: SCENE III. The Woods. Enter TIMON. Tim. O blessed breeding sun, draw from the earth Rotten humidity; below thy sister's orb1 Infect the air! Twinn'd brothers of one womb,Whose procreation, residence, and birth, Scarce is dividant,-touch them with several fortunes; The greater scorns the lesser. Not nature, To whom all sores lay siege, can bear great fortune, Raise me this beggar, and deny't 3 that lord; It is the pasture lards the brother's sides, The want that makes him lean 4. Who dares, who dares, 1 That is, the moon's-this sublunary world. 26 Brother, when his fortune is enlarged, will scorn brother: such is the general depravity of mankind. Not even beings besieged with misery can bear good fortune without contemning their fellow creatures, above whom accident has elevated them.' But is here used in its exceptive sense, and signifies without. 3 This is the reading of the old copy. Steevens reads ' denude.' It has been said that there is no antecedent to which 'deny it' can be referred., I think that it clearly refers to great fortune in the preceding sentence, with which I have now connected it, by placing a colon instead of a period at nature. The construction will be, Raise me this beggar to great fortune, and deny it to that lord,' &c. 4 The folio of 1623 reads: It is the pastour lards the brother's sides, The want that makes him leave.' The second folio changes leave to leane. The probable meaning of the passage as it now stands is, Men are courted and flattered according to their riches.' It is the possessions of a man that makes sycophants enlards his fat-already pride;' if he wants wherewith to pasture his flatterers, his vanity will be starved. The poet is still thinking of the rich and poor brother he had before mentioned.. In purity of manhood stand upright, valiant. Ha, you gods! why this? What this, you gods? Why this Will lug your priests and servants from your sides 10; Pluck stout men's pillows from below their heads 11: This yellow slave Will knit and break religions; bless the accurs'd; 5 This man does not refer to any particular person, but to any supposed individual. So in As You Like It: 'Who can come in and say that I mean her, 6 Grize, step or degree. 7 i. e. seize, gripe. 8 No insincere or inconstant supplicant: gold will not serve me instead of roots. 9 You clear heavens, is you pure heavens. So in Lear:— the clearest gods, who make them honours Of men's impossibilities, have preserv'd thee.' Aristophanes, in his Plutus, makes the priest of Jupiter desert his service to live with Plutus. 10 11 This alludes to an old custom of drawing away the pillow from under the heads of men, in their last agonies, to accelerate their departure. Make the hoar leprosy ador'd; place thieves, That makes the wappen'd 12 widow wed again; 14 Do thy right nature 1.—[March afar off.]—Ha! a drum? Thou'rt quick, But yet I'll bury thee: Thou'lt go, strong thief, 12 It is not clear what is meant by wappen'd in this passage; perhaps worn out, debilitated. In Fletcher's Two Noble Kinsmen (which tradition says was written in conjunction with Shakspeare), we have unwappered in a contrary sense:— we prevent The loathsome misery of age, beguile The gout, the rheum, that in lag hours attend Grose, in his provincial Glossary, cites wapper'd as a Gloucestershire word, and explains it 'restless or fatigued [perhaps worn out with disease], as spoken of a sick person.' Steevens cites a passage from Middleton's and Decker's Roaring Girl, in which wappening and niggling are said to be all one. Niggling, in cant language, was company keeping with a woman. Wed is used for wedded. It is gold that induces some one to accept in marriage this "wappen'd widow," that the inhabitants of a spitalhouse or those afflicted with ulcerous sores would cast the gorge at, i. e. reject with loathing, were she not gilded o'er by wealth.' 13 Restores to all the freshness and sweetness of youth.' Youth is called by the old poets the April of man's life.' Young Fenton, in the Merry Wives of Windsor, smells April and May.' 14 i. e. lie in the earth, where nature laid thee; thou'rt quick, means thou hast life and motion in thee. Enter ALCIBIADES, with drum and fife, in warlike manner; PHRYNIA and TIMANDRA. Alcib. Speak. What art thou there? Tim. A beast, as thou art. The canker gnaw thy heart, For showing me again the eyes of man! Alcib. What is thy name? Is man so hateful to thee, That art thyself a man? Tim. I am misanthropos, and hate mankind. For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog, That I might love thee something. Alcib. I not desire to know. Follow thy drum; Then what should war be? This fell whore of thine Phr. Alcib. How came the noble Timon to this change? Tim. As the moon does, by wanting light to give: But then renew I could not, like the moon; There were no suns to borrow of. Alcib. What friendship may I do thee? Noble Timon, 15 This alludes to the old erroneous prevalent opinion, that infection communicated to another left the infecter free. 'I will not,' says Timon, take the rot from thy lips by kissing thee.' See the fourth satire of Donne. Tim. Maintain my opinion. Alcib. None, but to What is it, Timon? Tim. Promise me friendship, but perform none: If Thou wilt not promise, the gods plague thee, for Thou art a man! if thou dost perform, confound thee, For thou'rt a man! Alcib. I have heard in some sort of thy miseries. Tim. Be a whore still! they love thee not, that use thee; Give them diseases, leaving with thee their lust. Timan. Hang thee, monster! Alcib. Pardon him, sweet Timandra; for his wits Are drown'd and lost in his calamities. I have but little gold of late, brave Timon, The want whereof doth daily make revolt In my penurious band: I have heard, and griev'd, How cursed Athens, mindless of thy worth, Forgetting thy great deeds, when neighbour states, Tim. I pr'ythee, beat thy drum, and get thee gone. 16 See Act ii. Sc. 2, note 13. The diet was a customary term for the regimen prescribed in these cases. So in The Mastive, a Collection of Epigrams : 'She took not diet nor the sweat in season.' VOL. VIII. |