd is our bark;
And we, poor mates, stand on the dying deck,
Hearing the surges threat: we must all part
Into this sea of air.
The latest of my wealth I'll share amongst you.
Wherever we shall meet, for Timon's sake,
Let's yet be fellows; let's shake our heads, and
As 'twere a knell unto our master's fortunes,
O, the fierce wretchedness that glory brings us!
Who would not wish to be from wealth exempt,
Since riches point to misery and contempt?
Who'd be so mock'd with glory? or to live
But in a dream of friendship?
To have his pomp, and all what state compounds,
But only painted, like his varnish'd friends?
Poor honest lord, brought low by his own heart;
Undone by goodness! Strange, unusual blood,o
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.
My dearest lord,-bless'd, to be most accursed;
Rich, only to be wretched;-thy great fortunes
Are made thy chief afflictions.
He's flung in rage from this ungrateful seat
Of monstrous friends: nor has he with him to
Supply his life, or that which can command it.
I'll follow, and inquire him out:
I'll serve his mind with my best will;
Whilst I have gold, I'll be his steward still. [Exit.
Timon. O blessed breeding sun, draw from the earth
Rotten humidity; below thy sister's orb
Infect the air! Twinn'd brothers of one womb,-
Whose procreation, residence, and birth
Scarce is dividant,-touch them with several for
The greater scorns the lesser: not nature,
To whom all sores lay siege, can bear great fortune,
But by contempt of nature.
Raise me this beggar, and deny 't that lord;
The senator shall bear contempt hereditary,
The beggar native honor.
It is the pasture lards the brother's sides,
The want that makes him lean. Who dares, who dares,
i. e. the moon's, this sublunary world
In purity of manhood stand upright,
And say, This man's a flatterer?' if one be,
So are they all; for every grize1 of fortune
Is smoothed by that below: the learned pate
Ducks to the golden fool. All is oblique ;
There's nothing level in our cursed natures,
But direct villany. Therefore, be abhorr'd,
All feasts, societies, and throngs of men!
His semblance, yea, himself, Timon disdains:
Destruction fang mankind!-Earth, yield me roots!
[digging.
Who seeks for better of thee, sauce his palate
With thy most operant poison! What is here?
Gold? yellow, glittering, precious gold? No, gods,
I am no idle votarist.3 Roots, you clear heavens !
Thus much of this, will make black white, foul
Wrong right, base noble, old young, coward valiant.
Ha, you gods! why this? What this, you gods? Why this
Will lug your priests and servants from your sides;
Pluck stout men's pillows from below their heads:
This yellow slave
Will knit and break religions; bless the accursed;
Make the hoar leprosy adored; place thieves,
And give them title, knee, and approbation,
1 Step or degree.
* No insincere supplicant.
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