TIMON OF ATHENS. АСТ І. Enter Poet SCENE I-Athens. A Hall in TIMON's House. GOOD day, sir. Poet. Pain. I am glad you are well. Poet. I have not seen you long; How goes the world? Pain. It wears, sir, as it grows. Poet. Ay, that's well known: But what particular rarity? what strange, Jew. Nay, that's most fix'd. Mer. A most incomparable man; breath'd, as it were, * To an untirable and continuate goodness: He passes.2 Jew. I have a jewel here. Mer. O pray, let's see't: For the lord Timon, sir? Jew. If he will touch the estimate :3 But, for thatPoet. When we for recompense have prais'd the vile, It stains the glory in that happy verse Which aptly sings the good.4 Mer. 'Tis a good form. [Looking at the jewel. Jew. And rich: here is a water, look you. Pain. You are rapt, sir, in some work, some dedication To the great lord. Poet. A thing slipp'd idly from me. Our poesy is as a gum, which oozes [] Breathed is inured by constant practice; so trained ried. To breathe a horse is to exercise him for the course. [2] Exceeds, goes beyond common bounds. [3] Come up to the price. JOHNS. STEEV. hot to be weaJOHNS. [4] We must here suppose the poet busy in reading his own work; and that these three lines are the introduction of the poem addressed to Timon, which he afterwards gives the Painter an account of. WARE. From whence 'tis nourished: The fire i'the flint Each bound it chafes. What have you there? Pain. A picture, sir.-And when comes your book forth? Poet. Upon the heels of my presentment, sir." Let's see your piece. Pain. 'Tis a good piece. Poet. So 'tis this comes off well and excellent." Pain. Indifferent. Poet. Admirable : How this grace Speaks his own standing ! what a mental power This eye shoots forth how big imagination Moves in this lip! to the dumbness of the gesture One might interpret. Pain. It is a pretty mocking of the life. Here is a touch; Is't good? Poet. I'll say of it, It tutors nature: artificial strife? Lives in these touches, livelier than life. Enter certain Senators, and pass over. Pain. How this lord's follow'd! Poet. The senators of Athens ;-Happy men! Pain. Look, more! Poet. You see this confluence, this great flood of vis itors.' I have, in this rough work, shap'd out a man, Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug [5] It should be pointed thus, and then the sense will be evident: our gentle flame Provokes itself, and like the current flies; Each bound it chafes. Our gentle flame animates itself; it flies like a current; and every obstacle serves but to increase its force. M.MASON.--This jumble of incongruous images seems to have been designed, and put into the mouth of the poetaster, that the reader might appreciate his talents: his language therefore should not be considered in the abstract. HENLEY. [6] As soon as my book has been presented to lord Timon. JOHNS. [7] The figure rises well from the canvas. Cest bien releve. JOH. [8] I am inclined to suppose, that the figure alluded to was a representation of one of the Graces, and, as they are always supposed to be females,fshould read the passage thus:How this Grace Speaks its own standing! This amendment is strongly supported by the pronoun this prefixed to the word Grace, as it proves that what the Poet pointed out was some real object, not merely an abstract idea. M. MASON. [9] Strife is the contest of art with nature: "Hic ille est Raphael, timuit, quo sospite vinci Rerum magna parens, & moriente mori." JOHNS. [1] "Mane salutantum totis vomit ædibus undam." JOHNS. 2 With amplest entertainment: My free drift Pain. How shall I understand you? You see how all conditions, how all minds, Pain. I saw them speak together. Poet. Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill, To propagate their states: amongst them all, Whom Fortune with her ivory hand wafts to her; Pain. 'Tis conceiv'd to scope.' This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks, To climb his happiness, would be well express'd [2] My design does not stop at any single character. JOHNS. [3] Anciently they wrote upon waxen tables with an iron stile.HANMER. [4] To level is to aim, to point the shot at a mark. Shakspeare's meaning is, my poem is not a satire written with any particular view, or levelled at any single person; fly like an eagle into the general expanse of life, and leave not, by any private mischief, the trace of my passage. JOHNS. [5] Slippery, smooth, unresisting. JOHNS. [61 The glass-fac'd flatterer, that shows in his own look, as by reflection, the looks of his patron. JOHNS. [7] The Poet, seeing that Apemantus paid frequent visits to Timon,naturally concluded that he was equally courteous with his other guests., RITSON. [8] Covered with ranks of all kinds of men. JOHNS. [9] To advance or improve their various conditions of life. JOHNS. In our condition.2 Poet. Nay, sir, but hear me on: All those which were his fellows but of late, Make sacred even his stirrop, and through him Pain. Ay, marry, what of these? Poet. When Fortune, in her shift and change of mood, Spurns down her late belov'd, all his dependants, Which labour'd after him to the mountain's top, Even on their knees and hands, let him slip down, Not one accompanying his declining foot. Pain. "Tis common: A thousand moral paintings I can show, 5 That shall demonstrate these quick blows of fortune To show lord Timon, that mean eyes have seen Trumpets sound. Enter TIMON attended; the Servant of VEN- Tim. Imprison'd is he, say you? Ven.Serv. Ay, my good lord: five talents is his debt; His means most short, his creditors most strait : Your honourable letter he desires To those have shut him up; which failing to him, Tim. Noble Ventidius! Well ; [3] The sense is obvious, and means, in general, flattering him. The particular kind of flattery may be collected from the circumstance of its being offered up in whispers: which shows it was the calumniating those whom Timon hated or envied, or whose vices were opposite to his own. This offering up, to the person flattered, the murdered reputation of others, Shak speare, with the utmost beauty of thought and expression, calls_sacrificial whisperings, alluding to the victims offered up to idols. WARB. By sacrificial whisperings, I should simply understand whisperings of officious servility, the incense of the worshipping parasite to the patron as to a god. Mr. Gray has excellently expressed in his Elegy these sacrificial offer. ings to the great from the poetic tribe: 66 "To heap the shrine of luxury and pride WAKEFIELD. [4] "To drink the air," like the haustus ætherios of Virgil,is merely a po etical phrase for draw the air, or breathe. To" drink the free air," therefore, through another," is to breathe freely at his will only; so as to de. pend on him for the privilege of life: not even to breathe freely without his permission. WAKEFIELD. [5] Shakspeare seems to intend in this dialogue to express some competition Between the two great arts of imitation. Whatever the poet declares himself to have shown, the painter thinks he could have shown better. JOHNS. [5] Inferior spectators. TOLLET. I am not of that feather, to shake off My friend when he must need me. I do know him Which he shall have: I'll pay the debt, and free him. Ven. Serv. Your lordship ever binds him. Tim. Commend me to him: I will send his ransome; And, being enfranchis'd, bid him come to me :— 'Tis not enough to help the feeble up, But to support him after.6-Fare you well. Enter an old Athenian. Old Ath. Lord Timon, hear me speak. Tim. Freely, good father. Old Ath. Thou hast a servant nam'd Lucilius. Tim. I have so: What of him? [Exit. Old Ath. Most noble Timon, call the man before thee. Tim. Attends he here, or no?—Lucilius ! Enter LUGILIUS. Luc. Here, at your lordship's service. Old Ath. This fellow here, lord Timon, this thy crea ture, By night frequents my house. I am a man That from my first have been inclin'd to thrift; Tim. Well; what further? Old Ath. One only daughter have I, no kin else, Tim. The man is honest. Old Ath. Therefore he will be, Timon :7 His honesty rewards him in itself, It must not bear my daughter. [6] This thought is better expressed by Dr. Madden in his elegy on archbishop Boulter: "More than they ask'd, he gave; and deem'd it mean JOHNS. [7] The thought is closely expressed and obscure: but this seems the meaning. If the man be honest, my lord, for that reason he will be so in this; and not endeavour at the injustice of gaining my daughter, without my consent.' WARB. |