Religion to the gods, peace, juftice, truth,
Domeftick awe, night-reft, and neighbourhood,
Inftruction, manners, mysteries, and trades,
Degrees, obfervances, cuftoms, and laws,
Decline to your confounding contraries,
And yet confufion live 3!-Plagues, incident to men,
Your potent and infectious fevers heap

On Athens, ripe for ftroke! thou cold fciatica,
Cripple our fenators, that their limbs may halt
As lamely as their manners! luft and liberty
Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth;
That 'gainst the ftream of virtue they may firive,
And drown themfelves in riot! itches, blains,
Sow all the Athenian bofoms; and their crop
Be general leprofy! breath infect breath;
That their fociety, as their friendship, may
Be merely poifon! Nothing I'll bear from thee,
But nakedness, thou déteftable town!

Take thou that too, with multiplying banns!
Timon will to the woods; where he shall find
The unkindeft beaft more kinder than mankind.
The gods confound (hear me, you good gods all,)
'The Athenians both within and out that wall!
And grant, as Timon grows, his hate may grow
To the whole race of mankind, high, and low!
Amen.

Athens. A Room in Timon's House.

Enter FLAVIUSa, with two or three Servants.

[Exit.

1. Serv. Hear you, master steward, where is our master? Are we undone?" caft off? nothing remaining?

Flav.

3 Hanmer reads, let confufion: but the meaning may be, though by fuch confufion all things feem to kaffen to diffelution, yet let not diffolution come, but the miferies of confufion continue. JOHNSON.

Nothing contributes more to the exaltation of Timon's chara&er than the zeal and fidelity of his fervants. Nothing but real virtue can be honoured by domefticks; nothing but impartial kindness can gain affection from dependants.

Flav. Alack, my fellows, what should I fay to you? Let me be recorded by the righteous gods,

I am as poor as you.

1. Serv. Such a houfe broke!

So noble a master fallen! All gone! and not
One friend, to take his fortune by the arm,
And go along with him! -

2. Serv. As we do turn our backs

From our companion, thrown into his grave;
So his familiars to his buried fortunes s

Slink all away; leave their falfe vows with him,
Like empty parfes pick'd: and his poor felf,
A dedicated beggar to the air,

With his disease of all-fhunn'd poverty,

Walks, like contempt, alone.-More of our fellows.
Enter other Servants.

Flav. All broken implements of a ruin❜d house.
3. Serv Yet do our hearts wear Timon's livery,
That fee I by our faces; we are fellows ftill,
Serving alike in forrow: Leak'd is our bark;
And we, poor mates, stand on the dying deck,.
Hearing the furges threat: we must all part
Into this fea of air.

Flav. Good fellows all,

The latest of my wealth I'll share amongst you.
Wherever we fhall meet, for Timon's fake,

Let's yet be fellows; let's shake our heads, and fay,
As 'twere a knell unto our mafter's fortunes,

We have feen better days. Let each take some;

[giving them money. Nay, put out all your hands. Not one word more : Thus part we rich in forrow, parting poor.

[Exeunt Servants. O, the fierce wretchedness that glory brings us! Who would not wish to be from wealth exempt, Since riches point to mifery and contempt?

M 4

Who'd

5 So those who were familiar to his buried fortunes, who in the moft ample manner participated of them, flink all away, &c.

• Fierce is here used for nafty, precipitate. !

Who'd be fo mock'd with glory? or to live
But in a dream of friendship?

To have his pomp, and all what ftate compounds,
But only painted, like his varnish'd friends?
Poor honeft lord, brought low by his own heart;
Undone by goodness! Strange, unufual blood",
When man's worft fin is, he does too much good!
Who then dares to be half fo kind again?

For bounty, that makes gods, does ftill mar men.
My dearest lord,-bleft, to be most accurs'd,
Rich, only to be wretched; thy great fortunes
Are made thy chief afflictions. Alas, kind lord!

He's flung in rage from this ungrateful feat
Of monftrous friends: nor has he with him to
Supply his life, or that which can command it.
I'll follow, and inquire him out:

I'll ever ferve his mind with my beft will;
Whilft I have gold, I'll be his steward still.

SCENE III.

The Woods.

Enter TIMON.

[Exit.

Tim. O bleffed breeding fun, draw from the earth Rotten humidity; below thy fifter's orb

8

Infect the air! Twinn'd brothers of one womb,

Whofe procreation, refidence, and birth,

Scarce is dividant,-touch them with feveral fortunes;

The greater fcorns the leffer: Not nature,

To whom all fores lay fiege, can bear great fortune,
But by contempt of nature 9.

Raife me this beggar, and denude that lord;

The

7 Throughout these plays blood is frequently used in the fense of natural propensity or difpofition.

That is, the moon's; this fublunary world.

9 The meaning I take to be this: Brother, when his fortune is enlarged, will feern brother; for this is the general depravity of human' nature, which, befieged as it is by mifery, admonished as it is of want and imperfection, when elevated by fortune, will defpife beings of nature like its own. JOHNSON.-But by is here ufed for without.

The fenator shall bear contempt hereditary,
The beggar native honour.

It is the pafture lards the brother's fides,
The want that makes him lean.

Who dares, who dares,
In purity of manhood stand upright,
And say, This man's a flatterer? if one be,
So are they all; for every grize of fortune
Is fmooth'd by that below: the learned pate
Ducks to the golden fool: All is oblique;
There's nothing level in our curfed natures,
But direct villainy. Therefore, be abhorr'd
All feafts, focieties, and throngs of men!
His femblable, yea, himself, Timon dildains:
Destruction fang mankind!-Earth, yield me roots'
[digging.

Who feeks for better of thee, fauce his palate
With thy moft operant poison! What is here?
Gold? yellow, glittering, precious gold? No, gods,
I am no idle votarift'. Roots, you clear heavens!
Thus inuch of this, will make black, white; foul, fair;
Wrong, right; bafe, noble ; old, young; coward, valiant.
Ha, you gods! why this? What this, you gods? Why this
Will lug your priefts and fervants from your fides;
Pluck ftout men's pillows from below their heads 2:
This yellow flave

Will knit and break religions; blefs the accurs'd;
Make the hoar leprofy ador'd; place thieves,
And give them title, knee, and approbation,
With fenators on the bench: this is it,
That makes the wappen'd widow wed again;
She, whom the fpital-house and ulcerous fores
Would caft the gorge at, this embalms and spices

9 Grize for ftep or degree.

M 5

Τα

No infincere or inconftant fupplicant. Gold will not ferve me inftead of roots.

2 i.e. men who have strength yet remaining to ftruggle with their diftemper. This alludes to an old cuftom of drawing away the pillow from under the heads of men in their last agonies, to make their departure the easier. But the Oxford editor,, fuppofing flout to fignify healthy, alters it to fuck, and this he calls emending.

To the April day again. Come, damned earth,
Thou, common whore of mankind, that put'ft odds
Among the rout of nations, I will make thee

Do the right nature 3.- [March afar off.] Ha! a drum?-
Thou'rt quick,

But yet I'll bury thee: Thou'lt go, ftrong thief,
When gouty keepers of thee cannot stand:-
Nay, ftay thou out for earnest.

[keeping fome gold.

Enter ALCIBIADES, with drum and fife, in warlike manner; PHRYNIA, and TYMANDRA.

Alc. What art thou there? fpeak.

Tim. A beast, as thou art. The canker gnaw thy heart, For fhewing me again the eyes of man!

Alc. What is thy name? Is man so hateful to thee, That art thyself a man?

Tim. I am mifanthropos, and hate mankind.

For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog,

That I might love thee fomething.

Alc. I know thee well;

But in thy fortunes am unlearn'd and strange.

Tim. I know thee too; and more, than that I know

thee,

1 not defire to know. Follow thy drum;

With man's blood paint the ground, gules, gules:

Religious canons, civil laws are cruel;

Then what should war be? This fell whore of thine
Hath in her more destruction than thy sword,
For all her cherubin look.

Pbry. Thy lips rot off!

Tim. I will not kifs thee; then the rot returns
To thine own lips again.

Alc. How came the noble Timon to this change!
Tim. As the moon does, by wanting light to give:

3 Lie in the earth where nature laid thee.

4 Thou haft life and motion in thee.

But

5 This alludes to an opinion in former times, generally prevalent, that the venereal infection transmitted to another, left the infecter free. I will not, fays Timon, take the ret from thy lips by kiffing thee.