1 Sen. These words become your lips as they pass through

them.

2 Sen. And enter in our ears, like great triumphers

In their applauding gates.

Tim.
Commend me to them;
And tell them, that to ease them of their griefs,
Their fears of hostile strokes, their aches, losses,
Their pangs of love, with other incident throes
That nature's fragile vessel doth sustain

In life's uncertain voyage, I will some kindness do them.
I'll teach them to prevent wild Alcibiades' wrath.
2 Sen. I like this well; he will return again.
Tim. I have a tree, which grows here in my close,
That mine own use invites me to cut down,
And shortly must I fell it: tell my friends,
Tell Athens, in the sequence of degree,
From high to low throughout, that whoso please
To stop affliction, let him take his halter',
Come hither, ere my tree hath felt the axe,
And hang himself.-I pray you, do my greeting.

Flav. Trouble him no farther; thus you still shall find him.
Tim. Come not to me again; but say to Athens,
Timon hath made his everlasting mansion
Upon the beached verge of the salt flood;
Whom once a day with his embossed froth
The turbulent surge shall cover: thither come,
And let my grave-stone be your oracle.-
Lips, let sour words go by, and language end:
What is amiss plague and infection mend!
Graves only be men's works, and death their gain.
Sun, hide thy beams: Timon hath done his reign.

2

[Exit TIMON.

1 Sen. His discontents are unremovably coupled to nature.

let him take his HALTER,] This is one of the most noticeable of all the verbal emendations in the corr. fo. 1632: the words have hitherto been "let him take his haste," a very unpredecented expression and not, we may be pretty sure, what the poet wrote: the old compositor misread "halter" haste, the r at the end of "halter" having been imperfectly written. Malone quoted Plutarch's "Life of Mark Antony;" but the following from Painter's "Palace of Pleasure," Vol. i. fo. 546, edit. Marsh, seems more applicable :-" The citizens [of Athens] on every part of the citie ranne to heare him to whom he saide that he purposed to cutte downe his figge-tree, to builde a house upon the place where it stoode : 'Wherefore, (quoth he) if there be any man, amonges you all in this company, that is disposed to hange himselfe, let him come betimes, before it be cutte downe.""

2 Sen. Our hope in him is dead. Let us return, And strain what other means is left unto us

Enter two Senators, and a Messenger.

1 Sen. Thou hast painfully discover'd: are his files

As full as thy report.

Mess.

Besides, his expedition promises

Present approach.

I have spoke the least;

2 Sen. We stand much hazard, if they bring not Timon. Mess. I met a courier, one mine ancient friend,

Whom, though in general part we were oppos'd,

Yet our old love made a particular force,

And made us speak like friends: this man was riding

From Alcibiades to Timon's cave,

With letters of entreaty, which imported

His fellowship i' the cause against your city,

In part for his sake mov'd.

1 Sen.

Enter Senators from TIMON.

Here come our brothers.

3 Sen. No talk of Timon; nothing of him expect.—
The enemies' drum is heard, and fearful scouring'
Doth choke the air with dust. In, and prepare:
Our's is the fall, I fear, our foes the snare.

[Exeunt.

3 In our DEAR peril.] i. e. In our dire or dread peril. In short-hand, dire and "dear" were spelt with the same letters; and if short-hand were used in taking down the dialogue of plays, this circumstance may sometimes account for the peculiar way in which Shakespeare in many places seems to use "dear." See however, Vol. ii. p. 714.

+ and fearful SCOURING] Shakespeare and other dramatists not unfrequently use the word skirr or scurr for "scour:" see "Henry V.," A. iv. sc. 7, Vol. iii. p. 620.

SCENE IV.

The Woods near TIMON's Cave.

Enter a Soldier, seeking TIMON.

Sold. By all description this should be the place. Who's here? speak, ho!-No answer ?-What is this? [Finding TIMON's grave.

Timon is dead, who hath outstretch'd his span:
Some beast rear'd this'; there does not live a man.
Dead, sure, and this his grave.-What's on this tomb
I cannot read; the character I'll take with wax:
Our captain hath in every figure skill;

An ag'd interpreter, though young in days.
Before proud Athens he's set down by this,
Whose fall the mark of his ambition is.

[Exit.

SCENE V.

Before the Walls of Athens.

Trumpets sound. Enter ALCIBIADES, and Forces.

Alcib. Sound to this coward and lascivious town Our terrible approach.

[A parley sounded.

Enter Senators on 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,

5 Some beast REAR'D this ;] The old copies have read for "rear'd." Johnson was in favour of read, instead of "rear'd," which was substituted by Theobald. It would however be strange for the Soldier to call upon a beast to read that which, he tells us, just afterwards, he could not read himself. The stage-direction "Finding Timon's grave" is from the corr. fo. 1632, where also read is amended to "rear'd" and no (peculiar to that edition) altered to "not," as it stands in the folios, 1623, 1664, and 1685. We are to suppose tomb," in the next line, to mean merely some appearance of a place of sepulture.

Have wander'd with our travers’d arms, and breath'd
Our sufferance vainly. Now the time is flush,
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;
And pursy insolence shall break his wind
With fear, and horrid flight.
1 Sen.

Noble, and young,
When thy first griefs were but a mere conceit,
Ere thou hadst power, or we had cause of fear,
We sent to thee; to give thy rages balm,
To wipe out our ingratitude with loves
Above their quantity.
2 Sen.

So did we woo
Transformed Timon to our city's love
By humble message, and by promis'd means :
We were not all unkind, nor all deserve
The common stroke of war.
1 Sen.

These walls of our's
Were not erected by their hands, from whom
You have receiv'd your grief: nor are they such,
That these great towers, trophies, and schools should fall
For private faults in them.
2 Sen.

Nor are they living,
Who were the motives that you first went out;
Shame, that they wanted cunning', in excess
Hath broke their hearts. March, 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.
1 Sen.

All have not offended ;
For those that were, it is not square to take',
On those that are, revenge: crimes, like lands,
Are not inherited. Then, dear countryman,

Bring in thy ranks, but leave without thy rage:
Spare thy Athenian cradle, and those kin,
Which in the bluster of thy wrath must fall
With those that have offended. Like a shepherd,
Approach the fold, and cull th' infected forth,
But kill not all together.

2 Sen.

What thou wilt,

Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smile,
Than hew to't with thy sword.

1 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.

2 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.

Alcib.
Then, there's my glove:
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 render'd to your public laws'
At heaviest answer.

8

Both.

"Tis most nobly spoken.

Alcib. Descend, and keep your words.

[The Senators descend, and the gates are opened.

Enter a Soldier'.

Sold. My noble general, Timon is dead;

to ATONE your fears] i. e. To reconcile your fears. See Vol. iv. p. 694, &c. Massinger uses atonement in the same sense. Gifford's edit. Vol. i. p. 315. 9 But shall be RENDER'D to your public laws] In our former edition we suggested that remedied, of the old copies, was a misprint for "render'd:" it was an error probably arising out of mishearing. We now place "render'd" in our text; an emendation which the Rev. Mr. Dyce subsequently advocated in his "Remarks," p. 183. The corr. fo. 1632 suggests no change.

1 Enter a Soldier.] This is the same Soldier who had taken a wax impression VOL. V.

U