SCENE II.
—Before the Walls of Athens.
Trumpets sound. Enter Alcibiades with his forces.
Alc.
Sound to this coward and lascivious town
Our terrible approach.
Sound a parley. The Senators appear 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 traverst arms, and breath'd
Our sufferance vainly. Now the time is flush,
-- 51 --
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.
1st Sen.
Noble and young,
When thy first griefs were but a mere conceit,
Ere thou had'st power, or we had cause to fear;
We sent to thee, to give thy rages balm,
To wipe out our ingratitude, with loves
Above their quantity.
2d Sen.
So did we woo
Transformed Timon to our city's love
By humble message, and by promis'd 'mends:
We were not all unkind, nor all deserve
The common stroke of war.
1st Sen.
March on, oh, noble lord,
Into our city with thy banners spread;
By decimation and a tithed death,
If thy revenges hunger for that food
Which nature loaths, take thou the destin'd tenth:
And by the hazard of the spotted die,
Let die the spotted.
2d Sen.
Set but thy foot
Against our rampir'd gates, and they shall ope,
So thou wilt send thy gentle heart before,
To say, thou'lt enter friendly.
1st 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.
Alc.
Descend, and open your uncharged ports;
Those enemies of Timon's, 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 remedied by public laws
At heaviest answer.
Both.
'Tis most nobly spoken.
Alc.
Descend, and keep your words.
-- 52 --
The Gates open. Senators, &c. come forth, and kneeling, deliver the Keys of the Town to Alcibiades. Flourish of Trumpets.
Alc.
Yet all's not done:
Vengeance must work. Where is that loathsome crew,
Whose black ingratitude corrodes the heart
Of Athen's noblest son?
1st Sen.
They wait your doom.
Guard them hither.
Lucius, Lucullus, Sempronius, and other of Timon's former friends, brought in bound.
Alc.
Now, base dissembling villains,
Ye look'd more cheerly, when I found you guests
At Timon's feast.—While on his wealth ye throve,
And his full coffers, like his heart, stood open
To your free use.
Sem.
These are your doings ye vindictive Gods
I see you rise against ingratitude
And push us from the earth: I have deserv'd it.
Luc.
What law can judge the heart! what is my fault?
Alc.
What fault! oh heartless slave ye did deny
Lord Timon, certain vile and sorry drachms
In his distress, now Timon's star prevails,
And justice wrings your treasures from your gripe.
Luc.
What all my wealth, my pictures, statues, coin,
Plate—jewels—gems—
Lucul.
Yet spare, oh mighty chief,
All your need craves not, I've a mine of gold
A magazine to sack or save a city.
Alc.
And it shall buy you banishment, instead
of public, shameful death. So that Lord Timon,
whose will must seal your sentence, yield consent to
so much mercy.
Lucul.
Mercy from him! Would I were Timon's dog
Rather than what I am. Egregious dotard!
-- 53 --
Luc.
I have no heart to speak.—All swept away—
My hangings, couches, vestments wrought with gold.
Oh what a luckless piece of work is man!—
Alc.
Bring them along
To the lone wood, where wretched Timon haunts,
The exile of mankind.
Enter a Soldier.
Sol.
My noble general, Timon is dead;
Entomb'd upon the very hem o'th' sea;
And on his grave-stone this insculpture, which
With wax I brought away;
Alcibiades reads the epitaph.
Here lye I Timon, who all living men did hate,
Pass by, and curse thy fill, but stay not here thy gait.
These well express in thee thy latter spirits:
Tho' thou abhorr'dst us in our human griefs,
Scorn'dst our brains' 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
Is noble Timon, of whose memory
Hereafter more—bring me into your city,
And I will use the olive with my sword;
Make war breed peace; make peace stint war; make each
Prescribe to other,
Let our drums strike.—
A march.—Curtain falls.
