Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub
[graphic][merged small]

Timon. There's more gold, do you damn others, and let this damn you, and ditches grave you all.

[ocr errors]

OBSERVATIONS.

THE story of the Misanthrope is told in almost every collection of the time, and particularly in two books, with which Shakspeare was intimately acquainted; the Palace of Pleasure, and the English Plutarch.

FARMER.

Timon of Athens was written, I imagine, in the year 1610.

MALONE.

This play was altered by Shadwell, and brought upon the stage in 1678. In the modest title-page he calls it "Timon of Athens, or the Man-hater, as it is acted at the Duke's Theatre, made into a play." STEEVENS.

Spon says, there is a building near Athens, yet remaining, called Timon's Tower. MALONE.

The play of Timon is a domestic tragedy, and therefore strongly fastens on the attention of the reader. In the plan there is not much art, but the incidents are natural, and the characters various and exact. The catastrophe affords a very powerful warning against that ostentatious liberality, which scatters bounty, but confers no benefits, and buys flattery, but not friendship.

In this tragedy are many passages perplexed, obscure, and probably corrupt, which I have endeavoured to rectify, or explain, with due diligence; but having only one copy, cannot promise myself that my endeavours shall be much applauded.

JOHNSON.

TIMON, a noble Athenian.

LUCIUS,

LUCULLUS, lords, and flatterers of Timon.

VENTIDIUS, one of Timon's false friends.

APEMANTUS, a churlish philosopher.

ALCIBIADES, an Athenian general.

FLAVIUS, steward to Timon.

[blocks in formation]

Two Servants of VARRO, and the Servant of ISIDORE; two of Timon's creditors.

CUPID, and Maskers. Three Strangers.

Poet, Painter, Jeweller, and Merchant.

An old Athenian. A Page. A Fool.

PHRYNIA,*

TIMANDRA,} mistresses

to Alcibiades.

Other Lords, Senators, Officers, Soldiers, Thieves, and Attendants..

SCENE, Athens ; and the woods adjoining.

*Phrynia, (or as this name should have been written by Shakspeare, Phryne,) was an Athenian courtezan so exquisitely beautiful, that when her judges were proceeding to condemn her for numerous and enormous offences, a sight of her bosom (which, as we learn from Quintilian, had been artfully denuded by her advocate,) disarmed the court of its severity, and secured her life from the sentence of the law. STEEV.

TIMON OF ATHENS.

ACT I.

SCENE I-Athens. A Hall in TIMON's House. Enter Poet' Painter, Jeweller, Merchant, and others, at several doors.

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,
Which manifold record not matches? See,
Magic of bounty! all these spirits thy power
Hath conjur'd to attend. I know the merchant.
Pain. I know them both; t'other's a jeweller.
Mer. O, 'tis a worthy lord!

Jew. Nay, that's most fix'd.

Mer. A most incomparable man; breath'd, as it were,1 To an untirable and continuate goodness:

He passes.2

[ocr errors]

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 that

Poet. 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 as not to be wea. ried. To breathe a horse is to exercise him for the course.

STEEV.

[2] Exceeds, goes beyond common bounds. [3] Come up to the price. JOHNS.

JOHNS.

[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.

WARB.

« ÎnapoiContinuă »