Timon of Athens by William Shakespeare
Act 2 - Scene 2
The same. A hall in Timon’s house.
Flavius : No care, no stop! so senseless of expense,
[p]That he will neither
know how to maintain it,
[p]Nor cease his flow of riot: takes no
account
[p]How things go from him, nor resumes no care
[p]Of what is
to continue: never mind
[p]Was to be so unwise, to be so kind.
[p]What
shall be done? he will not hear, till feel:
[p]I must be round with
him, now he comes from hunting.
[p]Fie, fie, fie, fie!
Caphis : Good even, Varro: what,
[p]You come for money?
Caphis : It is: and yours too, Isidore?
Caphis : Would we were all discharged!
Caphis : Here comes the lord.
Timon : So soon as dinner's done, we'll forth again,
[p]My Alcibiades. With
me? what is your will?
Caphis : My lord, here is a note of certain dues.
Timon : Dues! Whence are you?
Caphis : Of Athens here, my lord.
Timon : Go to my steward.
Caphis : Please it your lordship, he hath put me off
[p]To the succession of
new days this month:
[p]My master is awaked by great occasion
[p]To
call upon his own, and humbly prays you
[p]That with your other noble
parts you'll suit
[p]In giving him his right.
Timon : Mine honest friend,
[p]I prithee, but repair to me next morning.
Caphis : Nay, good my lord,--
Timon : Contain thyself, good friend.
[p]He humbly prays your speedy payment.
Caphis : If you did know, my lord, my master's wants--
[p]And I am sent
expressly to your lordship.
Timon : Give me breath.
[p]I do beseech you, good my lords, keep on;
[p]I'll
wait upon you instantly.
[p][Exeunt ALCIBIADES and Lords]
[p][To
FLAVIUS]
[p]Come hither: pray you,
[p]How goes the world, that I am
thus encounter'd
[p]With clamourous demands of date-broke
bonds,
[p]And the detention of long-since-due debts,
[p]Against my
honour?
Flavius : Please you, gentlemen,
[p]The time is unagreeable to this
business:
[p]Your importunacy cease till after dinner,
[p]That I may
make his lordship understand
[p]Wherefore you are not paid.
Timon : Do so, my friends. See them well entertain'd.
Flavius : Pray, draw near.
Caphis : Stay, stay, here comes the fool with Apemantus:
[p]let's ha' some
sport with 'em.
Apemantus : Dost dialogue with thy shadow?
Apemantus : No,'tis to thyself.
[p][To the Fool]
[p]Come away.
Apemantus : No, thou stand'st single, thou'rt not on him yet.
Caphis : Where's the fool now?
Apemantus : He last asked the question. Poor rogues, and
[p]usurers' men! bawds
between gold and want!
All Servants : What are we, Apemantus?
Apemantus : Asses.
All Servants : Why?
Apemantus : That you ask me what you are, and do not know
[p]yourselves. Speak to
'em, fool.
Fool : How do you, gentlemen?
All Servants : Gramercies, good fool: how does your mistress?
Fool : She's e'en setting on water to scald such chickens
[p]as you are.
Would we could see you at Corinth!
Apemantus : Good! gramercy.
Fool : Look you, here comes my mistress' page.
Page : [To the Fool] Why, how now, captain! what do you
[p]in this wise
company? How dost thou, Apemantus?
Apemantus : Would I had a rod in my mouth, that I might answer
[p]thee
profitably.
Page : Prithee, Apemantus, read me the superscription of
[p]these letters: I
know not which is which.
Apemantus : Canst not read?
Page : No.
Apemantus : There will little learning die then, that day thou
[p]art hanged. This
is to Lord Timon; this to
[p]Alcibiades. Go; thou wast born a bastard,
and thou't
[p]die a bawd.
Page : Thou wast whelped a dog, and thou shalt famish a
[p]dog's death.
Answer not; I am gone.
Apemantus : E'en so thou outrunnest grace. Fool, I will go with
[p]you to Lord
Timon's.
Fool : Will you leave me there?
Apemantus : If Timon stay at home. You three serve three usurers?
All Servants : Ay; would they served us!
Apemantus : So would I,--as good a trick as ever hangman served thief.
Fool : Are you three usurers' men?
All Servants : Ay, fool.
Fool : I think no usurer but has a fool to his servant: my
[p]mistress is
one, and I am her fool. When men come
[p]to borrow of your masters,
they approach sadly, and
[p]go away merry; but they enter my mistress'
house
[p]merrily, and go away sadly: the reason of this?
Apemantus : Do it then, that we may account thee a whoremaster
[p]and a knave;
which not-withstanding, thou shalt be
[p]no less esteemed.
Fool : A fool in good clothes, and something like thee.
[p]'Tis a spirit:
sometime't appears like a lord;
[p]sometime like a lawyer; sometime
like a philosopher,
[p]with two stones moe than's artificial one: he
is
[p]very often like a knight; and, generally, in all
[p]shapes that
man goes up and down in from fourscore
[p]to thirteen, this spirit
walks in.
Fool : Nor thou altogether a wise man: as much foolery as
[p]I have, so much
wit thou lackest.
Apemantus : That answer might have become Apemantus.
All Servants : Aside, aside; here comes Lord Timon.
Apemantus : Come with me, fool, come.
Fool : I do not always follow lover, elder brother and
[p]woman; sometime the
philosopher.
Flavius : Pray you, walk near: I'll speak with you anon.
Timon : You make me marvel: wherefore ere this time
[p]Had you not fully laid
my state before me,
[p]That I might so have rated my expense,
[p]As I
had leave of means?
Flavius : You would not hear me,
[p]At many leisures I proposed.
Timon : Go to:
[p]Perchance some single vantages you took.
[p]When my
indisposition put you back:
[p]And that unaptness made your
minister,
[p]Thus to excuse yourself.
Flavius : O my good lord,
[p]At many times I brought in my accounts,
[p]Laid
them before you; you would throw them off,
[p]And say, you found them
in mine honesty.
[p]When, for some trifling present, you have bid
me
[p]Return so much, I have shook my head and wept;
[p]Yea, 'gainst
the authority of manners, pray'd you
[p]To hold your hand more close:
I did endure
[p]Not seldom, nor no slight cheques, when I
have
[p]Prompted you in the ebb of your estate
[p]And your great flow
of debts. My loved lord,
[p]Though you hear now, too late--yet now's a
time--
[p]The greatest of your having lacks a half
[p]To pay your
present debts.
Timon : Let all my land be sold.
Flavius : 'Tis all engaged, some forfeited and gone;
[p]And what remains will
hardly stop the mouth
[p]Of present dues: the future comes
apace:
[p]What shall defend the interim? and at length
[p]How goes our
reckoning?
Timon : To Lacedaemon did my land extend.
Flavius : O my good lord, the world is but a word:
[p]Were it all yours to give
it in a breath,
[p]How quickly were it gone!
Timon : You tell me true.
Flavius : If you suspect my husbandry or falsehood,
[p]Call me before the
exactest auditors
[p]And set me on the proof. So the gods bless
me,
[p]When all our offices have been oppress'd
[p]With riotous
feeders, when our vaults have wept
[p]With drunken spilth of wine,
when every room
[p]Hath blazed with lights and bray'd with
minstrelsy,
[p]I have retired me to a wasteful cock,
[p]And set mine
eyes at flow.
Timon : Prithee, no more.
Flavius : Heavens, have I said, the bounty of this lord!
[p]How many prodigal
bits have slaves and peasants
[p]This night englutted! Who is not
Timon's?
[p]What heart, head, sword, force, means, but is
[p]Lord
Timon's?
[p]Great Timon, noble, worthy, royal Timon!
[p]Ah, when the
means are gone that buy this praise,
[p]The breath is gone whereof
this praise is made:
[p]Feast-won, fast-lost; one cloud of winter
showers,
[p]These flies are couch'd.
Timon : Come, sermon me no further:
[p]No villanous bounty yet hath pass'd my
heart;
[p]Unwisely, not ignobly, have I given.
[p]Why dost thou weep?
Canst thou the conscience lack,
[p]To think I shall lack friends?
Secure thy heart;
[p]If I would broach the vessels of my love,
[p]And
try the argument of hearts by borrowing,
[p]Men and men's fortunes
could I frankly use
[p]As I can bid thee speak.
Flavius : Assurance bless your thoughts!
Timon : And, in some sort, these wants of mine are crown'd,
[p]That I account
them blessings; for by these
[p]Shall I try friends: you shall
perceive how you
[p]Mistake my fortunes; I am wealthy in my
friends.
[p]Within there! Flaminius! Servilius!
All Servants : My lord? my lord?
Timon : I will dispatch you severally; you to Lord Lucius;
[p]to Lord Lucullus
you: I hunted with his honour
[p]to-day: you, to Sempronius: commend
me to their
[p]loves, and, I am proud, say, that my occasions
have
[p]found time to use 'em toward a supply of money: let
[p]the
request be fifty talents.
Flaminius : As you have said, my lord.
Flavius : [Aside] Lord Lucius and Lucullus? hum!
Timon : Go you, sir, to the senators--
[p]Of whom, even to the state's best
health, I have
[p]Deserved this hearing--bid 'em send o' the
instant
[p]A thousand talents to me.
Flavius : I have been bold--
[p]For that I knew it the most general way--
[p]To
them to use your signet and your name;
[p]But they do shake their
heads, and I am here
[p]No richer in return.
Timon : Is't true? can't be?
Flavius : They answer, in a joint and corporate voice,
[p]That now they are at
fall, want treasure, cannot
[p]Do what they would; are sorry--you are
honourable,--
[p]But yet they could have wish'd--they know
not--
[p]Something hath been amiss--a noble nature
[p]May catch a
wrench--would all were well--'tis pity;--
[p]And so, intending other
serious matters,
[p]After distasteful looks and these hard
fractions,
[p]With certain half-caps and cold-moving nods
[p]They
froze me into silence.
Timon : You gods, reward them!
[p]Prithee, man, look cheerly. These old
fellows
[p]Have their ingratitude in them hereditary:
[p]Their blood
is caked, 'tis cold, it seldom flows;
[p]'Tis lack of kindly warmth
they are not kind;
[p]And nature, as it grows again toward
earth,
[p]Is fashion'd for the journey, dull and heavy.
[p][To a
Servant]
[p]Go to Ventidius.
[p][To FLAVIUS]
[p]Prithee, be not
sad,
[p]Thou art true and honest; ingeniously I speak.
[p]No blame
belongs to thee.
[p][To Servant]
[p]Ventidius lately
[p]Buried his
father; by whose death he's stepp'd
[p]Into a great estate: when he
was poor,
[p]Imprison'd and in scarcity of friends,
[p]I clear'd him
with five talents: greet him from me;
[p]Bid him suppose some good
necessity
[p]Touches his friend, which craves to be remember'd
[p]With
those five talents.
[p][Exit Servant]
[p][To FLAVIUS]
[p]That had,
give't these fellows
[p]To whom 'tis instant due. Ne'er speak, or
think,
[p]That Timon's fortunes 'mong his friends can sink.
Flavius : I would I could not think it: that thought is
[p]bounty's
foe;
[p]Being free itself, it thinks all others so.
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