Alcib.
Sound to this coward and lascivious town
Our terrible approach. [A parley ^note sounded.

Enter Senators ^note upon the walls.
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 traversed arms and breathed
Our sufferance vainly: now the time is flush,
When crouching marrow in the bearer strong ^note
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 Sen.
Noble and young,
When thy first griefs were but a mere conceit,
Ere thou hadst power or we had cause of ^note fear,
We sent to thee, to give thy rages balm,
To wipe out our ingratitude ^note with loves
Above their ^note quantity.

Sec. Sen.
So did we woo
Transformed Timon to our city's love
By humble message and by promised means ^note:
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 received your griefs ^note: 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 ^note

Hath broke their hearts. March, ^note 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. ^note

First Sen.
All ^note have not offended;
For those that were, it is not square to take, ^note
On those that are, revenges: crimes, like ^note 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 the infected forth,
But kill not all together ^note.

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 rampired gates, and they shall ope;
So thou wilt send thy gentle heart before,
To say thou 'lt ^note 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 ^note, and open your uncharged ports:
Those enemies of Timon's ^note, 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 ^note public laws
At heaviest answer.

Both.
'Tis most nobly spoken.

Alcib.
Descend, and keep your words. [The Senators ^note descend, and open the gates. Enter Soldier. ^note

Sold.
My noble general, Timon is dead;
Entomb'd upon the very hem o' the sea;
And on his ^note grave-stone this insculpture, which
With wax I brought away, whose soft impression
Interprets ^note for my poor ^note ignorance.

Alcib. [Reads] ^note
‘Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft:
Seek not my name: a plague consume you wicked ^note caitiffs left!
Here lie I, Timon; who, alive ^note, all living men did hate:
Pass by and curse thy fill; but pass and ^note stay not here thy gait ^note.’
These well express in thee thy latter spirits:

Though thou abhorr'dst ^note in us our human ^note griefs,
Scorn'dst our brain's ^note 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 ^note
Is noble Timon: of whose memory
Hereafter more. Bring me into your city,
And I will use ^note the olive with my sword,
Make war breed peace, make peace stint war, make each
Prescribe to other as each other's leech.
Let our drums strike. [Exeunt.

NOTES. ^note