TIMON

Come not to me again, but say to Athens,

Timon hath made his everlasting mansion

Upon the beached verge of the salt flood,

Who once a day with his embossed froth

The turbulent surge shall cover. Thither come,

And let my gravestone be your oracle.

lips, let four words go by, and language end.

What is amiss, plague and infection mend.

Graves only be men’s works, and death their gain.

Sun, hide thy beams. Timon hath done his reign.

Exit ⌈into his cave⌉

FIRST SENATOR

His discontents are unremovably

Coupled to nature.

SECOND SENATOR

Our hope in him is dead. Let us return,

And strain what other means is left unto us

In our dear peril.

FIRST SENATOR

It requires swift foot.

Exeunt

5.3 Enter two other Senators, with a Messenger

⌈THIRD⌉ SENATOR

Thou hast painfully discovered. Are his files

As full as thy report?

MESSENGER

I have spoke the least.

Besides, his expedition promises

Present approach.

⌈FOURTH⌉ SENATOR

We stand much hazard if they bring not Timon.

MESSENGER

I met a courier, one mine ancient friend,

Whom, though in general part we were opposed,

Yet our old love made a particular force

And made us speak like friends. This man was riding

From Alcibiades to Timon’s cave

With letters of entreaty which imported

His fellowship i’th’ cause against your city,

In part for his sake moved.

Enter the other Senators

⌈THIRD⌉ SENATOR

Here come our brothers.

⌈FIRST⌉ SENATOR

No talk of Timon; nothing of him expect.

The enemy’s drum is heard, and fearful scouring

Doth choke the air with dust. In, and prepare.

Ours is the fall, I fear, our foe’s the snare. Exeunt

5.4 Enter a Soldier, in the woods, seeking Timon

SOLDIER

By all description, this should be the place.

Who’s here? Speak, ho! No answer?

⌈He discovers a gravestone⌉

What is this?

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 aged interpreter, though young in days.

Before proud Athens he’s set down by this,

Whose fall the mark of his ambition is. Exit

5.5 Trumpets sound. Enter Alcibiades with his powers, before Athens

ALCIBIADES

Sound to this coward and lascivious town

Our terrible approach.

A parley sounds. The Senators appear upon the walls

Till now you have gone on and filled 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 wandered with our traversed arms, and breathed

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.

FIRST SENATOR

Noble and young,

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,

To wipe out our ingratitude with loves

Above their quantity.

SECOND SENATOR

So did we woo

Transformed Timon to our city’s love

By humble message and by promised means.

We were not all unkind, nor all deserve

The common stroke of war.

FIRST SENATOR

These walls of ours

Were not erected by their hands from whom

You have received your grief; nor are they such

That these great tow’rs, trophies, and schools should fall

For private faults in them.

SECOND SENATOR

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 tithed death,

If thy revenges hunger for that food

Which nature loathes, take thou the destined tenth,

And by the hazard of the spotted die

Let die the spotted.

FIRST SENATOR

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.

SECOND SENATOR

What thou wilt,

Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smile

Than hew to’t with thy sword.

FIRST SENATOR

Set but thy foot

Against our rampired gates and they shall ope,

So thou wilt send thy gentle heart before

To say thou’lt enter friendly.

SECOND SENATOR

Throw thy glove,

Or any token of thine honour else,