eye shoots forth! how big imagination
Moves in this lip! to the dumbness of the gesture
One might interpret.
PAINTER.
It is a pretty mocking of the life.
Here is a touch; is’t good?
POET.
I’ll say of it,
It tutors nature: artificial strife
Lives in these touches, livelier than life.
[Enter certain SENATORS, who pass over the stage.]
PAINTER.
How this lord is followed!
POET.
The senators of Athens: happy man!
PAINTER.
Look, more!
POET.
You see this confluence, this great flood of visitors.
I have, in this rough work, shap’d out a man
Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug
With amplest entertainment: my free drift
Halts not particularly, but moves itself
In a wide sea of wax: no levell’d malice
Infects one comma in the course I hold:
But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on,
Leaving no tract behind.
PAINTER.
How shall I understand you?
POET.
I will unbolt to you.
You see how all conditions, how all minds–
As well of glib and slipp’ry creatures as
Of grave and austere quality–tender down
Their services to Lord Timon: his large fortune,
Upon his good and gracious nature hanging,
Subdues and properties to his love and tendance
All sorts of hearts; yea, from the glass-fac’d flatterer
To Apemantus, that few things loves better
Than to abhor himself: even he drops down
The knee before him, and returns in peace
Most rich in Timon’s nod.
PAINTER.
I saw them speak together.
POET.
Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill
Feign’d Fortune to be thron’d: the base o’ the mount
Is rank’d with all deserts, all kind of natures
That labour on the bosom of this sphere
To propagate their states: amongst them all,
Whose eyes are on this sovereign lady fix’d
One do I personate of Lord Timon’s frame,
Whom Fortune with her ivory hand wafts to her;
Whose present grace to present slaves and servants
Translates his rivals.
PAINTER.
'Tis conceiv’d to scope.
This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks,
With one man beckon’d from the rest below,
Bowing his head against the steepy mount
To climb his happiness, would be well express’d
In our condition.
POET.
Nay, sir, but hear me on.
All those which were his fellows but of late,
Some better than his value, on the moment
Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tendance,
Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear,
Make sacred even his stirrup, and through him
Drink the free air.
PAINTER.
Ay, marry, what of these?
POET.
When Fortune in her shift and change of mood
Spurns down her late beloved, all his dependants,
Which labour’d after him to the mountain’s top
Even on their knees and hands, let him slip down,
Not one accompanying his declining foot.
PAINTER.
'Tis common:
A thousand moral paintings I can show
That shall demonstrate these quick blows of Fortune’s
More pregnantly than words. Yet you do well
To show Lord Timon that mean eyes have seen
The foot above the head.
[Trumpets sound. Enter LORD TIMON, addressing himself courteously to every suitor: a MESSENGER from VENTIDIUS talking with him; LUCILIUS and other servants following.]
TIMON.
Imprison’d is he, say you?
MESSENGER.
Ay, my good lord. Five talents is his debt,
His means most short, his creditors most strait:
Your honourable letter he desires
To those have shut him up; which, failing,
Periods his comfort.
TIMON.
Noble Ventidius! Well:
I am not of that feather to shake off
My friend when he must need me. I do know him
A gentleman that well deserves a help,
Which he shall have: I’ll pay the debt and free him.
MESSENGER.
Your lordship ever binds him.
TIMON.
Commend me to him; I will send his ransom;
And being enfranchis’d, bid him come to me.
'Tis not enough to help the feeble up,
But to support him after. Fare you well.
MESSENGER.
All happiness to your honour.
[Exit.]
[Enter an OLD ATHENIAN.]
OLD ATHENIAN.
Lord Timon, hear me speak.
TIMON.
Freely, good father.
OLD ATHENIAN.
Thou hast a servant nam’d Lucilius.
TIMON.
I have so: what of him?
OLD ATHENIAN.
Most noble Timon, call the man before thee.
TIMON.
Attends he here or no? Lucilius!
LUCILIUS.
Here, at your lordship’s service.
OLD ATHENIAN.
This fellow here, Lord Timon, this thy creature,
By night frequents my house. I am a man
That from my first have been inclin’d to thrift,
And my estate deserves an heir more rais’d
Than one which holds a trencher.
TIMON.
Well;