1    No care, no stop! so senseless of expense,
2    That he will neither know how to maintain it,
3    Nor cease his flow of riot: takes no account
4    How things go from him, nor resumes no care
5    Of what is to continue: never mind
6    Was to be so unwise, to be so kind.
7    What shall be done? he will not hear, till feel:
8    I must be round with him, now he comes from hunting.
9    Fie, fie, fie, fie!

10   Good even, Varro: what,
11   You come for money?

12   Is't not your business too?

13   It is: and yours too, Isidore?

14   It is so.

15   Would we were all discharged!

16   I fear it.

17   Here comes the lord.

18   So soon as dinner's done, we'll forth again,
19   My Alcibiades. With me? what is your will?

20   My lord, here is a note of certain dues.

21   Dues! Whence are you?

22   Of Athens here, my lord.

23   Go to my steward.

24   Please it your lordship, he hath put me off
25   To the succession of new days this month:
26   My master is awaked by great occasion
27   To call upon his own, and humbly prays you
28   That with your other noble parts you'll suit
29   In giving him his right.

30   Mine honest friend,
31   I prithee, but repair to me next morning.

32   Nay, good my lord,--

33   Contain thyself, good friend.

34   One Varro's servant, my good lord,--

35   From Isidore;
36   He humbly prays your speedy payment.

37   If you did know, my lord, my master's wants--

38   'Twas due on forfeiture, my lord, six weeks And past.

39   Your steward puts me off, my lord;
40   And I am sent expressly to your lordship.

41   Give me breath.
42   I do beseech you, good my lords, keep on;
43   I'll wait upon you instantly.
Exeunt ALCIBIADES and Lords
To FLAVIUS
44   Come hither: pray you,
45   How goes the world, that I am thus encounter'd
46   With clamourous demands of date-broke bonds,
47   And the detention of long-since-due debts,
48   Against my honour?

49   Please you, gentlemen,
50   The time is unagreeable to this business:
51   Your importunacy cease till after dinner,
52   That I may make his lordship understand
53   Wherefore you are not paid.

54   Do so, my friends. See them well entertain'd.

55   Pray, draw near.

56   Stay, stay, here comes the fool with Apemantus:
57   let's ha' some sport with 'em.

58   Hang him, he'll abuse us.

59   A plague upon him, dog!

60   How dost, fool?

61   Dost dialogue with thy shadow?

62   I speak not to thee.

63   No,'tis to thyself.
To the Fool
64   Come away.

65   There's the fool hangs on your back already.

66   No, thou stand'st single, thou'rt not on him yet.

67   Where's the fool now?

68   He last asked the question. Poor rogues, and
69   usurers' men! bawds between gold and want!

70   What are we, Apemantus?

71   Asses.

72   Why?

73   That you ask me what you are, and do not know
74   yourselves. Speak to 'em, fool.

75   How do you, gentlemen?

76   Gramercies, good fool: how does your mistress?

77   She's e'en setting on water to scald such chickens
78   as you are. Would we could see you at Corinth!

79   Good! gramercy.

80   Look you, here comes my mistress' page.

To the Fool
81    Why, how now, captain! what do you
82   in this wise company? How dost thou, Apemantus?

83   Would I had a rod in my mouth, that I might answer
84   thee profitably.

85   Prithee, Apemantus, read me the superscription of
86   these letters: I know not which is which.

87   Canst not read?

88   No.

89   There will little learning die then, that day thou
90   art hanged. This is to Lord Timon; this to
91   Alcibiades. Go; thou wast born a bastard, and thou't
92   die a bawd.

93   Thou wast whelped a dog, and thou shalt famish a
94   dog's death. Answer not; I am gone.

95   E'en so thou outrunnest grace. Fool, I will go with
96   you to Lord Timon's.

97   Will you leave me there?

98   If Timon stay at home. You three serve three usurers?

99   Ay; would they served us!

100  So would I,--as good a trick as ever hangman served thief.

101  Are you three usurers' men?

102  Ay, fool.

103  I think no usurer but has a fool to his servant: my
104  mistress is one, and I am her fool. When men come
105  to borrow of your masters, they approach sadly, and
106  go away merry; but they enter my mistress' house
107  merrily, and go away sadly: the reason of this?

108  I could render one.

109  Do it then, that we may account thee a whoremaster
110  and a knave; which not-withstanding, thou shalt be
111  no less esteemed.

112  What is a whoremaster, fool?

113  A fool in good clothes, and something like thee.
114  'Tis a spirit: sometime't appears like a lord;
115  sometime like a lawyer; sometime like a philosopher,
116  with two stones moe than's artificial one: he is
117  very often like a knight; and, generally, in all
118  shapes that man goes up and down in from fourscore
119  to thirteen, this spirit walks in.

120  Thou art not altogether a fool.

121  Nor thou altogether a wise man: as much foolery as
122  I have, so much wit thou lackest.

123  That answer might have become Apemantus.

124  Aside, aside; here comes Lord Timon.

125  Come with me, fool, come.

126  I do not always follow lover, elder brother and
127  woman; sometime the philosopher.

128  Pray you, walk near: I'll speak with you anon.

129  You make me marvel: wherefore ere this time
130  Had you not fully laid my state before me,
131  That I might so have rated my expense,
132  As I had leave of means?

133  You would not hear me,
134  At many leisures I proposed.

135  Go to:
136  Perchance some single vantages you took.
137  When my indisposition put you back:
138  And that unaptness made your minister,
139  Thus to excuse yourself.

140  O my good lord,
141  At many times I brought in my accounts,
142  Laid them before you; you would throw them off,
143  And say, you found them in mine honesty.
144  When, for some trifling present, you have bid me
145  Return so much, I have shook my head and wept;
146  Yea, 'gainst the authority of manners, pray'd you
147  To hold your hand more close: I did endure
148  Not seldom, nor no slight cheques, when I have
149  Prompted you in the ebb of your estate
150  And your great flow of debts. My loved lord,
151  Though you hear now, too late--yet now's a time--
152  The greatest of your having lacks a half
153  To pay your present debts.

154  Let all my land be sold.

155  'Tis all engaged, some forfeited and gone;
156  And what remains will hardly stop the mouth
157  Of present dues: the future comes apace:
158  What shall defend the interim? and at length
159  How goes our reckoning?

160  To Lacedaemon did my land extend.

161  O my good lord, the world is but a word:
162  Were it all yours to give it in a breath,
163  How quickly were it gone!

164  You tell me true.

165  If you suspect my husbandry or falsehood,
166  Call me before the exactest auditors
167  And set me on the proof. So the gods bless me,
168  When all our offices have been oppress'd
169  With riotous feeders, when our vaults have wept
170  With drunken spilth of wine, when every room
171  Hath blazed with lights and bray'd with minstrelsy,
172  I have retired me to a wasteful cock,
173  And set mine eyes at flow.

174  Prithee, no more.

175  Heavens, have I said, the bounty of this lord!
176  How many prodigal bits have slaves and peasants
177  This night englutted! Who is not Timon's?
178  What heart, head, sword, force, means, but is
179  Lord Timon's?
180  Great Timon, noble, worthy, royal Timon!
181  Ah, when the means are gone that buy this praise,
182  The breath is gone whereof this praise is made:
183  Feast-won, fast-lost; one cloud of winter showers,
184  These flies are couch'd.

185  Come, sermon me no further:
186  No villanous bounty yet hath pass'd my heart;
187  Unwisely, not ignobly, have I given.
188  Why dost thou weep? Canst thou the conscience lack,
189  To think I shall lack friends? Secure thy heart;
190  If I would broach the vessels of my love,
191  And try the argument of hearts by borrowing,
192  Men and men's fortunes could I frankly use
193  As I can bid thee speak.

194  Assurance bless your thoughts!

195  And, in some sort, these wants of mine are crown'd,
196  That I account them blessings; for by these
197  Shall I try friends: you shall perceive how you
198  Mistake my fortunes; I am wealthy in my friends.
199  Within there! Flaminius! Servilius!

200  My lord? my lord?

201  I will dispatch you severally; you to Lord Lucius;
202  to Lord Lucullus you: I hunted with his honour
203  to-day: you, to Sempronius: commend me to their
204  loves, and, I am proud, say, that my occasions have
205  found time to use 'em toward a supply of money: let
206  the request be fifty talents.

207  As you have said, my lord.

Aside
208   Lord Lucius and Lucullus? hum!

209  Go you, sir, to the senators--
210  Of whom, even to the state's best health, I have
211  Deserved this hearing--bid 'em send o' the instant
212  A thousand talents to me.

213  I have been bold--
214  For that I knew it the most general way--
215  To them to use your signet and your name;
216  But they do shake their heads, and I am here
217  No richer in return.

218  Is't true? can't be?

219  They answer, in a joint and corporate voice,
220  That now they are at fall, want treasure, cannot
221  Do what they would; are sorry--you are honourable,--
222  But yet they could have wish'd--they know not--
223  Something hath been amiss--a noble nature
224  May catch a wrench--would all were well--'tis pity;--
225  And so, intending other serious matters,
226  After distasteful looks and these hard fractions,
227  With certain half-caps and cold-moving nods
228  They froze me into silence.

229  You gods, reward them!
230  Prithee, man, look cheerly. These old fellows
231  Have their ingratitude in them hereditary:
232  Their blood is caked, 'tis cold, it seldom flows;
233  'Tis lack of kindly warmth they are not kind;
234  And nature, as it grows again toward earth,
235  Is fashion'd for the journey, dull and heavy.
To a Servant
236  Go to Ventidius.
To FLAVIUS
237  Prithee, be not sad,
238  Thou art true and honest; ingeniously I speak.
239  No blame belongs to thee.
To Servant
240  Ventidius lately
241  Buried his father; by whose death he's stepp'd
242  Into a great estate: when he was poor,
243  Imprison'd and in scarcity of friends,
244  I clear'd him with five talents: greet him from me;
245  Bid him suppose some good necessity
246  Touches his friend, which craves to be remember'd
247  With those five talents.
Exit Servant
To FLAVIUS
248  That had, give't these fellows
249  To whom 'tis instant due. Ne'er speak, or think,
250  That Timon's fortunes 'mong his friends can sink.

251  I would I could not think it: that thought is
252  bounty's foe;
253  Being free itself, it thinks all others so.