Timon of Athens - William Shakespeare [books to read romance txt] 📗

womb,
Let it no more bring out ingrateful man!
Go great with tigers, dragons, wolves, and bears;
Teem with new monsters, whom thy upward face
Hath to the marbled mansion all above
Never presented!⁠—O, a root⁠—dear thanks!⁠—
Dry up thy marrows, vines, and plough-torn leas;
Whereof ungrateful man, with liquorish draughts
And morsels unctuous, greases his pure mind,
That from it all consideration slips! Enter Apemantus. More man? plague, plague! Apemantus

I was directed hither: men report
Thou dost affect my manners, and dost use them.

Timon

’Tis, then, because thou dost not keep a dog,
Whom I would imitate: consumption catch thee!

Apemantus

This is in thee a nature but infected;
A poor unmanly melancholy sprung
From change of fortune. Why this spade? this place?
This slave-like habit? and these looks of care?
Thy flatterers yet wear silk, drink wine, lie soft;
Hug their diseased perfumes, and have forgot
That ever Timon was. Shame not these woods,
By putting on the cunning of a carper.
Be thou a flatterer now, and seek to thrive
By that which has undone thee: hinge thy knee,
And let his very breath, whom thou’lt observe,
Blow off thy cap; praise his most vicious strain,
And call it excellent: thou wast told thus;
Thou gavest thine ears like tapsters that bid welcome
To knaves and all approachers: ’tis most just
That thou turn rascal; hadst thou wealth again,
Rascals should have’t. Do not assume my likeness.

Timon Were I like thee, I’ld throw away myself. Apemantus

Thou hast cast away thyself, being like thyself;
A madman so long, now a fool. What, think’st
That the bleak air, thy boisterous chamberlain,
Will put thy shirt on warm? will these moss’d trees,
That have outlived the eagle, page thy heels,
And skip where thou point’st out? will the cold brook,
Candied with ice, caudle thy morning taste,
To cure thy o’er-night’s surfeit? Call the creatures
Whose naked natures live in an the spite
Of wreakful heaven, whose bare unhoused trunks,
To the conflicting elements exposed,
Answer mere nature; bid them flatter thee;
O, thou shalt find⁠—

Timon A fool of thee: depart. Apemantus I love thee better now than e’er I did. Timon I hate thee worse. Apemantus Why? Timon Thou flatter’st misery. Apemantus I flatter not; but say thou art a caitiff. Timon Why dost thou seek me out? Apemantus To vex thee. Timon

Always a villain’s office or a fool’s.
Dost please thyself in’t?

Apemantus Ay. Timon What! a knave too? Apemantus

If thou didst put this sour-cold habit on
To castigate thy pride, ’twere well: but thou
Dost it enforcedly; thou’ldst courtier be again,
Wert thou not beggar. Willing misery
Outlives incertain pomp, is crown’d before:
The one is filling still, never complete;
The other, at high wish: best state, contentless,
Hath a distracted and most wretched being,
Worse than the worst, content.
Thou shouldst desire to die, being miserable.

Timon

Not by his breath that is more miserable.
Thou art a slave, whom Fortune’s tender arm
With favour never clasp’d; but bred a dog.
Hadst thou, like us from our first swath, proceeded
The sweet degrees that this brief world affords
To such as may the passive drugs of it
Freely command, thou wouldst have plunged thyself
In general riot; melted down thy youth
In different beds of lust; and never learn’d
The icy precepts of respect, but follow’d
The sugar’d game before thee. But myself,
Who had the world as my confectionary,
The mouths, the tongues, the eyes and hearts of men
At duty, more than I could frame employment,
That numberless upon me stuck as leaves
Do on the oak, hive with one winter’s brush
Fell from their boughs and left me open, bare
For every storm that blows: I, to bear this,
That never knew but better, is some burden:
Thy nature did commence in sufferance, time
Hath made thee hard in’t. Why shouldst thou hate men?
They never flatter’d thee: what hast thou given?
If thou wilt curse, thy father, that poor rag,
Must be thy subject, who in spite put stuff
To some she beggar and compounded thee
Poor rogue hereditary. Hence, be gone!
If thou hadst not been born the worst of men,
Thou hadst been a knave and flatterer.

Apemantus Art thou proud yet? Timon Ay, that I am not thee. Apemantus

I, that I was
No prodigal.

Timon

I, that I am one now:
Were all the wealth I have shut up in thee,
I’ld give thee leave to hang it. Get thee gone.
That the whole life of Athens were in this!
Thus would I eat it. Eating a root.

Apemantus Here; I will mend thy feast. Offering him a root. Timon First mend my company, take away thyself. Apemantus So I shall mend mine own, by the lack of thine. Timon

’Tis not well mended so, it is but botch’d;
If not, I would it were.

Apemantus What wouldst thou have to Athens? Timon

Thee thither in a whirlwind. If thou wilt,
Tell them there I have gold; look, so I have.

Apemantus Here is no use for gold. Timon

The best and truest;
For here it sleeps, and does no hired harm.

Apemantus Where liest o’ nights, Timon? Timon

Under that’s above me.
Where feed’st thou o’ days, Apemantus?

Apemantus Where my stomach finds meat; or, rather, where I eat it. Timon Would poison were obedient and knew my mind! Apemantus Where wouldst thou send it? Timon To sauce thy dishes. Apemantus The middle of humanity thou never knewest, but the extremity of both ends: when thou wast in thy gilt and thy perfume, they mocked thee for too much curiosity; in thy rags thou knowest none, but art despised for the contrary. There’s a medlar for thee, eat it. Timon On what I hate I feed not. Apemantus Dost hate a medlar? Timon Ay, though it look like thee. Apemantus An thou hadst hated meddlers sooner, thou shouldst have loved thyself better now. What man didst thou ever know unthrift that was beloved after his means? Timon Who, without those means thou talkest of, didst thou ever know beloved? Apemantus Myself. Timon I understand thee; thou hadst some means to keep a dog. Apemantus What things in the world canst thou nearest compare to thy flatterers? Timon Women nearest; but men, men are the things themselves. What wouldst thou do with the world, Apemantus, if it lay in thy power? Apemantus Give it the beasts, to be rid of the men. Timon Wouldst thou have thyself fall in the confusion of men, and remain a beast with the beasts? Apemantus Ay, Timon. Timon A beastly ambition, which the gods grant