ACT V. SCENE I.-The Woods. Before TIMON's Cave. Enter Poet and Painter; TIMON watching them from bis Cave. Pain. As I took note of the place, it cannot be far where he abides. Poet. What's to be thought of him? does the rumour hold for true, that he's so full of gold? Pain. 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. Pain. 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.2 Poet. him? Pair. What have you now to present unto 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. Pain. Good as the best. Promising is the very air o' the 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 saying3 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. I. Poor straggling soldiers. This refers to the thieves, who, in their interview with Timon, repudiated this opprobrious title, and styled themselves "soldiers." The present speech, we think, affords support to our view of the phrase, "Yonder comes a poet and a painter," as explained in Note 75 of the preceding Act, because here seems to be implied that the poet and the painter had first heard Alcibiades' report of Timon's possessing gold, with his having given some to Phrynia and Timandra, and subsequently that he had given more to the thieves, and a large sum to his steward. The former intelligence they probably heard as a current rumour in Athens, which occasioned their intention (referred to by Apemantus) of coming to seek Timon; while the latter piece of information, relative to the thieves and Flavius, they apparently have learned on their way to the woods, thus confirming their original intention. This interpretation makes the division of the Acts here, and the concomitant entrance of the poet and painter occur naturally; whereas, by following the commentators in believing Apemantus' words, poet and painter are at that time within view, the confusion is created here which the commentators find in the present arrangement of the successive interviews and commencement of Act. "Yonder comes," &c., to be indicative that the Tim. [Apart.] 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. Tim. [Apart.] 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, True; When the day serves, before black-corner'd night,+ Find what thou want'st by free and offer'd light. Come. Tim. [Apart.] I'll meet you at the turn.-What a god's gold, That he is worshipp'd in a baser temple 'Tis thou that rigg'st the barque, and plough'st the foam; Settlest admired reverence in a slave: To thee be worship! and thy saints for aye Poet. Hail, worthy Timon! Having often of your open bounty tasted, 2. Having. 'Possession,' 'store of wealth.' Act ii. of the present play. See Note 34, 3. The deed of saying. The act of doing that which has been said will be done;' 'the fulfilment of protestation.' 4. Black-corner'd night. The epithet "black-corner'd" has been variously altered to 'black-coned,' 'black-crowned,' 'black cover'd,' &c. ; but, remembering that Shakespeare uses "corners" peculiarly and poetically, to express 'remote places,' 'distant quarters,' in such passages as "all corners else o' the earth," &c. ("Tempest," Act i., sc. 2); "from the four corners of the earth," &c. ("Merchant of Venice," Act ii, sc. 7); "come the three corners of the world in arms" (“King John,” Act v., sc. 7); "winds of all the corners kiss'd your sails" ("Cymbeline," Act ii., sc. 4),—so, in the present passage, we think it probable that black-corner'd night" is employed to convey the idea of 'night, whose vast spaces are all dark;' 'night, dark to its remotest distances' night, dark in all its farthest quarters.' 5. Whose thankless natures not all the whips of heaven, &c. 'For' is understood before "whose." A similar instance of ellipsis is pointed out in Note 23, Act i., "Tempest;" and "for" is also elliptically understood in the passage remarked upon in Note 62, Act iv. of the present play. Tim. Ye're honest men: ye've heard that I [To the Painter.] If, where thou art, two villains 6. A counterfeit. The word is here played on in the sense it bore as a term for a portrait. See Note 31, Act iii., "Merchant of Venice." 7. Fine and smooth. Here ostensibly used in the sense of 'admirable and delicate;' but really used in the sense of 'cunning and flattering.' See Note 64, Act v., "All's Well," and Note 20, Act iv. of the present play. 8. Thou art even natural in thine art. Superficially conveying the sense of thou art admirably natural in thine artistic productions,' but subtly implying 'thou putt'st thine own false flattering nature even into thine art.' 10. Made up. Complete,' 'accomplished,'' finished.' 11. A draught. A receptacle for ordure. See Note 11, Act v., "Troilus and Cressida." 12. But two in company. Timon means that each man takes with him his villain self, and thus becomes "two." 13. You have done work for me. The Folio prints "You haue worke for me.' Malone inserted "done,” which we think is likely to be right, because the painter has said, "He and myself have travail'd in the great shower of your gifts," and because the metre of the line is improved by the added monosyllable. And of our Athens (thine and ours) to take Sec. Sen. And shakes his threat'ning sword Against the walls of Athens. First Sen. Therefore, Timon, Tim. 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 agèd men by the beards, Of contumelious, beastly, mad-brain'd war; 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, But I do prize it at my love,21 before The reverend'st throat in Athens. So I leave you Flav. Stay not, all's in vain. Tim. Why, I was writing of my epitaph; It will be seen to-morrow: my long sickness Of health and living now begins to mend, 17. Fall. Changed by Hanmer to 'fault,' and by Capell to 'fail' but it appears to us that the original word gives here the same sense, 'downfall,' which it bears twice afterwards in this pray. See Notes 32 and 37 of the present Act. The meaning of the sentence appears to us to be, 'Feeling in itself a need of Timon's assistance, hath perception of its own downfall in withholding assistance from him. 18. Their sorrow'd render. 'Their sorrowful acknowledgment.' "Render" is sometimes used for avowal,' 'confession.' See Note 49, Act iv., "As You Like It." 19. Allow'd. Here used for 'privileged,' 'licensed.' See Note 80, Act i., "Twelfth Night." 20. A whittle. 'A clasp-knife.' 21. I do prize it at my love. At" is here used idiomatically, as in the passage pointed out in Note 109, Act i., 'Henry V." 99 24 Let him take his haste. The word "haste" here has been variously altered by various emendators; but the parallel passage in North's "Plutarch," whence Shakespeare evidently took the ground-work for this play, will show the original word to be the right one. It runs thus :-"I thought good to let you all understand it, that before the figge tree be cut downe, if any of you be desperate, you may there in time go hang yourselves The expressions in Shakespeare's text, "and shortly must I fell it," and "ere my tree hath felt the axe," show that he is urging them to be speedy. To "take his haste," meaning to 'make haste.' is an idiom of which we still use the parallel in a reversed sense-to 'take his time,' meaning 'to use his leisure.' Moreover, Shakespeare himself uses the idiomatic expression Act V. Scene IV. Come hither, ere my tree hath felt the axe, shall find him. Tim. Come not to me again: but say to Athens Timon hath made his everlasting mansion Upon the beachèd verge of the salt flood; Which once a day 25 with his embossed 26 froth "take his gait," in the last scene of "Midsummer Night's Dream," to express 'immediately take his way,' 'at once be gone.' 25. Which once a day. The first Folio prints 'who' for which" (corrected in the second Folio); and inasmuch as 'who' I was often used for "which," it might consistently have been retained here. But, on the theory of typographical error, stated in Note 47, Act iii., "Troilus and Cressida," we venture to give "which" in the present passage, as we did in the one there discussed. 26. Embossed. Here used for 'foaming,' 'bubbling.' A 'boss' was sometimes employed for a 'bubble' formerly. See Note 12, Induction, "Taming of the Shrew." VOL. III. 199 |