LITMIR.BIZ

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eye shoots forth! how big imagination

      Moves in this lip! to the dumbness of the gesture

      One might interpret.

      PAINTER.

      It is a pretty mocking of the life.

      Here is a touch; is’t good?

      POET.

      I’ll say of it,

      It tutors nature: artificial strife

      Lives in these touches, livelier than life.

      [Enter certain SENATORS, who pass over the stage.]

      PAINTER.

      How this lord is followed!

      POET.

      The senators of Athens: happy man!

      PAINTER.

      Look, more!

      POET.

      You see this confluence, this great flood of visitors.

      I have, in this rough work, shap’d out a man

      Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug

      With amplest entertainment: my free drift

      Halts not particularly, but moves itself

      In a wide sea of wax: no levell’d malice

      Infects one comma in the course I hold:

      But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on,

      Leaving no tract behind.

      PAINTER.

      How shall I understand you?

      POET.

      I will unbolt to you.

      You see how all conditions, how all minds–

      As well of glib and slipp’ry creatures as

      Of grave and austere quality–tender down

      Their services to Lord Timon: his large fortune,

      Upon his good and gracious nature hanging,

      Subdues and properties to his love and tendance

      All sorts of hearts; yea, from the glass-fac’d flatterer

      To Apemantus, that few things loves better

      Than to abhor himself: even he drops down

      The knee before him, and returns in peace

      Most rich in Timon’s nod.

      PAINTER.

      I saw them speak together.

      POET.

      Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill

      Feign’d Fortune to be thron’d: the base o’ the mount

      Is rank’d with all deserts, all kind of natures

      That labour on the bosom of this sphere

      To propagate their states: amongst them all,

      Whose eyes are on this sovereign lady fix’d

      One do I personate of Lord Timon’s frame,

      Whom Fortune with her ivory hand wafts to her;

      Whose present grace to present slaves and servants

      Translates his rivals.

      PAINTER.

      'Tis conceiv’d to scope.

      This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks,

      With one man beckon’d from the rest below,

      Bowing his head against the steepy mount

      To climb his happiness, would be well express’d

      In our condition.

      POET.

      Nay, sir, but hear me on.

      All those which were his fellows but of late,

      Some better than his value, on the moment

      Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tendance,

      Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear,

      Make sacred even his stirrup, and through him

      Drink the free air.

      PAINTER.

      Ay, marry, what of these?

      POET.

      When Fortune in her shift and change of mood

      Spurns down her late beloved, all his dependants,

      Which labour’d after him to the mountain’s top

      Even on their knees and hands, let him slip down,

      Not one accompanying his declining foot.

      PAINTER.

      'Tis common:

      A thousand moral paintings I can show

      That shall demonstrate these quick blows of Fortune’s

      More pregnantly than words. Yet you do well

      To show Lord Timon that mean eyes have seen

      The foot above the head.

      [Trumpets sound. Enter LORD TIMON, addressing himself courteously to every suitor: a MESSENGER from VENTIDIUS talking with him; LUCILIUS and other servants following.]

      TIMON.

      Imprison’d is he, say you?

      MESSENGER.

      Ay, my good lord. Five talents is his debt,

      His means most short, his creditors most strait:

      Your honourable letter he desires

      To those have shut him up; which, failing,

      Periods his comfort.

      TIMON.

      Noble Ventidius! Well:

      I am not of that feather to shake off

      My friend when he must need me. I do know him

      A gentleman that well deserves a help,

      Which he shall have: I’ll pay the debt and free him.

      MESSENGER.

      Your lordship ever binds him.

      TIMON.

      Commend me to him; I will send his ransom;

      And being enfranchis’d, bid him come to me.

      'Tis not enough to help the feeble up,

      But to support him after. Fare you well.

      MESSENGER.

      All happiness to your honour.

      [Exit.]

      [Enter an OLD ATHENIAN.]

      OLD ATHENIAN.

      Lord Timon, hear me speak.

      TIMON.

      Freely, good father.

      OLD ATHENIAN.

      Thou hast a servant nam’d Lucilius.

      TIMON.

      I have so: what of him?

      OLD ATHENIAN.

      Most noble Timon, call the man before thee.

      TIMON.

      Attends he here or no? Lucilius!

      LUCILIUS.

      Here, at your lordship’s service.

      OLD ATHENIAN.

      This fellow here, Lord Timon, this thy creature,

      By night frequents my house. I am a man

      That from my first have been inclin’d to thrift,

      And my estate deserves an heir more rais’d

      Than one which holds a trencher.

      TIMON.

      Well;

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