Flav

I beseech your honour,

Vouchsafe me a word; it does concern you near. I
Tim. Near? why then another time I'll hear thee:
I pr'ythee, let us be provided25
To show them entertainment.

Flav.

dould

ObomĮ scarce know how.

betasol Enter another Servant. →

Aside.

2 Serv. May it please your honour, the Lord Lucius,

Out of his free love, hath presented to you

Four milk-white horses, trapp'd in silver.

Tim. I shall accept them fairly: let the presents

Be worthily entertain'd, How now, what news? 3 Serv. Please you, my lord, that honourable gentleman, Lord Lucullus, entreats your company to-morrow to hunt with him; and has sent your honour two brace of greyhounds."

Tim. I'll hunt with him; And let them be receiv'd,

Not without fad.

e commands us to provide, and give

Flav. [Aside.] What will this come to?

Great gifts

and all out of an empty coffer.

Nor will he know his purse; or yield me this,
To show him what a beggar his heart is,
Being of no power to make his wishes good;
His promises fly so beyond his state,

That what he speaks is all in debt, he owes

For every word; he is so kind, that he es

now

Pays interest for't; his land's put to their books. Well, would I were gently put out of office, Before I were forc'd out!

Happier is he that has no friend to feed,

25 Steevens, to complete the measure, proposes to read: I praythee, let us be provided straight."

Than such as do even enemies exceed.
I bleed inwardly for my lord.

Tim.

[Exit.

gold You do yourselves

Much wrong, you bate too much of your own

merits:

Here, my lord, a trifle of our love.

2 Lord. With more than common thanks I will receive it.

3 Lord. O, he is the very soul of bounty! Tim. And now I remember, my lord, you gave Good words the other day of a bay courser I rode on: it is yours, b because you lik'd it.

2 Lord. I beseech you, pardon me, my lord, in that. Tim. You may take my word, my lord; I know, no man Can justly praise, but what he does affect: I weigh my friend's affection with mine own; I'll tell you true. I'll call on you. All Lords.

None so welcome.

Tim. I take all and your several visitations So kind to heart, 'tis not enough to give; Methinks, I could deal26 kingdoms to my friends, And ne'er be weary.-Alcibiades,

Thou art a soldier, therefore seldom rich,

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. 鮮雞

Alcib.

Ay, defiled land, my lord. 1 Lord. We are so virtuously bound,-

Tim.

And so

Am I to you.

2 Lord.

So infinitely endeared,

Tim. All to you27-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.

26 i. e. could dispense them on every side with an ungrudging distribution.

27 That is, all good wishes to you,' or 'all happiness attend you.'

What a coil's here!

Apem.
Serving of becks28, and jutting out of bums!
I doubt whether their legs29 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 court'sies.
Tim. Now, Apemantus, if thou wert not sullen,
I'd be good to thee.

Apem. No, I'll nothing: for, if should be brib'd too, there would be none left to rail upon thee; and then thou would'st sin the faster. Thou givest so long, Timon, I fear me, thou wilt give away

thyself in a 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. Farewell; and come with better music. [Exit. Apem. So;-thou'lt not hear me now,-thou shalt not then; I'll lock thy heaven31 from thee.

O, that men's ears should be

To counsel deaf, but not to flattery!

[Exit:

28 A beck is a nod or salutation with the head. Steevens says that beck has four distinct significations, but they will resolve themselves into two. Beck, a rivulet, or little river; and beck a motion or sign with the head; signa capitis voluntatem ostendens. This last may be either a nod of salutation, of assent or dissent, or finally of command.

29 He plays upon the word leg, as it signifies a limb, and a bow or act of obeisance.

30 Warburton explained this be ruined by his securities entered into. Dr. Farmer would read proper, i. e.

suppose, in propria persona, Steevens supports this reading by a quotation from Roy's Satire on Cardinal Wolsey:

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ their order

Is to have nothing in proper,

But to use all thynges in commune.'

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

ACT II.

SCENE I. Athens. A Room in a Senator's House.

Enter a Senator, with papers in his hand..

Sen. And late, five thousand to Varro; and to
Isidore

He owes nine thousand; besides my former sum, es
Which makes it five and twenty. Still in motion
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 me1, straight,
And able horses: No porter at his gate2;
But rather one that smiles, and still invites

All that pass by. It cannot hold; no reason
Can sound his state in safety3. Caphis, ho!
Caphis, I say!

com

1 The commentators have made difficulties about this passage, which appears to me quite plain and intelligible without a ment. If I give my horse to Timon it immediately foals, i. e. produces me several able horses.' We have, as Malone observes, the same sentiment, differently expressed, before:

no meed but he repays

Sevenfold above itself; no gift to him

But breeds the giver a return exceeding

All use of quittance."

2 Sternness was the characteristic of a porter. There appeared at Kenilworth Castle [1575] a porter tall of parson, big of lim, and stearn of countinauns.' And in Decker's play of A Knight's Conjuring, &c. You mistake, if you imagine that Plutoe's porter is like one of those big fellowes that stand like gyants at lordes gates, &c. Yet hee's surly as those key-turners are. The word one, in the second line, does not refer to porter, but means a person. He has no stern forbidding porter at his gate to keep people out, but a person who smiles and invites them in.'

3 Johnson altered this to found his state in safety. But the reading of the folio is evidently sound, which I think 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?'

Caph.

Enter CAPHIS.

A

Here, sir; What is your pleasure? Sen. Get on your cloak, and haste you to Lord

Timon;

Impórtune him for my monies; be not ceas'd4

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, sirrah,
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:

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 aspéct, A visage of demand; for, I do fear, When every feather sticks in his own wing, Lord Timon will be left a naked gull5, Which flashes now a phoenix. Get you gone. Caph. I go, sir.

Sen. I go, sir?-take the bonds along with you, And have the dates in compt.

4 Be not stayed or stopped

Why should Tiberius' liberty be ceased?

Claudius Tiberius Nero, 1607. 5 This passage has been thus explained by Roger Wilbraham, Esq. in his Glossary of words used in Cheshire: Gull, s. a 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 A. S. geole, or the Sui. Got. gul, yellow, Somn. and Ihre. The commentators, not aware of the meaning of the term naked gull, blunder in their attempts to explain those words in Timon of Athens.-Archæologia, vol. xix. Mr. Boswell observes that in the Blacke Booke, 1604, sig. C. 3. 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 Sam. Rowley, 1633, sig. E. 2. verso, The angels has flown about to night, and two gulls are light into my hands.'

Which for who. The pronoun relative applied to things is frequently used for the pronoun relative applied to persons by old writers, and does not seem to have been thought a grammatical error. It is still preserved in the Lord's prayer.