TPTT The Life of Timon of Athens: ACT II
Introduction
ACT I
ACT II
SCENE I. A Senator's house.
SCENE II. The same. A hall in Timon's house.
ACT III
ACT IV
ACT V
About the Play
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SCENE II. The same. A hall in Timon's house.
Enter FLAVIUS, with many bills in his hand
FLAVIUS
      No care, no stop! so senseless of expense,
      That he will neither know how to maintain it,
      Nor cease his flow of riot: takes no account
      How things go from him, nor resumes no care
5     Of what is to continue: never mind
      Was to be so unwise, to be so kind.
      What shall be done? he will not hear, till feel:
      I must be round with him, now he comes from hunting.
      Fie, fie, fie, fie!
Enter CAPHIS, and the Servants of Isidore and Varro
CAPHIS
10    Good even, Varro: what,
      You come for money?
Varro's Servant
      Is't not your business too?
CAPHIS
      It is: and yours too, Isidore?
Isidore's Servant
      It is so.
CAPHIS
15    Would we were all discharged!
Varro's Servant
      I fear it.
CAPHIS
      Here comes the lord.
Enter TIMON, ALCIBIADES, and Lords, &c
TIMON
      So soon as dinner's done, we'll forth again,
      My Alcibiades. With me? what is your will?
CAPHIS
20    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
25    To the succession of new days this month:
      My master is awaked by great occasion
      To call upon his own, and humbly prays you
      That with your other noble parts you'll suit
      In giving him his right.
TIMON
30    Mine honest friend,
      I prithee, but repair to me next morning.
CAPHIS
      Nay, good my lord,--
TIMON
      Contain thyself, good friend.
Varro's Servant
      One Varro's servant, my good lord,--
Isidore's Servant
35    From Isidore;
      He humbly prays your speedy payment.
CAPHIS
      If you did know, my lord, my master's wants--
Varro's Servant
      'Twas due on forfeiture, my lord, six weeks And past.
Isidore's Servant
      Your steward puts me off, my lord;
40    And I am sent expressly to your lordship.
TIMON
      Give me breath.
      I do beseech you, good my lords, keep on;
      I'll wait upon you instantly.

Exeunt ALCIBIADES and Lords

To FLAVIUS

      Come hither: pray you,
45    How goes the world, that I am thus encounter'd
      With clamourous demands of date-broke bonds,
      And the detention of long-since-due debts,
      Against my honour?
FLAVIUS
      Please you, gentlemen,
50    The time is unagreeable to this business:
      Your importunacy cease till after dinner,
      That I may make his lordship understand
      Wherefore you are not paid.
TIMON
      Do so, my friends. See them well entertain'd.
Exit
FLAVIUS
55    Pray, draw near.
Exit
Enter APEMANTUS and Fool
CAPHIS
      Stay, stay, here comes the fool with Apemantus:
      let's ha' some sport with 'em.
Varro's Servant
      Hang him, he'll abuse us.
Isidore's Servant
      A plague upon him, dog!
Varro's Servant
60    How dost, fool?
APEMANTUS
      Dost dialogue with thy shadow?
Varro's Servant
      I speak not to thee.
APEMANTUS
      No,'tis to thyself.

To the Fool

      Come away.
Isidore's Servant
65    There's the fool hangs on your back already.
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
      usurers' men! bawds between gold and want!
All Servants
70    What are we, Apemantus?
APEMANTUS
      Asses.
All Servants
      Why?
APEMANTUS
      That you ask me what you are, and do not know
      yourselves. Speak to 'em, fool.
Fool
75    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
      as you are. Would we could see you at Corinth!
APEMANTUS
      Good! gramercy.
Enter Page
Fool
80    Look you, here comes my mistress' page.
Page
      (To the Fool) Why, how now, captain! what do you
      in this wise company? How dost thou, Apemantus?
APEMANTUS
      Would I had a rod in my mouth, that I might answer
      thee profitably.
Page
85    Prithee, Apemantus, read me the superscription of
      these letters: I know not which is which.
APEMANTUS
      Canst not read?
Page
      No.
APEMANTUS
      There will little learning die then, that day thou
90    art hanged. This is to Lord Timon; this to
      Alcibiades. Go; thou wast born a bastard, and thou't
      die a bawd.
Page
      Thou wast whelped a dog, and thou shalt famish a
      dog's death. Answer not; I am gone.
Exit
APEMANTUS
95    E'en so thou outrunnest grace. Fool, I will go with
      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
100   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
      mistress is one, and I am her fool. When men come
105   to borrow of your masters, they approach sadly, and
      go away merry; but they enter my mistress' house
      merrily, and go away sadly: the reason of this?
Varro's Servant
      I could render one.
APEMANTUS
      Do it then, that we may account thee a whoremaster
110   and a knave; which not-withstanding, thou shalt be
      no less esteemed.
Varro's Servant
      What is a whoremaster, fool?
Fool
      A fool in good clothes, and something like thee.
      'Tis a spirit: sometime't appears like a lord;
115   sometime like a lawyer; sometime like a philosopher,
      with two stones moe than's artificial one: he is
      very often like a knight; and, generally, in all
      shapes that man goes up and down in from fourscore
      to thirteen, this spirit walks in.
Varro's Servant
120   Thou art not altogether a fool.
Fool
      Nor thou altogether a wise man: as much foolery as
      I have, so much wit thou lackest.
APEMANTUS
      That answer might have become Apemantus.
All Servants
      Aside, aside; here comes Lord Timon.
Re-enter TIMON and FLAVIUS
APEMANTUS
125   Come with me, fool, come.
Fool
      I do not always follow lover, elder brother and
      woman; sometime the philosopher.
Exeunt APEMANTUS and Fool
FLAVIUS
      Pray you, walk near: I'll speak with you anon.
Exeunt Servants
TIMON
      You make me marvel: wherefore ere this time
130   Had you not fully laid my state before me,
      That I might so have rated my expense,
      As I had leave of means?
FLAVIUS
      You would not hear me,
      At many leisures I proposed.
TIMON
135   Go to:
      Perchance some single vantages you took.
      When my indisposition put you back:
      And that unaptness made your minister,
      Thus to excuse yourself.
FLAVIUS
140   O my good lord,
      At many times I brought in my accounts,
      Laid them before you; you would throw them off,
      And say, you found them in mine honesty.
      When, for some trifling present, you have bid me
145   Return so much, I have shook my head and wept;
      Yea, 'gainst the authority of manners, pray'd you
      To hold your hand more close: I did endure
      Not seldom, nor no slight cheques, when I have
      Prompted you in the ebb of your estate
150   And your great flow of debts. My loved lord,
      Though you hear now, too late--yet now's a time--
      The greatest of your having lacks a half
      To pay your present debts.
TIMON
      Let all my land be sold.
FLAVIUS
155   'Tis all engaged, some forfeited and gone;
      And what remains will hardly stop the mouth
      Of present dues: the future comes apace:
      What shall defend the interim? and at length
      How goes our reckoning?
TIMON
160   To Lacedaemon did my land extend.
FLAVIUS
      O my good lord, the world is but a word:
      Were it all yours to give it in a breath,
      How quickly were it gone!
TIMON
      You tell me true.
FLAVIUS
165   If you suspect my husbandry or falsehood,
      Call me before the exactest auditors
      And set me on the proof. So the gods bless me,
      When all our offices have been oppress'd
      With riotous feeders, when our vaults have wept
170   With drunken spilth of wine, when every room
      Hath blazed with lights and bray'd with minstrelsy,
      I have retired me to a wasteful cock,
      And set mine eyes at flow.
TIMON
      Prithee, no more.
FLAVIUS
175   Heavens, have I said, the bounty of this lord!
      How many prodigal bits have slaves and peasants
      This night englutted! Who is not Timon's?
      What heart, head, sword, force, means, but is
      Lord Timon's?
180   Great Timon, noble, worthy, royal Timon!
      Ah, when the means are gone that buy this praise,
      The breath is gone whereof this praise is made:
      Feast-won, fast-lost; one cloud of winter showers,
      These flies are couch'd.
TIMON
185   Come, sermon me no further:
      No villanous bounty yet hath pass'd my heart;
      Unwisely, not ignobly, have I given.
      Why dost thou weep? Canst thou the conscience lack,
      To think I shall lack friends? Secure thy heart;
190   If I would broach the vessels of my love,
      And try the argument of hearts by borrowing,
      Men and men's fortunes could I frankly use
      As I can bid thee speak.
FLAVIUS
      Assurance bless your thoughts!
TIMON
195   And, in some sort, these wants of mine are crown'd,
      That I account them blessings; for by these
      Shall I try friends: you shall perceive how you
      Mistake my fortunes; I am wealthy in my friends.
      Within there! Flaminius! Servilius!
Enter FLAMINIUS, SERVILIUS, and other Servants
Servants
200   My lord? my lord?
TIMON
      I will dispatch you severally; you to Lord Lucius;
      to Lord Lucullus you: I hunted with his honour
      to-day: you, to Sempronius: commend me to their
      loves, and, I am proud, say, that my occasions have
205   found time to use 'em toward a supply of money: let
      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--
210   Of whom, even to the state's best health, I have
      Deserved this hearing--bid 'em send o' the instant
      A thousand talents to me.
FLAVIUS
      I have been bold--
      For that I knew it the most general way--
215   To them to use your signet and your name;
      But they do shake their heads, and I am here
      No richer in return.
TIMON
      Is't true? can't be?
FLAVIUS
      They answer, in a joint and corporate voice,
220   That now they are at fall, want treasure, cannot
      Do what they would; are sorry--you are honourable,--
      But yet they could have wish'd--they know not--
      Something hath been amiss--a noble nature
      May catch a wrench--would all were well--'tis pity;--
225   And so, intending other serious matters,
      After distasteful looks and these hard fractions,
      With certain half-caps and cold-moving nods
      They froze me into silence.
TIMON
      You gods, reward them!
230   Prithee, man, look cheerly. These old fellows
      Have their ingratitude in them hereditary:
      Their blood is caked, 'tis cold, it seldom flows;
      'Tis lack of kindly warmth they are not kind;
      And nature, as it grows again toward earth,
235   Is fashion'd for the journey, dull and heavy.

To a Servant

      Go to Ventidius.

To FLAVIUS

      Prithee, be not sad,
      Thou art true and honest; ingeniously I speak.
      No blame belongs to thee.

To Servant

240   Ventidius lately
      Buried his father; by whose death he's stepp'd
      Into a great estate: when he was poor,
      Imprison'd and in scarcity of friends,
      I clear'd him with five talents: greet him from me;
245   Bid him suppose some good necessity
      Touches his friend, which craves to be remember'd
      With those five talents.

Exit Servant

To FLAVIUS

      That had, give't these fellows
      To whom 'tis instant due. Ne'er speak, or think,
250   That Timon's fortunes 'mong his friends can sink.
FLAVIUS
      I would I could not think it: that thought is
      bounty's foe;
      Being free itself, it thinks all others so.
Exeunt
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