FIRST FRIEND.
He’s but a mad lord, and nought but humours sways him. He gave me a
jewel th’ other day, and now he has beat it out of my hat. Did you see
my jewel?
THIRD FRIEND.
Did you see my cap?
SECOND FRIEND.
Here ’tis.
FOURTH FRIEND.
Here lies my gown.
FIRST FRIEND.
Let’s make no stay.
SECOND FRIEND.
Lord Timon’s mad.
THIRD FRIEND.
I feel’t upon my bones.
FOURTH FRIEND.
One day he gives us diamonds, next day stones.
[_Exeunt._]
ACT IV
SCENE I. Without the walls of Athens
Enter Timon.
TIMON.
Let me look back upon thee. O thou wall
That girdles in those wolves, dive in the earth
And fence not Athens! Matrons, turn incontinent!
Obedience fail in children! Slaves and fools,
Pluck the grave wrinkled senate from the bench
And minister in their steads! To general filths
Convert, o’ th’ instant, green virginity,
Do’t in your parents’ eyes! Bankrupts, hold fast;
Rather than render back, out with your knives
And cut your trusters’ throats! Bound servants, steal!
Large-handed robbers your grave masters are,
And pill by law. Maid, to thy master’s bed,
Thy mistress is o’ th’ brothel. Son of sixteen,
Pluck the lined crutch from thy old limping sire,
With it beat out his brains! Piety and fear,
Religion to the gods, peace, justice, truth,
Domestic awe, night-rest and neighbourhood,
Instruction, manners, mysteries and trades,
Degrees, observances, customs and laws,
Decline to your confounding contraries,
And let confusion live! Plagues incident to men,
Your potent and infectious fevers heap
On Athens, ripe for stroke! Thou cold sciatica,
Cripple our senators, that their limbs may halt
As lamely as their manners! Lust and liberty,
Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth,
That ’gainst the stream of virtue they may strive
And drown themselves in riot! Itches, blains,
Sow all th’ Athenian bosoms, and their crop
Be general leprosy! Breath infect breath,
That their society, as their friendship, may
Be merely poison! Nothing I’ll bear from thee
But nakedness, thou detestable town!
Take thou that too, with multiplying bans!
Timon will to the woods, where he shall find
Th’ unkindest beast more kinder than mankind.
The gods confound—hear me, you good gods all!—
Th’ 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.
[_Exit._]
SCENE II. Athens. A room in Timon’s house
Enter Flavius with two or three Servants.
FIRST SERVANT.
Hear you, Master Steward, where’s our master?
Are we undone, cast off, nothing remaining?
FLAVIUS.
Alack, my fellows, what should I say to you?
Let me be recorded by the righteous gods,
I am as poor as you.
FIRST SERVANT.
Such a house broke?
So noble a master fall’n? All gone, and not
One friend to take his fortune by the arm
And go along with him?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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