Timon is dead, who hath outstretch'd his span: I cannot read; the character I'll take with wax : An aged interpreter, though young in days: [Exit. ΙΟ Enter Senators on the walls. Till now you have gone on and fill'd the time Have wander'd with our traversed arms and breathed Our sufferance vainly; now the time is flush, 4. Some beast rear'd this, etc. So Warburton for Ff 'read.' The man - hater must have received these burial honours from his fellows, not from man. It is hardly possible to give a meaning to 'read' which does not involve glaring contradiction in what follows. 'There does not live a man who can [or is fit to] read it.' But the soldier proceeds to take for granted 7. figure, handwriting. When crouching marrow in the bearer strong Noble and young, First Sen. To wipe out our ingratitude with loves Sec. Sen. So did we woo Transformed Timon to our city's love By humble message and by promised means: First Sen. These walls of ours Were not erected by their hands from whom should fall For private faults in them. Sec. Sen. Nor are they living Who were the motives that you first went out ; Hath broke their hearts. March, noble lord, If thy revenges hunger for that food Which nature loathes-take thou the destined tenth, And by the hazard of the spotted die Let die the spotted. ΤΟ 20 30 First Sen. All have not offended; 14. conceit, fancy. 28. Shame that they wanted extreme cunning, in excess, For those that were, it is not square to take Sec. Sen. What thou wilt, Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smile Than hew to 't with thy sword. First Sen. Set but thy foot Against our rampired gates, and they shall ope; To say thou 'lt enter friendly. Sec. Sen. Throw thy glove, That thou wilt use the wars as thy redress Alcib. Both. 'Tis most nobly spoken. Alcib. Descend, and keep your words. [The Senators descend, and open the gates. 36. square, right. 50 60 47. rampired, fortified with ramparts. Enter Soldier. Sold. My noble general, Timon is dead; Alcib. [Reads the epitaph] 'Here lies a wretched Seek not my name: a plague consume you wicked caitiffs left! Here lie I, Timon; who, alive, all living men did hate : Pass by and curse thy fill, but pass and stay not here thy gait.' These well express in thee thy latter spirits: Though thou abhorr'dst in us our human griefs, Scorn'dst our brain's flow and those our droplets which From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye Dead Is noble Timon: of whose memory And I will use the olive with my sword, Make war breed peace, make peace stint war, make each Prescribe to other as each other's leech. 70-73. The first two lines are a rendering of Timon's own epitaph; the last two were ascribed generally to the poet Callimachus. Lines 71-72 are contradictions. Both epitaphs, [Exeunt. 70 80 however, occur in close succession in the Plutarchian narrative, whence they were doubtless copied by the author without reflection. |