| ACT II SCENE II | The same. A hall in Timon's house. | |
| [Enter FLAVIUS, with many bills in his hand] |
| FLAVIUS | 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, nor resumes no care |
| Of what is to continue: never mind | 5 |
| Was to be so unwise, to be so kind. |
| What shall be done? he will not hear, till feel: |
| I must be round with him, now he comes from hunting. |
| Fie, fie, fie, fie! |
| [Enter CAPHIS, and the Servants of Isidore and Varro] |
| CAPHIS | Good even, Varro: what, | 10 |
| You come for money? |
| Varro's Servant | Is't not your business too? |
| CAPHIS | It is: and yours too, Isidore? |
| Isidore's Servant | It is so. |
| CAPHIS | Would we were all discharged! | 15 |
| Varro's Servant | I fear it. |
| CAPHIS | Here comes the lord. |
| [Enter TIMON, ALCIBIADES, and Lords, &c] |
| TIMON | So soon as dinner's done, we'll forth again, |
| My Alcibiades. With me? what is your will? |
| CAPHIS | My lord, here is a note of certain dues. | 20 |
| TIMON | Dues! Whence are you? |
| CAPHIS | Of Athens here, my lord. |
| TIMON | Go to my steward. |
| CAPHIS | Please it your lordship, he hath put me off |
| To the succession of new days this month: | 25 |
| My master is awaked by great occasion |
| To call upon his own, and humbly prays you |
| That with your other noble parts you'll suit |
| In giving him his right. |
| TIMON | Mine honest friend, | 30 |
| I prithee, but repair to me next morning. |
| CAPHIS | Nay, good my lord,-- |
| TIMON | Contain thyself, good friend. |
| Varro's Servant | One Varro's servant, my good lord,-- |
| Isidore's Servant | From Isidore; | 35 |
| He humbly prays your speedy payment. |
| CAPHIS | If you did know, my lord, my master's wants-- |
| Varro's Servant | 'Twas due on forfeiture, my lord, six weeks And past. |
| Isidore's Servant | Your steward puts me off, my lord; |
| And I am sent expressly to your lordship. | 40 |
| TIMON | Give me breath. |
| I do beseech you, good my lords, keep on; |
| I'll wait upon you instantly. |
[Exeunt ALCIBIADES and Lords] |
[To FLAVIUS] |
| Come hither: pray you, |
| How goes the world, that I am thus encounter'd | 45 |
| With clamourous demands of date-broke bonds, |
| And the detention of long-since-due debts, |
| Against my honour? |
| FLAVIUS | Please you, gentlemen, |
| The time is unagreeable to this business: | 50 |
| Your importunacy cease till after dinner, |
| That I may make his lordship understand |
| Wherefore you are not paid. |
| TIMON | Do so, my friends. See them well entertain'd. |
| [Exit] |
| FLAVIUS | Pray, draw near. | 55 |
| [Exit] |
| [Enter APEMANTUS and Fool] |
| CAPHIS | Stay, stay, here comes the fool with Apemantus: |
| let's ha' some sport with 'em. |
| Varro's Servant | Hang him, he'll abuse us. |
| Isidore's Servant | A plague upon him, dog! |
| Varro's Servant | How dost, fool? | 60 |
| APEMANTUS | Dost dialogue with thy shadow? |
| Varro's Servant | I speak not to thee. |
| APEMANTUS | No,'tis to thyself. |
[To the Fool] |
| Come away. |
| Isidore's Servant | There's the fool hangs on your back already. | 65 |
| APEMANTUS | No, thou stand'st single, thou'rt not on him yet. |
| CAPHIS | Where's the fool now? |
| APEMANTUS | He last asked the question. Poor rogues, and |
| usurers' men! bawds between gold and want! |
| All Servants | What are we, Apemantus? | 70 |
| APEMANTUS | Asses. |
| All Servants | Why? |
| APEMANTUS | That you ask me what you are, and do not know |
| yourselves. Speak to 'em, fool. |
| Fool | How do you, gentlemen? | 75 |
| All Servants | Gramercies, good fool: how does your mistress? |
| Fool | She's e'en setting on water to scald such chickens |
| as you are. Would we could see you at Corinth! |
| APEMANTUS | Good! gramercy. |
| [Enter Page] |
| Fool | Look you, here comes my mistress' page. | 80 |
| Page | [To the Fool] Why, how now, captain! what do you
|
| in this wise company? How dost thou, Apemantus? |
| APEMANTUS | Would I had a rod in my mouth, that I might answer |
| thee profitably. |
| Page | Prithee, Apemantus, read me the superscription of | 85 |
| these letters: I know not which is which. |
| APEMANTUS | Canst not read? |
| Page | No. |
| APEMANTUS | There will little learning die then, that day thou |
| art hanged. This is to Lord Timon; this to | 90 |
| Alcibiades. Go; thou wast born a bastard, and thou't |
| die a bawd. |
| Page | Thou wast whelped a dog, and thou shalt famish a |
| dog's death. Answer not; I am gone. |
| [Exit] |
| APEMANTUS | E'en so thou outrunnest grace. Fool, I will go with | 95 |
| you to Lord Timon's. |
| Fool | Will you leave me there? |
| APEMANTUS | If Timon stay at home. You three serve three usurers? |
| All Servants | Ay; would they served us! |
| APEMANTUS | So would I,--as good a trick as ever hangman served thief. | 100 |
| Fool | Are you three usurers' men? |
| All Servants | Ay, fool. |
| Fool | I think no usurer but has a fool to his servant: my |
| mistress is one, and I am her fool. When men come |
| to borrow of your masters, they approach sadly, and | 105 |
| go away merry; but they enter my mistress' house |
| merrily, and go away sadly: the reason of this? |
| Varro's Servant | I could render one. |
| APEMANTUS | Do it then, that we may account thee a whoremaster |
| and a knave; which not-withstanding, thou shalt be | 110 |
| 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, | 115 |
| with two stones moe 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. |
| Varro's Servant | Thou art not altogether a fool. | 120 |
| Fool | Nor thou altogether a wise man: as much foolery as |
| I have, so much wit thou lackest. |
| APEMANTUS | That answer might have become Apemantus. |
| All Servants | Aside, aside; here comes Lord Timon. |
| [Re-enter TIMON and FLAVIUS] |
| APEMANTUS | Come with me, fool, come. | 125 |
| Fool | I do not always follow lover, elder brother and |
| woman; sometime the philosopher. |
| [Exeunt APEMANTUS and Fool] |
| FLAVIUS | Pray you, walk near: I'll speak with you anon. |
| [Exeunt Servants] |
| TIMON | You make me marvel: wherefore ere this time |
| Had you not fully laid my state before me, | 130 |
| That I might so have rated my expense, |
| As I had leave of means? |
| FLAVIUS | You would not hear me, |
| At many leisures I proposed. |
| TIMON | Go to: | 135 |
| Perchance some single vantages you took. |
| When my indisposition put you back: |
| And that unaptness made your minister, |
| Thus to excuse yourself. |
| FLAVIUS | O my good lord, | 140 |
| At many times I brought in my accounts, |
| Laid them before you; you would throw them off, |
| And say, you found them in mine honesty. |
| When, for some trifling present, you have bid me |
| Return so much, I have shook my head and wept; | 145 |
| Yea, 'gainst the authority of manners, pray'd you |
| To hold your hand more close: I did endure |
| Not seldom, nor no slight cheques, when I have |
| Prompted you in the ebb of your estate |
| And your great flow of debts. My loved lord, | 150 |
| Though you hear now, too late--yet now's a time-- |
| The greatest of your having lacks a half |
| To pay your present debts. |
| TIMON | Let all my land be sold. |
| FLAVIUS | 'Tis all engaged, some forfeited and gone; | 155 |
| And what remains will hardly stop the mouth |
| Of present dues: the future comes apace: |
| What shall defend the interim? and at length |
| How goes our reckoning? |
| TIMON | To Lacedaemon did my land extend. | 160 |
| FLAVIUS | O my good lord, the world is but a word: |
| Were it all yours to give it in a breath, |
| How quickly were it gone! |
| TIMON | You tell me true. |
| FLAVIUS | If you suspect my husbandry or falsehood, | 165 |
| Call me before the exactest auditors |
| And set me on the proof. So the gods bless me, |
| When all our offices have been oppress'd |
| With riotous feeders, when our vaults have wept |
| With drunken spilth of wine, when every room | 170 |
| Hath blazed with lights and bray'd with minstrelsy, |
| I have retired me to a wasteful cock, |
| And set mine eyes at flow. |
| TIMON | Prithee, no more. |
| FLAVIUS | Heavens, have I said, the bounty of this lord! | 175 |
| How many prodigal bits have slaves and peasants |
| This night englutted! Who is not Timon's? |
| What heart, head, sword, force, means, but is |
| Lord Timon's? |
| Great Timon, noble, worthy, royal Timon! | 180 |
| Ah, when the means are gone that buy this praise, |
| The breath is gone whereof this praise is made: |
| Feast-won, fast-lost; one cloud of winter showers, |
| These flies are couch'd. |
| TIMON | Come, sermon me no further: | 185 |
| No villanous bounty yet hath pass'd my heart; |
| Unwisely, not ignobly, have I given. |
| Why dost thou weep? Canst thou the conscience lack, |
| To think I shall lack friends? Secure thy heart; |
| If I would broach the vessels of my love, | 190 |
| And try the argument of hearts by borrowing, |
| Men and men's fortunes could I frankly use |
| As I can bid thee speak. |
| FLAVIUS | Assurance bless your thoughts! |
| TIMON | And, in some sort, these wants of mine are crown'd, | 195 |
| That I account them blessings; for by these |
| Shall I try friends: you shall perceive how you |
| Mistake my fortunes; I am wealthy in my friends. |
| Within there! Flaminius! Servilius! |
| [Enter FLAMINIUS, SERVILIUS, and other Servants] |
| Servants | My lord? my lord? | 200 |
| TIMON | I will dispatch you severally; you to Lord Lucius; |
| to Lord Lucullus you: I hunted with his honour |
| to-day: you, to Sempronius: commend me to their |
| loves, and, I am proud, say, that my occasions have |
| found time to use 'em toward a supply of money: let | 205 |
| the request be fifty talents. |
| FLAMINIUS | As you have said, my lord. |
| FLAVIUS | [Aside] Lord Lucius and Lucullus? hum!
|
| TIMON | Go you, sir, to the senators-- |
| Of whom, even to the state's best health, I have | 210 |
| Deserved this hearing--bid 'em send o' the instant |
| A thousand talents to me. |
| FLAVIUS | I have been bold-- |
| For that I knew it the most general way-- |
| To them to use your signet and your name; | 215 |
| But they do shake their heads, and I am here |
| No richer in return. |
| TIMON | Is't true? can't be? |
| FLAVIUS | They answer, in a joint and corporate voice, |
| That now they are at fall, want treasure, cannot | 220 |
| Do what they would; are sorry--you are honourable,-- |
| But yet they could have wish'd--they know not-- |
| Something hath been amiss--a noble nature |
| May catch a wrench--would all were well--'tis pity;-- |
| And so, intending other serious matters, | 225 |
| After distasteful looks and these hard fractions, |
| With certain half-caps and cold-moving nods |
| They froze me into silence. |
| TIMON | You gods, reward them! |
| Prithee, man, look cheerly. These old fellows | 230 |
| 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 fashion'd for the journey, dull and heavy. | 235 |
[To a Servant] |
| Go to Ventidius. |
[To FLAVIUS] |
| Prithee, be not sad, |
| Thou art true and honest; ingeniously I speak. |
| No blame belongs to thee. |
[To Servant] |
| Ventidius lately | 240 |
| Buried his father; by whose death he's stepp'd |
| Into a great estate: when he was poor, |
| Imprison'd and in scarcity of friends, |
| I clear'd him with five talents: greet him from me; |
| Bid him suppose some good necessity | 245 |
| Touches his friend, which craves to be remember'd |
| With those five talents. |
[Exit Servant] |
[To FLAVIUS] |
| That had, give't these fellows |
| To whom 'tis instant due. Ne'er speak, or think, |
| That Timon's fortunes 'mong his friends can sink. | 250 |
| FLAVIUS | I would I could not think it: that thought is |
| bounty's foe; |
| Being free itself, it thinks all others so. |
| [Exeunt] |
Sources for Timon of Athens