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Tim. But yet I love my country; and am not One that rejoices in the common wreck,

As common bruit doth put it.

1 Sen. That's well spoke.

Tim. Commend me to my loving countrymen,

1 Sen. These words become your lips as they pass through them.

2 Sen. And enter in our ears, like great triumphers In their applauding gates.

Tim. Commend me to them;

And tell them, that, to ease them of their griefs,
Their fears of hostile strokes, their aches, 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.

2 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 halth 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 beached verge of the salt flood;
Which once a day with his embossed froth
The turbulent surge shall cover; thither come,
And let my grave-stone 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. [Ex. Tım. 1 Sen. His discontents are unremoveably

Coupled to nature.

2 Sen. Our hope in him is dead: Let us return, And strain what other means is left unto us

In our dear peril."

1 Sen. It requires swift foot.

[8] Methodically, from highest to lowest.

JOHNSON.

7 Dear, in Shakespeare's language, is dire, dreadful. So in Hamlet, "Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven."

[Exeunt.

MALONE

SCENE III.

The Walls of Athens. Enter two Senators, and a Messenger. 1 Sen. Thou hast painfully discover'd; are his files As full as thy report?

Mes. I have spoke the least: Besides, his expedition promises Present approach.

2 Sen. We stand much hazard, if they bring not Timon. Mes. I met a courier, one mine ancient friend

Whom, though in general part we were oppos'd,
Yet our old love made a particular force,

And made us speak like friends :-this man was riding
From Alcibiades to Timon's cave,

With letters of entreaty, which imported

His fellowship i'the cause against your city,
In part for his sake mov'd.

Enter Senators from TIMON.

1 Sen. Here come our brothers.

3 Sen. No talk of Timon, nothing of him expect.— The enemies' drum is heard, and fearful scouring Doth choke the air with dust: In, and prepare ; Ours is the fall, I fear, our foes the snare.

SCENE IV.

The Woods. TIMON's Cave, and a Tombstone seen. a Soldier, seeking TIMON.

Sol. By all description this should be the place.

[Exeunt.

Enter

Who's here? speak, ho!-No answer?-What is this?
Timon is dead, who hath outstrech'd his span :
Some beast rear'd this; there does not live a man.

Dead, sure; and this his grave.

What's on this tomb I cannot read; the character

I'll take with wax: Our captain hath in every figure skill;
An ag'd interpreter, though young in days:
Before proud Athens he's set down by this,
Whose fall the mark of his ambition is.

[Exit.

[8] I am fully convinced that this, and many other passages of our author, have been irretrievably corrupted by transcribers or printers, and could not have proceeded in their present state from Shakespeare; for what we cannot understand in the closet, must have been wholly useless on the stage. The awkward repetition of the word made, strongly countenances my present observation. STEEVENS. VOL. VIII. L 2

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Enter Senators on the walls.

Till now you have gone on, and fill'd the time
With all licentious measure, making your wills
The scope of justice; till now, myself, and such
As slept within the shadow of your power,

Have wander'd with our travers'd arms, and breath'd
Our sufferance vainly: Now the time is flush,'
When crouching marrow, in the bearer strong,
Cries, of itself, No more : now breathless wrong
Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease;
And pursy insolence shall break his wind,.,
With fear, and horrid flight.

1 Sen. Noble, and young,

When thy first griefs were but a mere conceit,
Ere thou hadst power, or we had cause for fear,
We sent to thee; to give thy rages balm,

To wipe out our ingratitude with loves
Above their quantity.3

2 Sen. So did we woo
Transformed Timon to our city's love,

By humble message, and by promis'd means;
We were not all unkind, nor all deserve
The common stroke of war.

1 Sen. These walls of ours

Were not erected by their hands, from whom

You have receiv'd your griefs: nor are they such,
That these great towers, trophies, and schools should fall
For private faults in them.

2 Sen. Nor are they living,

Who were the motives that you first went out;

Shame, that they wanted cunning, in excess

Hath broke their hearts.

[9] Travers'd arms, arms across..

March, noble lord,

JOHNSON.

[1]A bird is flush when his feathers are grown, and he can leave the nest. Flush

is mature.

JOHNSON.

[2] The marrow was supposed to be the original of strength. The image is from a camel kneeling to take up his load, who rises immediately when he finds he has as much laid on as he can bear.

[8] Their refers to griefs.

MALONE.

WARBURTON.

Into our city with thy banners spread :
By decimation, and a tithed death,
(If thy revenges hunger for that food,

Which nature loaths,) take thou the destin❜d tenth
And by the hazard of the spotted die,
Let die the spotted.

1 Sen. All have not offended;

4

For those that were, it is not square, to take,
On those that are, revenges: crimes, like lands,
Are not inherited. Then, dear countryman,
Bring in thy ranks, but leave without thy rage:
Spare thy Athenian cradle, and those kin,
Which, in the bluster of thy wrath, must fall
With those that have offended: like a shepherd,
Approach the fold, and cull the infected forth,
But kill not all together.

2 Sen. What thou wilt,

Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smile,
Than hew to't with thy sword.

1 Sen. Set but thy foot

Against our rampir'd gates, and they shall ope;
So thou wilt send thy gentle heart before,
To say, thou❜lt enter friendly.

2 Sen. Throw thy glove,

Or any token of thine honour else,

That thou wilt use the wars as thy redress,
And not as our confusion, all thy powers
Shall make their harbour in our town, till we
Have seal'd thy full desire.

Alcib. Then there's my glove;

Descend, and open your uncharg❜d ports ;
Those enemies of Timon's, and mine own,
Whom you yourselves shall set out for reproof,
Fall, and no more: and,-to atone your
fears
With my more noble meaning,—not a man
Shall pass his quarter, or offend the stream
Of regular justice in your city's bounds,
But shall be remedied, to your public laws
At heaviest answer. 6

Both. "Tis most nobly spoken.

Alcib. Descend, and keep your words.

[The Senators descend, and open the gates.

[4] Not reguluar, not equitable. Uncharged means unattacked.

JOHNSON.
MASON.

[6] Not a soldier shall quit his station, or be let loose upon you; and, if any com mits violence, he shall auswer it regularly to the law.

JOHNSON.

Enter a Soldier.

Sol. My noole general, Timon is dead ;
Entomb'd upon the very hem o'the sea :

And, on his grave-stone, this insculpture; which
With wax I brought away, whose soft impression
Interprets for my poor ignorance.

Alcib. [Reads.] Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft:

Seek not my name: A plague consume you wicked caitiff's

left!

Here lie I Timon; who, alive, all living men did hate :
Pass by, and curse thy fill; but pass, and stay not here thy

gait."

These well express in thee thy latter spirits:

Though thou abhorr'dst in us our human griefs,

Scorn'dst our brain's flow, and those our droplets which
From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit

Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye
On thy low grave, on faults forgiven.

Is noble Timon; of whose memory

Dead

Hereafter more.-Bring me into your city,

And I will use the olive with my sword:

Make war breed peace; make peace stint war; make each Prescribe to other, as each other's leech.8

Let our drums strike.

[Exeunt.

[7] This epitaph is in sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch, with the difference of one word only, wretches instead of caitiffs.

STEEVENS.

[8] Physician.

STEEVENS.

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