Alcib.

Banish me?

Banish your dotage; banish usury,

That makes the senate ugly.

1.Sen. If, after two days' shine, Athens contain thee, Attend our weightier judgment. And, not to swell our spirit 13,

He shall be executed presently. [Exeunt Senators. Alcib. Now the gods keep you old enough; that you may live

Only in bone, that none may look on you!

I am worse than mad: I have kept back their foes,
While they have told their money, and let out
Their coin upon large interest; I myself,

Rich only in large hurts;-All those, for this?
Is this the balsam, that the usuring senate
Pours into captains' wounds? ha! banishment?
It comes not ill; I hate not to be banish'd;
It is a cause worthy my spleen and fury,
That I may strike at Athens. I'll cheer up
My discontented troops, and lay for hearts.
'Tis honour, with most lands to be at odds 14;
Soldiers should brook as little wrongs, as gods.

[Exit.

13 This, says Steevens, I believe, means not to put ourselves into any tumour of rage, take our definitive resolution.' So in King Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. 1:

The hearts of princes kiss obedience,

So much they love it; but to stubborn spirits
They swell and grow as terrible as storms.'

I think we might read with advantage :

And not to quell our spirit,'

i. e. not to repress or humble it.

14 To lay for hearts, is to endeavour to win the affections of the people. To laie for a thing before it come: prætendo.

Baret. Lay for some pretty principality.'-Devil is an Ass. By Tis honour, with most lands to be at odds,' Alcibiades means, as states are now constituted, 'tis more honourable to be at odds with them, than to fight in their service. Some have thought the passage corrupt, and proposed to read 'hands;' and

others' lords.'

SCENE VI.

A magnificent Room in Timon's House.

Musick. Tables set out: Servants attending.
Enter divers Lords, at several doors.

1 Lord. The good time of day to you, sir. 2 Lord. I also wish it to you. I think, this honourable lord did but try us this other day.

1 Lord. Upon that were my thoughts tiring', when we encountered: I hope, it is not so low with him, as he made it seem in the trial of his several friends.

2 Lord. It should not be, by the persuasion of his new feasting.

1 Lord. I should think so: He hath sent me an earnest inviting, which many my near occasions did urge me to put off; but he hath conjured me beyond them, and I must needs appear.

2 Lord. In like manner was I in debt to my importunate business, but he would not hear my excuse. I am sorry, when he sent to borrow of me, that my provision was out.

1 Lord. I am sick of that grief too, as I understand how all things go.

2 Lord. Every man here's so. What would he have borrowed of you?

1 Lord. A thousand pieces.

2 Lord. A thousand pieces! 1 Lord. What of you?

3 Lord. He sent to me, sir,-Here he comes.

1 'Upon that were my thoughts feeding or most anxiously employed. To tire, from the Saxon Tipan, to tear, is to feed as a bird of prey does by tearing its food with its beak. So in Shakspeare's Venus and Adonis:

'Like as an empty eagle sharp by fast

Tires with her beak on feathers, flesh, and bone.'

Enter TIMON, and Attendants.

Tim. With all my heart, gentlemen both:-And how fare you?

1 Lord. Ever at the best, hearing well of your lordship.

2 Lord. The swallow follows not summer more willing, than we your lordship.

Tim. [Aside.] Nor more willingly leaves winter; such summer-birds are men.-Gentlemen, our dinner will not recompense this long stay: feast your ears with the musick awhile; if they will fare so harshly on the trumpet's sound: we shall to't presently.

1 Lord. I hope, it remains not unkindly with your lordship, that. I returned you an empty mes

senger.

Tim. O, sir, let it not trouble you.

2 Lord. My noble lord,

Tim. Ah, my good friend! what cheer?

[The Banquet brought in. 2 Lord. My most honourable lord, I am e'en sick of shame, that, when your lordship this other day sent to me, I was so unfortunate a beggar. Tim. Think not on't, sir.

2 Lord. If you had sent but two hours before,Tim. Let it not cumber your better remembrance2. -Come, bring in all together.

2 i. e. your good memory.' Shakspeare and his contemporaries often use the comparative for the positive or superlative. Thus in King John :

'Nay, but make haste the better foot before.'

go not my horse the better.'

So in Philemon Holland's translation of Pliny's Nat. Hist. b. ix.

2 Lord. All covered dishes!

1 Lord. Royal cheer, I warrant you.

3 Lord. Doubt not that, if money, and the season can yield it.

1 Lord. How do you? What's the news?

3 Lord. Alcibiades is banished: Hear you of it? 1&2 Lord. Alcibiades banished!

3 Lord. 'Tis so, be sure of it.

1 Lord. How? how?

2 Lord. I pray you, upon

what?

Tim. My worthy friends, will you draw near? 3 Lord. I'll tell you more anon.

feast toward 3.

2 Lord. This is the old man still.

3 Lord. Will't hold? will't hold?

Here's a noble

2 Lord. It does: but time will-and so3 Lord. I do conceive.

Tim. Each man to his stool, with that spur as he would to the lip of his mistress: your diet shall be in all places alike. Make not a city feast of it, to let the meat cool ere we can agree upon the first place: Sit, sit. The gods require our thanks.

You great benefactors, sprinkle our society with thankfulness. For your own gifts, make yourselves praised: but reserve still to give, lest your deities be despised. Lend to each man enough, that one need not lend to another: for, were your godheads to borrow of men, men would forsake the gods. Make the c. 46: Many are caught ought of their fellows hands, if they bestirre not themselves the better.' Thus also Virgil:

oblitos famæ melioris amantes.'

3 i. e. near at hand, or in prospect. So in Romeo and Juliet:'We have a foolish trifling banquet towards.'

4 In all places alike.' This alludes to the mode in which guests were formerly placed at table according to rank. See note on The Winter's Tale, vol. iv. p. 17.

meat be beloved, more than the man that gives it. Let no assembly of twenty be without a score of villains: If there sit twelve women at the table, let a dozen of them be—as they are.- The rest of your lees5, O gods, the senators of Athens, together with the common lag of people,-what is amiss in them, you gods, make suitable for destruction. For these my present friends, as they are to me nothing, so in nothing bless them, and to nothing they are wel

come.

Uncover, dogs, and lap.

[The dishes uncovered are full of warm water.
Some speak. What does his lordship mean?
Some other. I know not.

Tim. May you a better feast never behold,
You knot of mouth-friends! smoke, and lukewarm

Is

water

your perfection. This is Timon's last;
Who stuck and spangled you with flatteries,
Washes it off, and sprinkles in your faces

[Throwing water in their faces.
Your reeking villany. Live loath'd, and long,
Most smiling, smooth, detested parasites,
Courteous destroyers, affable wolves, meek bears,
You fools of fortune, trencher-friends, time's flies 7,
Cap and knee slaves, vapours, and minute-jacks 8!

5 Warburton and Mason say we should read foes instead of fees, which is the reading of the old copy. I have ventured to substitute lees, a more probable word to be misprinted fees, the long f and I being easily mistaken for each other. Timon means to call the senators the lees and dregs of the city, Sordes et fæx urbis, on account of their vile propensities.

6 i. e. the highest of your excellence.

i. e. flies of a season. Thus before:

-one cloud of winter showers,

These flies are couch'd.

* Minute-jacks are the same as jacks of the clock-house, auto