PAINTER. Certain. Alcibiades reports it; Phrynia and 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? 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 what they travail for, if it be a just and true report that goes of his having. 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. 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 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. Enter Timon from his cave. 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 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. 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, 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 worshipped in a baser temple Than where swine feed! ’Tis thou that rigg’st the bark and plough’st the foam, Settlest admired 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. [_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, Hearing you were retired, your friends fall’n off, Whose thankless natures—O abhorred spirits! Not all the whips of heaven are large enough— What, to you, Whose star-like nobleness gave life and influence 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, Make them best seen and known. PAINTER. He and myself Have travailed in the great shower of your gifts, And sweetly felt it.