Re-enter TIMON and FLAVIUS.

Tim. They have e'en put my breath from me, the slaves:

Creditors!-devils.

Flav. My dear lord,

Tim. What if it should be so?

Flav. My lord,——

Tim. I'll have it so:-My steward!

Flav. Here, my lord.

Tim. So fitly? Go, bid all my friends again, Lucius, Lucullus, and Sempronius; all7:

I'll once more feast the rascals.

Flav.
O, my lord,
You only speak from your distracted soul;
There is not so much left, to furnish out
A moderate table.

Tim.

Be't not in thy care; go,

I charge thee; invite them all: let in the tide

Of knaves once more; my cook and I'll provide.

[Exeunt.

SCENE V.

The same.

The Senate-House.

The Senate sitting. Enter ALCIBIADES, attended. 1 Sen. My lord, you have my voice to it; the fault's Bloody; 'tis necessary he should die :

Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.

2 Sen. Most true; the law shall bruise him. Alcib. Honour, health, and compassion to the senate!

7 The first folio reads:

'Lucius, Lucullus, and Sempronius, Ullorxa all.'

What is meant by this strange corruption it is perhaps now vain to conjecture. Malone retains this strange word; and Steevens banters him pleasantly enough upon his pertinacious adherence to the text of the first folio.

1 Sen. Now, captain?

Alcib. I am an humble suitor to

your

virtues ;

For pity is the virtue of the law,
And none but tyrants use it cruelly.
It pleases time, and fortune, to lie heavy
Upon a friend of mine, who, in hot blood,
Hath stepp'd into the law, which is past depth
To those that, without heed, do plunge into it.
He is a man, setting his fate aside1,

Of comely virtues :

Nor did he soil the fact with cowardice
(An honour in him which buys out his fault);
But, with a noble fury, and fair spirit,
Seeing his reputation touch'd to death,
He did oppose his foe:

And with such sober and unnoted passion
He did behave his anger, ere 'twas spent,
As if he had but prov'd an argument.

i. e. putting this action of his, which was predetermined by fate, out of the question.

2 The folio reads:

And with such sober and unnoted passion

He did behoove his anger ere 'twas spent.'

This Warburton changed for behave his anger,' which he explains govern, manage his anger. It is said the verb to behoove is only used impersonally with it; otherwise the old reading might mean, he did so fit or become his anger, ere it was spent with such sober and unnoted [i. e. unmarked] passion, that it seemed as if,' &c. Perhaps we might read:

And with such sober and unnoted passion

He did behood [i. e. hide, conceal] his anger,' &c. Shakspeare uses to hood for to hide more than once. Romeo and Juliet, Act iii. Sc. 2:

:

Come, civil night

Hood my unman'd blood bating in my cheeks
With thy black mantle.'

And in the Merchant of Venice, Act ii. Sc. 2:

Thus in

'While grace is saying, hood mine eyes thus with my hat.' In defence of Warburton's reading it should be remarked, how

1 Sen. You undergo too strict a paradox3, Striving to make an ugly deed look fair:

Your words have took such pains, as if they labour'd

To bring manslaughter into form, set quarrelling
Upon the head of valour; which, indeed,
Is valour misbegot, and came into the world
When sects and factions were newly born:
He's truly valiant, that can wisely suffer

The worst that man can breathe'; and make his

wrongs

His outsides; wear them like his raiment, carelessly; And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart,

To bring it into danger.

If wrongs be evils, and enforce us kill,
What folly 'tis to hazard life for ill!
Alcib. My lord,-

1 Sen. You cannot make gross sins look clear; To revenge is no valour, but to bear.

Alcib. My lords, then, under favour, pardon me, If I speak like a captain.—

Why do fond men expose themselves to battle,
And not endure all threatnings? sleep upon it,
And let the foes quietly cut their throats,
Without repugnancy? but if there be

Such valour in the bearing, what make we

ever, that behave is used in the same singular manner in Sir W. Davenant's Just Italian, 1630:

'How well my stars behave their influence.'

And again :

You an Italian, sir, and thus

Behave the knowledge of disgrace.

So Spenser, in his Faerie Queene, b. i. c. iii. :

'But who his limbs with labour, and his mind
Behaves with cares, cannot so easy miss.'

3 You undertake a paradox too hard.

4 i. e. utter.

Abroad? why then, women are more valiant,
That stay at home, if bearing carry it;

And th' ass more captain than the lion; the felon, Loaden with irons, wiser than the judge,

If wisdom be in suffering. O my lords,

As

you are great, be pitifully good:

Who cannot condemn rashness in cold blood?
To kill, I grant, is sin's extremest gust7;
But, in defence, by mercy, 'tis most just.
To be in anger is impiety;

But who is man, that is not angry?
Weigh but the crime with this.

2 Sen. You breathe in vain.
Alcib.

In vain! his service done

At Lacedæmon, and Byzantium,
Were a sufficient briber for his life.

1 Sen. What's that?

Alcib. Why, I say, my lords, h'as done fair service, And slain in fight many of your enemies:

How full of valour did he bear himself

In the last conflict, and made plenteous wounds?
2 Sen. He has made too much plenty with 'em, he
Is a sworn rioter9, h'as a sin that often

Drowns him, and takes his valour prisoner:
If there were no foes, that were enough alone
To overcome him: in that beastly fury

He has been known to commit outrages,

5 What do we, or what have we to do in the field?-See vol. i. p. 260; and vol. ii. p. 364.

6 The old copy reads 'fellow.' The alteration was made at Johnson's suggestion, perhaps without necessity. Fellow is a common term of contempt.

7 Gust here means rashness. We still say 'it was done in a gust of passion.'

* i. e. 'I call mercy herself to witness.'

9 i. e. a man who practises riot as if he had made it an oath or duty.

And cherish factions: "Tis inferr'd to us, His days are foul, and his drink dangerous. 1 Sen. He dies.

Alcib. Hard fate! he might have died in war. My lords, if not for any parts in him

(Though his right arm might purchase his own time,
And be in debt to none), yet, more to move you,
Take my deserts to his, and join them both :
And, for I know your reverend ages love
Security, I'll pawn my victories, all 10
My honour to you, upon his good returns.
If by this crime he owes the law his life,
Why, let the war receive't in valiant
gore;
For law is strict, and war is nothing more.

1 Sen. We are for law, he dies; urge it no more, On height of our displeasure: Friend or brother, He forfeits his own blood, that spills another.

Alcib. Must it be so? it must not be. My lords, I do beseech you, know me.

2 Sen. How?

́Alcib. Call me to your remembrances 11. 3 Sen.

12

What? Alcib. I cannot think, but your age has forgot me; It could not else be, I should prove so base 1o, To sue, and be denied such common grace: My wounds ache at you.

1 Sen.

Do you

dare our anger? 'Tis in few words, but spacious in effect;

We banish thee for ever.

10 He charges them obliquely with being usurers. Thus in a subsequent passage:-

banish usury,

That makes the senate ugly.'

11 Remembrances is here used as a word of five syllables. In the singular Shakspeare uses it as a word of four syllables only: 'And lasting in her sad remembrance.'

Twelfth Night, Act i. Sc. 1.

12 Base for dishonoured.