By humble meffage, and by promis'd 'mends: 1 Sen. Thefe walls of ours Were not erected by their hands, from whom 2 Sen. Nor are they living, Who were the motives that you firft went out: Shame, that they wanted cunning, in exceís (42) Hath broke their hearts. March on, oh, noble Lord, Into our city with thy banners fpread; By decimation and a tithed death, If thy revenges hunger for that food Which nature loaths, take thou the deftin'd tenth: Let die the spotted. 1 Sen. All have not offended: For thofe that were, it is not fquare to take By bumble meffage, and by promis'd means:] Promis'd means must import a fupply of fubftance, the recruiting his funk fortunes; but that is not all, in my mind, that the poet would aim at. The fenate had wooed him with humble meffage, and promise of general reparation for their injuries and ingratitude. This feems included in the flight change which I have made-and by promis'd 'mends: and this word, apostrophe'd, or otherwife, is used in common with amends. So in Troilus and Creffida; Let her be as he is; if the be fair, 'tis the better for her; an fhe be not, fhe has the mends in her own hands, And fo B. Jobnfon in his Every Man out of his Humour: Pardon me, gentle friends, I'll make fair mends For my foul errors past. (42) Shame, that they wanted cunning in excess, Hath broke their bearts.] i. e. in other terms,-Shame, that they were not the cunning'ft men alive, hath been the cause of their death. For cunning in excess muft mean this or nothing. O brave editors! They had heard it faid, that too much wit in fome cafes might be dangerous, and why not an absolute want of it? But had they the fkill or courage to remove one perplexing comma, the eafy and genuine fense would immediately arife. Shame in excess (i. e. extremity "of fhame) that they wanted cunning (i. e. that they were not wife " enough not to banish you ;) hath broke their hearts." Од On those that are, revenge: crimes, like to lands, 2 Sen. What thou wilt, Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy fmile, 1 Sen. Set but thy foot Against our rampir'd gates, and they shall ope: 2 Sen. Throw thy glove, Or any token of thine honour elfe, That thou wilt use the wars as thy redrefs, Alc. Then there's my glove: Defcend, and open your uncharged ports; Both. "Tis moft nobly fpoken. Alc. Defcend, and keep your words. Enter a Soldier. Sol. My noble General, Timon is dead; I 4 [Alcibiades [Alcibiades reads the epitaph.] - Here lyes a wretched coarse, of wretched foul bereft : (43) Seek not my name: a plague confume you caitiffs left! Here lye I Timon, who all living men did hate, Pafs by, and curfe thy fill, but ftay not here thy gaite. These well exprefs in thee thy latter spirits: Scorn'dft our brains flow, and thofe our droplets, which Hereafter more-Bring me into your city, And (43) Here lies a wretched coarse,] This epitaph the poet has form'd out of two feparate diftichs quoted by Plutarch in his life of M. Antony: the firft, faid to have been compos'd by Timon himself; the other is an epitaph on him made by Callimachus, and extant among his epigrams. The verfion of the latter, as our author has tranfmitted it to us, avoids thofe blunders which Leonard Aretine, the Latin translator of the above quoted life in Plutarch, committed in it. I once imagin'd, that Shakespeare might poffibly have corrected this tranflator's blunder from his own acquaintance with the Greek original: but, I find, he has tranfcrib'd the four lines from an old English verfion of Plutarch, extant in his time. I have not been able to trace the time, when this play of our author's made its firft appearance; but I believe, it was written before the death of Q. Elizabeth; because I take it to be hinted at in a piece, call'd, Jack Drum's entertainment; or, the comedy of Pafquill and Katherine, play'd by the children of Powles, and printed in 1601. -Come, come, now I'll be as fociable as Timon of Athens. Hereafter more. All the editors, in their learning and fagacity, have fuffer'd an unaccountable abfurdity to pass them in this paffage. Why was Neptune to weep on Timon's faults forgiven? Or, indeed, what faults had Timon committed, except against his own fortune and happy fituation in life? But the corruption of the text lies only in the bad pointing, which I have difengag'd, and reftor'd to the true meaning. Alcibiades's whole fpeech, as the editors might have obferv'd, And I will use the olive with my sword; Make war breed peace; make peace ftint war; make each Prefcribe to other, as each other's leach. Let our drums ftrike i Exeunt. s in breaks, betwixt his reflections on Timon's death, and his addreffes to the Athenian fenators and as foon as he has commented on the place of Timon's grave, he bids the fenate fet forward; tells 'em, he has forgiven their faults; and promifes to use them with mercy. The very fame manner of expreffion occurs in Antony and Cleopatra. Anto. Well, what worst? Mell. The nature of bad news infects the teller. Oni |