The Life of Timon of Athens: Act 5, Scene 1 Translation

Enter Poet and Painter.

PAINTER As I took note of the place, it cannot be far
where he abides.

POET
What’s to be thought of him? Does the rumor
hold for true that he’s so full of gold?

PAINTER
Certain. Alcibiades reports it. Phrynia and 5
Timandra had gold of him. He likewise enriched
poor straggling soldiers with great quantity. ’Tis
said he gave unto his steward a mighty sum.

POET
Then this breaking of his has been but a try for
his friends? 10

PAINTER Nothing else. You shall see him a palm in
Athens again, and flourish with the highest. Therefore
’tis not amiss we tender our loves to him in
this supposed distress of his. It will show honestly
in us and is very likely to load our purposes with 15
what they travail for, if it be a just and true report
that goes of his having.

Enter Timon, behind them, from his cave.

POET
What have you now to present unto him?

PAINTER Nothing at this time but my visitation. Only I
will promise him an excellent piece. 20

POET I must serve him so too—tell him of an intent
that’s coming toward him.

PAINTER
Good as the best. Promising is the very air o’
th’ time; it opens the eyes of expectation. Performance
is ever the duller for his act, and but in the 25
plainer and simpler kind of people the deed of saying
is quite out of use. To promise is most courtly
and fashionable. Performance is a kind of will or
testament which argues a great sickness in his
judgment that makes it. 30

TIMON, aside
Excellent workman! Thou canst not
paint a man so bad as is thyself.

POET
I am thinking what I shall say I have provided
for him. It must be a personating of himself, a
satire against the softness of prosperity, with a discovery 35
of the infinite flatteries that follow youth
and opulency.

TIMON, aside Must thou needs stand for a villain in
thine own work? Wilt thou whip thine own faults
in other men? Do so. I have gold for thee. 40

POET Nay, let’s seek him.
Then do we sin against our own estate
When we may profit meet and come too late.

PAINTER True.
When the day serves, before black-cornered night, 45
Find what thou want’st by free and offered light.
Come.

TIMON, aside
I’ll meet you at the turn. What a god’s gold
That he is worshiped in a baser temple
Than where swine feed! 50
’Tis thou that rigg’st the bark and plow’st the foam,
Settlest admirèd reverence in a slave.
To thee be worship, and thy saints for aye
Be crowned with plagues, that thee alone obey!
Fit I meet them. 55

He comes forward. 

POET
Hail, worthy Timon.

PAINTER
Our late noble master.

TIMON
Have I once lived to see two honest men?

POET Sir,
Having often of your open bounty tasted, 60
Hearing you were retired, your friends fall’n off,
Whose thankless natures—O, abhorrèd spirits!
Not all the whips of heaven are large enough—
What, to you,
Whose starlike nobleness gave life and influence 65
To their whole being? I am rapt and cannot cover
The monstrous bulk of this ingratitude
With any size of words.

TIMON
Let it go naked. Men may see ’t the better.
You that are honest, by being what you are 70
Make them best seen and known.

PAINTER
He and myself
Have travailed in the great shower of your gifts
And sweetly felt it.

TIMON
Ay, you are honest men. 75

PAINTER
We are hither come to offer you our service.

TIMON
Most honest men! Why, how shall I requite you?
Can you eat roots and drink cold water? No?

BOTH
What we can do we’ll do to do you service.

TIMON
You’re honest men. You’ve heard that I have gold. 80
I am sure you have. Speak truth. You’re honest men.

PAINTER
So it is said, my noble lord, but therefor
Came not my friend nor I.

TIMON
Good honest men. (To the Painter.) Thou draw’st a
counterfeit 85
Best in all Athens. Thou ’rt indeed the best.
Thou counterfeit’st most lively.

PAINTER So-so, my lord.

TIMON
E’en so, sir, as I say. (To the Poet.) And for thy
fiction, 90
Why, thy verse swells with stuff so fine and smooth
That thou art even natural in thine art.
But for all this, my honest-natured friends,
I must needs say you have a little fault.
Marry, ’tis not monstrous in you, neither wish I 95
You take much pains to mend.

BOTH Beseech your Honor
To make it known to us.

TIMON
You’ll take it ill.

BOTH
Most thankfully, my lord. 100

TIMON
Will you indeed?

BOTH
Doubt it not, worthy lord.

TIMON
There’s never a one of you but trusts a knave
That mightily deceives you.

BOTH Do we, my lord? 105

TIMON
Ay, and you hear him cog, see him dissemble,
Know his gross patchery, love him, feed him,
Keep in your bosom. Yet remain assured
That he’s a made-up villain.

PAINTER
I know none such, my lord. 110

POET
Nor I.

TIMON
Look you, I love you well. I’ll give you gold.
Rid me these villains from your companies,
Hang them or stab them, drown them in a draft,
Confound them by some course, and come to me, 115
I’ll give you gold enough.

BOTH Name them, my lord, let ’s know them.

TIMON
You that way and you this, but two in company.
Each man apart, all single and alone,
Yet an archvillain keeps him company. 120
(To one.) If where thou art, two villains shall not be,
Come not near him. (To the other.) If thou wouldst
not reside
But where one villain is, then him abandon.—
Hence, pack. There’s gold. You came for gold, you 125
slaves.
(To one.) You have work for me. There’s payment.
Hence.
(To the other.) You are an alchemist; make gold of
that. 130
Out, rascal dogs!

Timon drives them out and then exits.

Enter Steward Flavius, and two Senators.

FLAVIUS
It is vain that you would speak with Timon,
For he is set so only to himself
That nothing but himself which looks like man
Is friendly with him. 135

FIRST SENATOR
Bring us to his cave.
It is our part and promise to th’ Athenians
To speak with Timon.

SECOND SENATOR
At all times alike
Men are not still the same. ’Twas time and griefs 140
That framed him thus. Time, with his fairer hand
Offering the fortunes of his former days,
The former man may make him. Bring us to him,
And chance it as it may.

FLAVIUS
Here is his cave.— 145
Peace and content be here! Lord Timon! Timon!
Look out, and speak to friends. Th’ Athenians
By two of their most reverend Senate greet thee.
Speak to them, noble Timon.

Enter Timon out of his cave.

TIMON
Thou sun that comforts, burn!—Speak and be 150
hanged!
For each true word a blister, and each false
Be as a cauterizing to the root o’ th’ tongue,
Consuming it with speaking.

FIRST SENATOR
Worthy Timon— 155

TIMON
Of none but such as you, and you of Timon.

FIRST SENATOR
The Senators of Athens greet thee, Timon.

TIMON
I thank them and would send them back the plague,
Could I but catch it for them.

FIRST SENATOR O, forget 160
What we are sorry for ourselves in thee.
The Senators with one consent of love
Entreat thee back to Athens, who have thought
On special dignities which vacant lie
For thy best use and wearing. 165

SECOND SENATOR
They confess
Toward thee forgetfulness too general gross;
Which now the public body, which doth seldom
Play the recanter, feeling in itself
A lack of Timon’s aid, hath sense withal 170
Of it own fall, restraining aid to Timon,
And send forth us to make their sorrowed render,
Together with a recompense more fruitful
Than their offense can weigh down by the dram—
Ay, even such heaps and sums of love and wealth 175
As shall to thee blot out what wrongs were theirs
And write in thee the figures of their love,
Ever to read them thine.

TIMON
You witch me in it,
Surprise me to the very brink of tears. 180
Lend me a fool’s heart and a woman’s eyes,
And I’ll beweep these comforts, worthy senators.

FIRST SENATOR
Therefore, so please thee to return with us
And of our Athens, thine and ours, to take
The captainship, thou shalt be met with thanks; 185
Allowed with absolute power, and thy good name
Live with authority. So soon we shall drive back
Of Alcibiades th’ approaches wild,
Who like a boar too savage doth root up
His country’s peace. 190

SECOND SENATOR
And shakes his threat’ning sword
Against the walls of Athens.

FIRST SENATOR
Therefore, Timon—

TIMON
Well sir, I will. Therefore I will, sir, thus:
If Alcibiades kill my countrymen, 195
Let Alcibiades know this of Timon—
That Timon cares not. But if he sack fair Athens
And take our goodly agèd men by th’ beards,
Giving our holy virgins to the stain
Of contumelious, beastly, mad-brained war, 200
Then let him know, and tell him Timon speaks it
In pity of our agèd and our youth,
I cannot choose but tell him that I care not,
And let him take ’t at worst—for their knives care not,
While you have throats to answer. For myself, 205
There’s not a whittle in th’ unruly camp
But I do prize it at my love before
The reverend’st throat in Athens. So I leave you
To the protection of the prosperous gods
As thieves to keepers. 210

FLAVIUS, to Senators Stay not. All’s in vain.

TIMON
Why, I was writing of my epitaph.
It will be seen tomorrow. My long sickness
Of health and living now begins to mend,
And nothing brings me all things. Go, live still. 215
Be Alcibiades your plague, you his,
And last so long enough!

FIRST SENATOR
We speak in vain.

TIMON
But yet I love my country and am not
One that rejoices in the common wrack, 220
As common bruit doth put it.

FIRST SENATOR
That’s well spoke.

TIMON
Commend me to my loving countrymen.

FIRST SENATOR
These words become your lips as they pass through
them. 225

SECOND SENATOR
And enter in our ears like great triumphers
In their applauding gates.

TIMON
Commend me to them
And tell them that, to ease them of their griefs,
Their fears of hostile strokes, their aches, losses, 230
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. 235

FIRST SENATOR, to Second Senator
I like this well. He will return again.

TIMON
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 240
From high to low throughout, that whoso please
To stop affliction, let him take his haste,
Come hither ere my tree hath felt the ax,
And hang himself. I pray you, do my greeting.

FLAVIUS, to Senators
Trouble him no further. Thus you still shall find him. 245

TIMON
Come not to me again, but say to Athens,
Timon hath made his everlasting mansion
Upon the beachèd verge of the salt flood,
Who once a day with his embossèd froth
The turbulent surge shall cover. Thither come 250
And let my gravestone be your oracle.
Lips, let four 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. 255

Timon exits.

FIRST SENATOR
His discontents are unremovably
Coupled to nature.

SECOND SENATOR
Our hope in him is dead. Let us return
And strain what other means is left unto us
In our dear peril. 260

FIRST SENATOR It requires swift foot.

They exit.