And you fhall find, I like it: wait attendance PAIN. The gods preserve you! TIM. Well fare you, gentlemen: Give me your hand; We must needs dine together.-Sir, your jewel JEW. What, my lord? difpraise? TIM. A meer fatiety of commendations. JEW. know, Things of like value, differing in the owners, TIM. Well mock'd. MER. No, my good lord; he speaks the common tongue, Which all men speak with him. TIM. Look, who comes here. Will you be chid? unclew me quite.] To unclew is to unwind a ball of thread. To unclew a man, is to draw out the whole mafs of his fortunes. JOHNSON. So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona : "Therefore as you unwind her love from him, "You must provide to bottom it on me." See Vol. III. p. 246, n. 9. STEEVENS. 5 Are prized by their masters:] Are rated according to the esteem in which their poffeffor is held. JOHNSON. by wearing it.] Old copy-by the wearing it. STEEVENS. Enter APEMANTUS.7 JEW. We will bear, with your lordship. MER. row; When thou art Timon's dog,' and these knaves honeft. TIM. Why dost thou call them knaves? thou know'ft them not. "Enter Apemantus.] See this character of a cynic finely drawn by Lucian, in his Auction of the Philofophers; and how well Shakspeare has copied it. WARBURTON. 8-ftay for-] Old copy-ftay thou for. With Sir T Hanmer I have omitted the ufelefs thou, (which the compofitor's eye might have caught from the following line,) because it disorders the metre. STEEVENS. 9 When thou art Timon's dog,] When thou haft gotten a better character, and inftead of being Timon as thou art, fhalt be changed to Timon's dog, and become more worthy kindness and falutation. JOHNSON. This is fpoken duxrixos, as Mr. Upton fays fomewhere:ftriking his hand on his breast. "Wot you who named me firft the kinge's dogge?" says Ariftippus in Damon and Pythias. FARMER. Apemantus, I think, means to fay, that Timon is not to receive a gentle good morrow from him till that shall happen which never will happen; till Timon is transformed to the shape of his dog, and his knavifh followers become honeft men. Stay for thy good morrow, fays he, till I be gentle, which will happen at the fame time when thou art Timon's dog, &c. i. e. never. MALONE. Mr. Malone has justly explained the drift of Apemantus. Such another reply occurs in Troilus and Creffida, where, Ulyffes, defirous to avoid a kifs from Creffida, fays to her; give me one "When Helen is a maid again," &c. STEEVENS. APEM. Are they not Athenians?7 APEM. Then I repent not. JEW. You know me, Apemantus. APEM. Thou know'ft, I do; I call'd thee by thy name. TIM. Thou art proud, Apemantus. APEM. Of nothing fo much, as that I am not like Timon. TIM. Whither art going? APEM. To knock out an honeft Athenian's brains. TIM. That's a deed thou'lt die for. APEM. Right, if doing nothing be death by the law. TIM. How likeft thou this picture, Apemantus? APEM. The best, for the innocence. TIM. Wrought he not well, that painted it? APEM. He wrought better, that made the painter;. and yet he's but a filthy piece of work. PAIN. You are a dog.3 APEM. Thy mother's of my generation; What's fhe, if I be a dog? TIM. Wilt dine with me, Apemantus? APEM. No; I eat not lords. TIM. An thou fhould'ft, thou'dft anger ladies. "Are they not Athenians?] The very imperfect state in which the ancient copy of this play has reached us, leaves a doubt whether feveral short speeches in the prefent fcene were defigned for verfe or profe. I have therefore made no attempt at regulation. STEEVENS. 8 Pain. You are a dog. This fpeech, which is given to the Painter in the old editions, in the modern ones must have been transferred to the Poet by mistake: it evidently belongs to the former. RITSON. APEM. O, they eat lords; fo they come by great bellies. TIM. That's a lafcivious apprehenfion. APEM. So thou apprchend'ft it: Take it for thy labour. TIM. How doft thou like this jewel, Apemantus? APEM. Not fo well as plain-dealing,' which will not coft a man a doit. TIM. What doft thou think 'tis worth? APEM. Not worth my thinking.-How now, poet? POET. How now, philofopher? APEM. Thou lieft. POET. Art not one? APEM. Yes. POET. Then I lie not. APEM. Art not a poet? POET. Yes. APEM. Then thou lieft: look in thy laft work, where thou haft feign'd him a worthy fellow. POET. That's not feign'd, he is fo. APEM. Yes, he is worthy of thee, and to pay thee for thy labour: He, that loves to be flatter'd, is worthy o'the flatterer. Heavens, that I were a lord! TIM. What would'ft do then, Apemantus? APEM. Even as Apemantus does now, hate a lord with my heart. TIM. What, thyself? 9 Not fo well as plain-dealing,] Alluding to the proverb: "Plain dealing is a jewel, but they that ufe it die beggars." STEEVENS, APEM. Ay. TIM. Wherefore? APEM. That I had no angry wit to be a lord.— Art not thou a merchant? 2 That I had no angry wit to be a lord.] This reading is absurd, and unintelligible. But, as I have restored the text, That I had fo hungry a wit to be a lord, it is fatirical enough of confcience, viz. I would hate myself, for having no more wit than to covet fo infignificant a title. In the fame fenfe, Shakspeare uses lean-witted in his King Richard II: "And thou a lunatick, lean-witted fool." WARBURTON. The meaning may be,-I fhould hate myself for patiently enduring to be a lord. This is ill enough expreffed. Perhaps fome happy change may fet it right. I have tried, and can do nothing, yet I cannot heartily concur with Dr. Warburton. JOHNSON. Mr. Heath reads: That I had fo wrong'd my wit to be a lord. But the paffage before us, is, in my opinion, irremediably corrupted. STEEVENS. Perhaps the compofitor has tranfpofed the words, and they should be read thus: Or, Angry that I had no wit,-to be a lord. Angry to be a lord,—that I had no wit. Perhaps we should read: BLACKSTONE. That I had an angry wish to be a lord; meaning, that he would hate himself for having wifhed in his anger to become a lord.-For it is in anger that he says: "Heavens, that I were a lord!" M. MASON. I believe Shakspeare was thinking of the common expreffionhe has wit in his anger; and that the difficulty arifes here, as in many other places, from the original editor's paying no attention to abrupt fentences. Our author, I fuppofe, wrote: That I had no angry wit.-To be a lord! Art thou, &c. Apemantus is asked, why after having wifhed to be a lord, he fhould hate himself. He replies,-For this reafon; that I had wit [or difcretion] in my anger, but was abfurd enough to with myfelf one of that fet of men, whom I defpife. He then exclaims with indignation-To be a lord!-Such is my conjecture, in which however I have not fo much confidence as to depart from the mode in which this paffage has been hitherto exhibited. MALONE. |