TIMON OF ATHENS.

Other Lords, Senators, Officers, Soldiers, Banditti, and Attendants.

SCENE-Athens, and the woods adjoining.

TIMON OF ATHENS.

ACT I.

SCENE I. Athens. A hall in TIMON's house.

Enter Poet, Painter, Jeweller, Merchant, and others, at several doors.

Poet. Good day, sir.

Pain.

I am glad you're well.

Poet. I have not seen you long: how goes the world?
Pain. It wears, sir, as it grows.

Ay, that's well known:

Poet.
But what particular rarity? what strange,
Which manifold record not matches? See,
Magic of bounty! all these spirits thy power
Hath conjur❜d to attend. I know the merchant.
Pain. I know them both; th' other's a jeweller.
Mer. O, 'tis a worthy lord.

Jew.

Nay, that's most fix'd.
Mer. A most incomparable man; breath'd, as it were,
To an untirable and continuate goodness:

Mer. O, pray, let's see 't: for the Lord Timon, sir?

Jew. If he will touch the estimate: but, for that

Poet [reciting to himself]. "When we for recompense have prais'd the vile,

It stains the glory in that happy verse

Which aptly sings the good."

Mer.

'Tis a good form. [Looking at the jewel.

Jew. And rich: here is a water, look ye.

Pain. You are rapt, sir, in some work, some dedication To the great lord.

Poet.

A thing slipp'd idly from me.
Our poesy is as a gum, which oozes (1)

From whence 'tis nourish'd: the fire i' the flint
Shows not till it be struck; our gentle flame
Provokes itself, and, like the current, flies
Each bound it chafes.-What have you there?

Pain. A picture, sir.-When comes your book forth?
Poet. Upon the heels of my presentment, sir.—
Let's see your piece.

Poet. So 'tis: this comes off well and excellent.
Pain. Indifferent.

Poet.

Admirable: how this grace

Speaks his own standing! what a mental power
This eye shoots forth! how big imagination
Moves in this lip! to the dumbness of the gesture
One might interpret.

Pain. It is a pretty mocking of the life.
Here is a touch; is't good?

Poet.

I will say of it,

It tutors nature: artificial strife

Lives in these touches, livelier than life.

Enter certain Senators, and pass over.

Pain. How this lord is follow'd!

Poet. The senators of Athens:-happy man! (2)

Pain. Look, more!

Poet. You see this confluence, this great flood of visitors.

I have, in this rough work, shap'd out a man,

Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug

With amplest entertainment: my free drift

Halts not particularly, but moves itself

In a wide sea of wax: no levell'd malice

Infects one comma in the course I hold;
But flies an eagle flight, bold, and forth on,
Leaving no tract behind.

Pain. How shall I understand you?