SCENE III. The woods. TIMON's cave,

and a rude tomb seen.

Enter a Soldier, seeking TIMON.

Sold. By all description this should be the place.

Who's here? speak, ho! No answer? What is this?
Timon is dead, who hath outstretch'd his span:

Some beast rear'd this; here does not live a man.

Dead, sure; and this his grave.

What's on this tomb I cannot read; the character
I'll take with wax:

Our captain hath in every figure skill,

An ag'd interpreter, though young in days:
Before proud Athens he's set down by this,
Whose fall the mark of his ambition is.

SCENE IV. Before the walls of Athens.

Trumpets sound. Enter ALCIBIADES and Forces.
Sound to this coward and lascivious town

Alcib.
Our terrible approach.

Enter Senators on the walls.

[Exit.

[A parley sounded.

Till now you have gone on, and fill'd the time
With all licentious measure, making your wills
The scope of justice; till now, myself, and such
As slept within the shadow of your power,
Have wander'd with our travers'd arms, and breath'd
Our sufferance vainly: now the time is flush,
When crouching marrow, in the bearer strong,
Cries, of itself, "No more: now breathless wrong
Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease;
And pursy insolence shall break his wind

With fear and horrid flight.

Noble and young,

First Sen.
When thy first griefs were but a mere conceit,
Ere thou hadst power, or we had cause of fear,
We sent to thee; to give thy rages balm,

Shakespeare. V.

18

Transformed Timon to our city's love

By humble message and by promis'd means:
We were not all unkind, nor all deserve

The common stroke of war.

First Sen.

These walls of ours

Were not erected by their hands from whom

You have receiv'd your griefs; nor are they such

That these great towers, trophies, and schools should fall
For private faults in them.

Sec. Sen.
Nor are they living
Who were the motives that you first went out;
Shame, that they wanted cunning, in excess,
Hath broke their hearts. March, noble lord,
Into our city with thy banners spread:
By decimation, and a tithèd death,
If thy revenges hunger for that food,

Which nature loathes, take thou the destin'd tenth; And by the hazard of the spotted die

Let die the spotted.

First Sen.

All have not offended;

For those that were, it is not square to take
On those that are revenges: crimes, like lands,
Are not inherited. Then, dear countryman,
Bring in thy ranks, but leave without thy rage:
Spare thy Athenian cradle, and those kin
Which, in the bluster of thy wrath, must fall
With those that have offended: like a shepherd,
Approach the fold, and cull th' infected forth,
But kill not all together.

Sec. Sen.

What thou wilt,

Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smile

Than hew to't with thy sword.

First Sen.

Set but thy foot

Against our rampir'd gates, and they shall ope;

So thou wilt send thy gentle heart before,

To say thou'lt enter friendly.

Sec. Sen.

Throw thy glove,
Or any token of thine honour else,

That thou wilt use the wars as thy redress,
And not as our confusion, all thy powers

Shall make their harbour in our town, till we
Have seal'd thy full desire.

Alcib.

Then there's my glove;

Descend, and open your uncharged ports:
Those enemies of Timon's, and mine own,
Whom you yourselves shall set out for reproof,
Fall, and no more: and to atone your fears
With my more noble meaning

not a man

Shall pass his quarter, or offend the stream
Of regular justice in your city's bounds,
But shall be render'd to your public laws
At heaviest answer.

Senators.

"Tis most nobly spoken.

Alcib. Descend, and keep your words.

[The Senators descend, and open

Enter a Soldier.

hem o' the sea;

Sold. My noble general, Timon is dead;

Entomb'd upon the very

And on his grave-stone this insculpture, which
With wax I brought away, whose soft impression
Interprets for my poor ignorance.

the gates.

Alcib. [reads] "Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched

soul bereft:

Seek not my name: a plague consume you wicked caitiffs left! Here lie I, Timon; who, alive, all living men did hate:

Pass by, and curse thy fill; but pass, and stay not here thy gait."

These well express in thee thy latter spirits:

Though thou abhorr'dst in us our human griefs,

Scorn'dst our brains' flow, and those our droplets which

From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit
Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye
On thy low grave, on faults forgiven. Dead
Is noble Timon: of whose memory
Hereafter more. Bring me into your city,
And I will use the olive with my sword:
Make war breed peace; make peace stint war;
Prescribe to other, as each other's leech.
Let our drums strike.

make each

[Exeunt.

CALPHURNIA, wife to Caesar.

ARTEMIDORUS, a sophist of PORTIA, wife to Brutus.

Cnidos.

Senators, Citizens, Guards, Attendants, &c.

during a great part of the play at Rome; afterwards near Sardis, and near Philippi.

ACT I.

SCENE I. Rome. A street.

Enter FLAVIUS, MARULLUS, and a rabble of Citizens. Flav. Hence! home, you idle creatures, get you home: Is this a holiday? what! know you not,