Timon of Athens - William Shakespeare (the read aloud family .txt) 📗
- Author: William Shakespeare
Book online «Timon of Athens - William Shakespeare (the read aloud family .txt) 📗». Author William Shakespeare
By William Shakespeare.
Table of Contents Titlepage Imprint Dramatis Personae Timon of Athens Act I Scene I Scene II Act II Scene I Scene II Act III Scene I Scene II Scene III Scene IV Scene V Scene VI Act IV Scene I Scene II Scene III Act V Scene I Scene II Scene III Scene IV Colophon Uncopyright ImprintThis ebook is the product of many hours of hard work by volunteers for Standard Ebooks, and builds on the hard work of other literature lovers made possible by the public domain.
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Dramatis PersonaeTimon, of Athens
Lucius, flattering lord
Lucullus, flattering lord
Sempronius, flattering lord
Ventidius, one of Timon’s false friends
Alcibiades, an Athenian captain
Apemantus, a churlish philosopher
Flavius, steward to Timon
Poet, painter, jeweller, and merchant
An old Athenian
Flaminius, servant of Timon
Lucilius, servant of Timon
Servilius, servant of Timon
Caphis, servant to Timon’s creditors
Philotus, servant to Timon’s creditors
Titus, servant to Timon’s creditors
Lucius, creditors
Hortensius, servant to Timon’s creditors
And other servants to Timon’s creditors
A page
A fool
Three strangers
Phrynia, mistress to Alcibiades
Timandra, mistress to Alcibiades
Cupid and Amazons in the mask
Other lords, senators, officers, soldiers, banditti, and attendants
Scene: Athens, and the neighbouring woods.
Timon of Athens Act I Scene IAthens. A hall in Timon’s house.
Enter Poet, Painter, Jeweller, Merchant, and others, at several doors. Poet Good day, sir. Painter I am glad you’re well. Poet I have not seen you long: how goes the world? Painter It wears, sir, as it grows. PoetAy, that’s well known:
But what particular rarity? what strange,
Which manifold record not matches? See,
Magic of bounty! all these spirits thy power
Hath conjured to attend. I know the merchant.
A most incomparable man, breathed, as it were,
To an untirable and continuate goodness:
He passes.
Reciting to himself. “When we for recompense have praised the vile,
It stains the glory in that happy verse
Which aptly sings the good.”
You are rapt, sir, in some work, some dedication
To the great lord.
A thing slipp’d idly from me.
Our poesy is as a gum, which oozes
From whence ’tis nourish’d: the fire i’ the flint
Shows not till it be struck; our gentle flame
Provokes itself and like the current flies
Each bound it chafes. What have you there?
Upon the heels of my presentment, sir.
Let’s see your piece.
Admirable: how this grace
Speaks his own standing! what a mental power
This eye shoots forth! how big imagination
Moves in this lip! to the dumbness of the gesture
One might interpret.
It is a pretty mocking of the life.
Here is a touch; is’t good?
I will say of it,
It tutors nature: artificial strife
Lives in these touches, livelier than life.
You see this confluence, this great flood of visitors.
I have, in this rough work, shaped 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.
I will unbolt to you.
You see how all conditions, how all minds,
As well of glib and slippery 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-faced 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.
Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill
Feign’d Fortune to be throned: 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.
’Tis conceived to scope.
This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks,
With one man beckon’d from the rest below,
Bowing his head against the sleepy mount
To climb his happiness, would be well express’d
In our condition.
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.
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