NeXTSTEP 3.2 for Intel/NeXTSTEP 3.2 for Intel.iso/NextLibrary/Literature/Shakespeare/Plays/Timon_of_Athens/5.5

Text File | 1993-02-01 | 5.3 KB | 119 lines

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{\pard\f0\fs28{\fs48 Timon of Athens
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{\b\fs36 5.5}
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{\i         Trumpets sound. Enter Alcibiades with his powers,\
        before Athens\
}{\b \fs24 ALCIBIADES\
}       Sound to this coward and lascivious town\
       Our terrible approach.\
{\i         A parley sounds. The Senators appear upon the walls\
}       Till now you have gone on and filled the time\
       With all licentious measure, making your wills\
       The scope of justice. Till now myself and such        {\fs20   5}\
       As slept within the shadow of your power\
       Have wandered with our traversed arms, and breathed\
       Our sufferance vainly. Now the time is flush\
       When crouching marrow, in the bearer strong,\
       Cries of itself `No more'; now breathless wrong        {\fs20  10}\
       Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease,\
       And pursy insolence shall break his wind\
       With fear and horrid flight.\
{\b \fs24 FIRST SENATOR}                  Noble and young,\
       When thy first griefs were but a mere conceit,\
       Ere thou hadst power or we had cause of fear,        {\fs20  15}\
       We sent to thee to give thy rages balm,\
       To wipe out our ingratitude with loves\
       Above their quantity.\
{\b \fs24 SECOND SENATOR}    So did we woo\
       Transforme\'c1d Timon to our city's love\
       By humble message and by promised means.        {\fs20  20}\
       We were not all unkind, nor all deserve\
       The common stroke of war.\
{\b \fs24 FIRST SENATOR}            These walls of ours\
       Were not erected by their hands from whom\
       You have received your grief; nor are they such\
       That these great tow'rs, trophies, and schools should fall {\fs20  25}\
       For private faults in them.\
{\b \fs24 SECOND SENATOR}              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.            {\fs20  30}\
       By decimation and a tithe\'c1d death,\
       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.\
{\b \fs24 FIRST SENATOR}    All have not offended.        {\fs20  35}\
       For those that were, it is not square to take,\
       On those that are, revenges. 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            {\fs20  40}\
       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.\
{\b \fs24 SECOND SENATOR}            What thou wilt,\
       Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smile        {\fs20  45}\
       Than hew to't with thy sword.\
{\b \fs24 FIRST SENATOR}                    Set but thy foot\
       Against our rampired gates and they shall ope,\
       So thou wilt send thy gentle heart before\
       To say thou'lt enter friendly.\
{\b \fs24 SECOND SENATOR}                    Throw thy glove,\
       Or any token of thine honour else,            {\fs20  50}\
       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 sealed thy full desire.\
{\b \fs24 ALCIBIADES}{\i   [throwing up a glove]}    Then there's my glove.\
       Descend, and open your uncharge\'c1d ports.        {\fs20  55}\
       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        {\fs20  60}\
       Of regular justice in your city's bounds\
       But shall be remedied to your public laws\
       At heaviest answer.\
{\b \fs24 BOTH SENATORS}    'Tis most nobly spoken.\
{\b \fs24 ALCIBIADES}    Descend, and keep your words.        {\fs20  65}\
{\i         [Trumpets sound. Exeunt Senators from the walls.]\
        Enter Soldier, with a tablet of wax\
}{\b \fs24 SOLDIER\
}       My noble general, Timon is dead,\
       Entombed upon the very hem o'th' sea;\
       And on his gravestone this insculpture, which\
       With wax I brought away, whose soft impression\
       Interprets for my poor ignorance.            {\fs20  70}\
{\i         Alcibiades reads the epitaph\
}{\b \fs24 ALCIBIADES\
}       `Here lies a wretched corpse,\
       Of wretched soul bereft.\
       Seek not my name. A plague consume\
       You wicked caitiffs left!\
       Here lie I, Timon, who alive                {\fs20  75}\
       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 abhorred'st in us our human griefs,        {\fs20  80}\
       Scorned'st our brains' flow and those our droplets which\
       From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit\
       Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye\
       On thy low grave, on faults forgiven. Dead\
       Is noble Timon, of whose memory                {\fs20  85}\
       Hereafter more.\
{\i         [Enter Senators through the gates]\
}                                     Bring me into your city,\
       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.\
       Let our drums strike.                    {\fs20  90}\
{\i         [Drums.] Exeunt [through the gates]\
\