Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

Re-enter Flavius.

Flav. I beseech your honour,

Vouchfafe me a word; it does concern you near. Tim. Near! why then another time I'll hear thee; I pr'ythee, let us be provided

To fhew them entertainment.

Flav. [Afide.] I fcarce know how.

Enter another Servant.

2 Serv. May it please your honour, the lord Lucius, Out of his free love, hath prefented to you Four milk-white horses trapt in filver.

[ocr errors]

Tim. I fhall accept them fairly: Let the prefents Be worthily entertain'd.-How now, what news?

Enter a third Servant.

3 Serv. Please you, my lord, that honourable gentleman, lord Lucullus, entreats your company tomorrow to hunt with him; and has fent your honour two brace of greyhounds.

Tim. I'll hunt with him; and let them be received, Not without fair reward.

Flav. [Afide.] What will this come to?

He commands us to provide, and give great gifts,
And all out of an empty coffer.—

Nor will he know his purfe; or yield me this,
To fhew him what a beggar his heart is,
Being of no power to make his wifhes good :
His promifes fly fo beyond his ftate,

That what he speaks is all in debt; he owes
For every word. He is fo kind, that he now
Pays intereft for't; his land's put to their books.
Well, 'would I were gently put out of office,
Before I were forc'd out!

Happier is he that has no friend to feed,
Than fuch that do even enemies exceed.

I bleed

I bleed inwardly for my lord.

[Exit. Tim. You do yourselves much wrong, you 'bate too much

Of your own merits :-Here, my lord; a trifle
Of our love.

1 Lord. With more than common thanks I will receive it.

3 Lord. O! he is the very foul of bounty! Tim. And now I remember, my lord, you gave Good words the other day of a bay courfer I rode on; it is your's because you lik'd it.

2 Lord. Oh, I beseech you, pardon me, my lord, In that.

Tim. You may take my word, my lord, I know no

man

Can juftly praife, but what he does affect:
I weigh my friend's affection with my own:
I tell you true. I'll call on you,

All Lords. O, none fo welcome.

Tim. I take all and your several vifitations So kind to heart, 'tis not enough to give My thanks; I could deal kingdoms to my friends, And ne'er be weary.-Alcibiades,

Thou art a foldier, therefore feldom rich,

It comes in charity to thee: for all thy living
Is 'mongst the dead; and all the lands thou haft
Lie in a pitch'd field.

Alc. I' defiled land, my lord.

I Lord.

[blocks in formation]

-'tis not enough to give;

[ocr errors]

Methinks, I could deal kingdoms

Thus the paffage stood in all editions before Hanmer's, who re ftored my thanks.

JOHNSON.

1' defiled land,] This is the old reading, which ap

parently

Lord. We are so virtuously bound,

Tim. And fo am I to you.

2 Lord. So infinite endear'd,

Tim. All to you. Lights! more lights.

3 Lord. The best of happiness,

Honour and fortunes, keep with you, lord Timon !-

8

Tim. Ready for his friends.

Apem. What a coil's here!

[Exeunt Lords.

Serving of becks, and jutting out of bums!

'I doubt, whether their legs, be worth the fums
That are given for 'em. Friendship's full of dregs:
Methinks, falfe hearts fhould never have found legs.
Thus honeft fools lay out their wealth on court'fies.

parently depends on a very low quibble. Alcibiades is told, that bis eftate lies in a pitch'd field. Now pitch, as Falstaff says, dob defile. Alcibiades therefore replies, that his eftate lies in defiled land. This, as it happened, was not understood, and all the editors published,

I defy land,

JOHNSON.

All to you.] i, e. all good wishes, or all happiness to you. -So Macbeth,

All to all.

STEEVENS.

SERVING of becks-] This nonfenfe should be read,

SERRING of becks

from the French ferrer, to join clofe together. A metaphor taken from the billing of pigeons.

WARBURTON.

The commentator conceives beck to mean the mouth or the head, after the French, bec, whereas it means a falutation made with the head.

So Milton,

"Nods and becks, and wreathed fmiles."

To ferve a beck, is to offer a falutation.

JOHNSON.

To ferve a beck, means, I believe, to pay a courtly obedience to a

nod.

See Surrey's Poems, p. 29.

STEEVENS.

“And with a becke full lowe he bowed at her feete."

T. T.

? I doubt whether their legs, &c.] He plays upon the word leg, as it fignifies a limb and a bere or act of obeisance.

JOHNSON.

Tim. Now, Apemantus, if thou wert not fullen, I would be good to thee.

Apem. No, I'll nothing

for

IfI fhould be brib'd too, there would be none left To rail upon thee, and thou wouldst fin the faster. Thou giv❜ft fo long, Timon, I fear me, thou Wilt give away thyself in paper shortly:

What need these feafts, pomps, and vain-glories? Tim. Nay,

If you begin to rail once on fociety,

I am fworn not to give regard to you.
Farewell; and come with better mufick.
Apem. So

Thou wilt not hear me now, thou shalt not then.
I'll lock

*Thy heaven from thee. Oh, that men's ears fhould be To counsel deaf, but not to flattery!

[blocks in formation]

Wilt give away thyself in paper shortly.]

[Exit.

i.e. be ruined by his fecurities entered into. But this fenfe is flat, and relishes very little of the falt in Apemantus's other reflections. We should read,

give away thyself in proper fhortly.

i. e. in perfon; thy proper felf. This latter is an expression of Our author's in the Tempeft;.

And ev'n with fuch like valour men hang and drown

Their proper

felves.

Hanmer reads very plausibly,

thou

Wilt give away thyself in perpetuum.

WARBURTON,

JOHNSON.

I am fatisfied with Dr. Warburton's explanation of the text;

but cannot concur in his emendation.

Thy heaven-] The pleasure of being flattered.

STEEVENS.

JOHNSON.

ACT

ACT II. SCENE I

A

A publick place in the city..

Enter a Senator.

SENATOR.

ND late, five thoufand to Varro;3 and to Ifi-
dore,

He owes nine thousand; befides my former fum,
Which makes it five and twenty.-Still in motion
Of raging waste? It cannot hold; it will not.
If I want gold, fteal but a beggar's dog,
And give it Timon, why, the dog coins gold.
If I would fell my horfe, and buy twenty more
Better than he, why, give my horfe to Timon;
Afk nothing, give it him, it foals me, ftraight,

3 And late five thousand to Varro; and to Ifidore
He owes nine thousand.-

Former editors point the paffage thus,

-]

And

And late five thousand.-To Varro and to Ifidore, &c.

+ In old edition:

Afk nothing, give it him, it foals me ftraight

An able borfe

-]

T. T.

"If I want gold (fays the fenator) let me fteal a beggar's dog, and "give it Timon, the dog coins me gold. If I would fell my Eorfe, "and had a mind to buy ten better inftead of him; why, I need "but give my horfe to Timon, to gain this point; and it prefently fetches me an bor fe." But is that gaining the point propos'd? The firft folio reads, lefs corruptly than the modern impreffions,

[ocr errors]

And able horfes.

THEOBALD.

Which reading, joined to the reasoning of the paffage, gave me the hint for this emendation. Inftead of ten horfes the old copy reads twenty. The paffage

which

« AnteriorContinuar »