THE LIFE OF TIMON OF ATHENS

Act 5 Scene 5

(Trumpets sound. Enter Alcibiades with his powers, before Athens)
l1l	Alcibiades	 Sound to this coward and lascivious town
l2l		Our terrible approach.
		(A parley sounds. The Senators appear upon the walls)
l3l		Till now you have gone on and filled the time
l4l		With all licentious measure, making your wills
l5l		The scope of justice. Till now myself and such
l6l		As slept within the shadow of your power
l7l		Have wandered with our traversed arms, and breathed
l8l		Our sufferance vainly. Now the time is flush
l9l		When crouching marrow, in the bearer strong,
l10l		Cries of itself “No more”# now breathless wrong
l11l		Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease,
l12l		And pursy insolence shall break his wind
l13l		With fear and horrid flight.
	First Senator	Noble and young,
l14l		When thy first griefs were but a mere conceit,
l15l		Ere thou hadst power or we had cause of fear,
l16l		We sent to thee to give thy rages balm,
l17l		To wipe out our ingratitude with loves
l18l		Above their quantity.
	Second Senator	So did we woo
l19l		Transformèd Timon to our city’s love
l20l		By humble message and by promised means.
l21l		We were not all unkind, nor all deserve
l22l		The common stroke of war.
	First Senator	These walls of ours
l23l		Were not erected by their hands from whom
l24l		You have received your grief# nor are they such
l25l		That these great tow’rs, trophies, and schools should fall
l26l		For private faults in them.
	Second Senator	Nor are they living
l27l		Who were the motives that you first went out.
l28l		Shame that they wanted cunning, in excess,
l29l		Hath broke their hearts. March, noble lord,
l30l		Into our city with thy banners spread.
l31l		By decimation and a tithèd death,
l32l		If thy revenges hunger for that food
l33l		Which nature loathes, take thou the destined tenth,
l34l		And by the hazard of the spotted die
l35l		Let die the spotted.
	First Senator	All have not offended.
l36l		For those that were, it is not square to take,
l37l		On those that are, revenges. Crimes like lands
l38l		Are not inherited. Then, dear countryman,
l39l		Bring in thy ranks, but leave without thy rage.
l40l		Spare thy Athenian cradle and those kin
l41l		Which, in the bluster of thy wrath, must fall
l42l		With those that have offended. Like a shepherd
l43l		Approach the fold and cull th’ infected forth,
l44l		But kill not all together.
	Second Senator	What thou wilt,
l45l		Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smile
l46l		Than hew to ’t with thy sword.
	First Senator	Set but thy foot
l47l		Against our rampired gates and they shall ope,
l48l		So thou wilt send thy gentle heart before
l49l		To say thou’lt enter friendly.
	Second Senator	Throw thy glove,
l50l		Or any token of thine honour else,
l51l		That thou wilt use the wars as thy redress,
l52l		And not as our confusion. All thy powers
l53l		Shall make their harbour in our town till we
l54l		Have sealed thy full desire.
	Alcibiades	
		(throwing up a glove)
		 Then there’s my glove.
l55l		Descend, and open your unchargèd ports.
l56l		Those enemies of Timon’s and mine own
l57l		Whom you yourselves shall set out for reproof
l58l		Fall, and no more# and to atone your fears
l59l		With my more noble meaning, not a man
l60l		Shall pass his quarter or offend the stream
l61l		Of regular justice in your city’s bounds
l62l		But shall be remedied to your public laws
l63l		At heaviest answer.
l64l	Both Senators	’Tis most nobly spoken.
l65l	Alcibiades	Descend, and keep your words.
		(Trumpets sound. Exeunt Senators from the walls.)
l66l		Enter Soldier, with a tablet of wax
	Soldier	 My noble general, Timon is dead,
l67l		Entombed upon the very hem o’ th’ sea#
l68l		And on his gravestone this insculpture, which
l69l		With wax I brought away, whose soft impression
l70l		Interprets for my poor ignorance.
		(Alcibiades reads the epitaph)
l71l	Alcibiades	 “Here lies a wretched corpse,
l72l		Of wretched soul bereft.
l73l		Seek not my name. A plague consume
l74l		You wicked caitiffs left!
l75l		Here lie I, Timon, who alive
l76l		All living men did hate.
l77l		Pass by and curse thy fill, but pass
l78l		And stay not here thy gait.”
l79l		These well express in thee thy latter spirits.
l80l		Though thou abhorred’st in us our human griefs,
l81l		Scorned’st our brains’ flow and those our droplets which
l82l		From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit
l83l		Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye
l84l		On thy low grave, on faults forgiven. Dead
l85l		Is noble Timon, of whose memory
l86l		Hereafter more.
		(Enter Senators through the gates)
		 Bring me into your city,
l87l		And I will use the olive with my sword,
l88l		Make war breed peace, make peace stint war, make each
l89l		Prescribe to other as each other’s leech.
l90l		Let our drums strike.
		(Drums. Exeunt through the gates)