Enter Timon out of his cave. TIMON. Thou sun that comforts, burn! Speak and be hanged! For each true word, a blister, and each false Be as a cantherizing to the root o’ th’ tongue, Consuming it with speaking. FIRST SENATOR. Worthy Timon— TIMON. Of none but such as you, and you of Timon. FIRST SENATOR. The senators of Athens greet thee, Timon. TIMON. [_Aside_.] I thank them and would send them back the plague, Could I but catch it for them. FIRST SENATOR. O, forget 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. 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 Of its own fall, restraining aid to Timon, And send forth us to make their sorrowed render, Together with a recompense more fruitful Than their offence can weigh down by the dram, Ay, even such heaps and sums of love and wealth, 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. 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, 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. SECOND SENATOR. And shakes his threatening 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, Let Alcibiades know this of Timon, That Timon cares not. But if he sack fair Athens And take our goodly aged men by th’ beards, Giving our holy virgins to the stain Of contumelious, beastly, mad-brained war, Then let him know, and tell him Timon speaks it, In pity of our aged 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, 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. FLAVIUS. 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, 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, As common bruit doth put it.