Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][merged small][merged small]

1 SCENE II. "I have a tree which grows here in my close."

[ocr errors]

WE have referred, in our Introductory Notice, to the 28th novel of The Palace of Pleasure,' as an example of the popular notion of the character of Timon of Athens. The story of Timon's feast with Apemantus, as well as that of the fig-tree, is found also in Plutarch. (See Illustrations of Act m.) We subjoin the 'Novel' from 'The Palace of Pleasure' without abridgment :

"Of the strange and beastly nature of Timon of Athens, enemy to mankind, with his death, burial, and epitaph.

"All the beasts of the world do apply themselves to other beasts of their kind, Timon of Athens only excepted of whose strange nature Plutarch is astonied, in the life of Marcus Antonius. Plato and A.istophanes do report his marvellous nature, because he was a man but by shape only, in qualities he was the capital enemy of mankind, which he confessed frankly utterly to abbor and hate. He dwelt alone in a little cabin in the fields not far from Athens, separated from all neighbours and Company: he never went to the city, or to any other habitable place, except he was constrained: he could not abide any man's company and conversation he was never seen to go to any man's house, nor yet would suffer them to come to him. At the same time there was in Athens another of like quality, called Apemantus, of the very same nature,

:

different from the natural kind of man, and lodged likewise in the middle of the fields. On a day they two being alone together at dinner, Apemantus said unto him, 'O, Timon, what a pleasant feast is this! and what a merry company are we, being no more but thou and I!' 'Nay, (quoth Timon,) it would be a merry banquet indeed, if there were none here but myself.'

"Wherein he showed how like a beast (indeed) he was: for he could not abide any other man, being not able to suffer the company of him, which was of like nature. And if by chance he happened to go to Athens, it was only to speak with Alcibiades, who was then an excellent captain there, whereat many did marvel; and therefore Apemantus demanded of him, why he spake to no man, but to Alcibiades? 'I speak to him sometimes,' said Timon, 'because I know that by his occasion the Athenians shall receive great hurt and trouble.' Which words many times he told to Alcibiades himself. He had a garden adjoining to his house in the fields, wherein was a fig-tree, whereupon many desperate men ordinarily did hang themselves; in place whereof he proposed to set up a house, and therefore was forced to cut it down, for which cause he went to Athens, and in the marketplace, he called the people about him, saying that he had news to tell them: when the people understood that he was about to make a discourse unto them, which was wont to speak to no man, they marvelled, and the citizens on every part of

the city ran to hear him; to whom he said, that he proposed to cut down his fig-tree to build a house upon the place where it stood. 'Wherefore (quoth he) if there be any man among you all in this company that is disposed to hang himself, let him come betimes before it be cut down.' Having thus bestowed his charity among the people, he returned to his lodging, where he lived a certain time after without alteration of nature; and because that nature changed not in his life-time, he would not suffer that death should alter or vary the same: for like as he lived a beastly and churlish life, even so he required to have his funeral done after that manner. By his last will he ordained himself to be interred upon the sea-shore, that the waves and

surges might beat and vex his dead carcase. Yea, and that if it were possible, his desire was to be buried in the depth of the sea; causing an epitaph to be made, wherein were described the qualities of his brutish life. Plutarch also reporteth another to be made by Callimachus, much like to that which Timon made himself, whose own soundeth to this effect in English verse:

"My wretched catife days,

Expired now and past:

My carren corpse interred here,
Is fast in ground:

In waltring waves of swel-
Ling sea, by surges cast,
My name if thou desire,
The gods thee do confound.""

[graphic]

*The argument upon which our Introductory Notice is mainly built,-that the Timon of

Athens is not wholly by Shakspere,-has led to such an analysis of the play as we ordinarily give in a Supplementary Notice; and has therefore rendered such a Notice here unnecessary.

[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed]
« PreviousContinue »