Are drown'd and loft in his calamities. I have but little gold of late, brave Timon, ALCIB. I am thy friend, and pity thee, dear Ti mon. TIM. How doft thou pity him, whom thou doft trouble? I had rather be alone. ALCIB. Here's fome gold for thee. TIM. Why, fare thee well: Keep't, I cannot eat it. ALCIB. When I have laid proud Athens on a heap, TIM. Warr'ft thou 'gainst Athens? ALCIB. Ay, Timon, and have caufe. TIM. The gods confound them all i' thy con queft; and Thee after, when thou haft conquer'd! ALCIB. TIM. That, Why me, Timon? By killing villains, thou waft born to conquer For another print of this tub, fee Holmes's Academy of Armory. 6 DOUCE. trod upon them,] Sir T. Hanmer reads-had trod upon them. Shakspeare was not thus minutely accurate. MALONE. Put up thy gold; Go on,-here's gold,-go on; Will o'er fome high-vic'd city hang his poifon Herself's a bawd: Let not the virgin's cheek Make foft thy trenchant fword; for thofe milkpaps, That through the window-bars bore at men's eyes,* ↑ Be as a planetary plague, when Jove Will o'er fome high-vic'd city hang his poifon In the fick air:] This is wonderfully fublime and picturesque. WARBURTON, We meet with the fame image again in King Richard II: 66 or fuppofe "Devouring peftilence bangs in our air." MALONE. 8 That through the window-bars bore at men's eyes,] The virgin that fhews her bofom through the lattice of her chamber. JOHNSON. Dr. Johnfon's explanation is almoft confirmed by the following paflage in Cymbeline: "Look through a cafement to allure false hearts, "And be falfe with them." Shakspeare at the fame time might aim a stroke at this indecency in the wantons of his own time, which is alfo animadverted on by feveral contemporary dramatifts. So, in the ancient interlude of The Repentance of Marie Magdalene, 1567: "Your garment muít be worne alway, "That your white pappes may be feene if you may.. All this is addreffed to Mary Magdalen. To the fame purpofe, Jovius Pontanus: "Hoc eft ad Venerem vocare amantes." STEEVENS. Are not within the leaf of pity writ, Set them down' horrible traitors: Spare not the babe, Our author has again the fame kind of imagery in his Lover's Complaint: 66 fpite of heaven's fell rage, "Some beauty peep'd through lattice of fear'd age." I do not believe any particular fatire was here intended. Lady Suffolk, Lady Somerfet, and many of the celebrated beauties of the time of James I. are thus reprefented in their pictures; nor were they, I imagine, thought more reprehenfible than the ladies of the prefent day, who from the fame extravagant pursuit of what is called fashion, run into an oppofite extreme. MALONE. I have not hitherto met with any ancient portrait of a modeft English woman, in which the papillæ exerte were exhibited as defcribed on the prefent occafion by Shak fpeare; for he alludes not only to what he has called in his celebrated fong, the "hills of fnow," but to the " pinks that grow" upon their fummits. See Vol. IV. P. 315, n. 5. STEEVENS. I believe we should read nearly thus: That through the widow's barb bore at men's eyes, The ufe of the doubled negative is fo common in Shakspeare, that it is unnecessary to support it by inftances. The barbe, I believe, was a kind of veil. Creffida, in Chaucer, who appears as a widow, is defcribed as wearing a barbe, Troilus and Crefida, Book II. v. 110. in which place Caxton's edition (as I learn from the Gloffary) reads-wimple, which certainly fignifies a veil, and was probably fubftituted as a fynonymous word for barbe, the more antiquated reading of the manufcripts. Unbarbed is ufed by Shakspeare for uncovered, in Coriolanus, A& III. fc. v: "Muft I go fhew them my unbarbed sconce?” See alfo Leland's Collectanea, Vol. V. p. 317, new edit. where the ladies, mourning at the funeral of Queen Mary, are mentioned as having their barbes above their chinnes. TYRWHITT. The folios read-barne, and not improperly; en is a common termination of a Saxon plural, which we in numberless inftances retain to this day. The word is to be explained by bars, but fhould not have been removed from the text. RITSON. 7 Set them down-] Old copy, in defiance of metre, But fet them down. STEEVENS. Whofe dimpled fmiles from fools exhauft their mercy;9 Think it a baftard,' whom the oracle Hath doubtfully pronounc'd thy throat' fhall cut, And mince it fans remorfe: Swear against objects; + Put armour on thine ears, and on thine eyes; Whose proof, nor yells of mothers, maids, nor babes, Nor fight of priests in holy vestments bleeding, Shall pierce à jot. There's gold to pay thy fola diers: Make large confufion; and, thy fury spent, ALCIB. Haft thou gold yet? I'll take the gold thou giv❜ft me, Not all thy counsel. TIM. Doft thou, or doft thou not, heaven's curfe upon thee! PHR. AND TYM. Give us fome gold, good Timon: Haft thou more? exhaust their mercy;] For exhauft, Sir T. Hanmer, and after him Dr. Warburton, read-extort; but exhauft here fignifies literally to draw forth. JOHNSON. 2baftard,] An allufion to the tale of Oedipus. JOHNSON. 3thy throat-] Old copy-the throat. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE. 4 Swear against objects;] Sir Thomas Hanmer reads: -'gainst all objects: So, in our author's 152d Sonnet: "Or made them fwear against the thing they fee." STEEVENS. Perhaps objects is here ufed provincially for abjects. FARMER. Againft objects is, against objects of charity and compaffion. So, in Troilus and Creffida, Ulyffes fays: "For Hector, in his blaze of wrath, fubfcribes TIM. Enough to make a whore forfwear her trade, And to make whores, a bawd.' Hold up, you fluts, I'll truft to your conditions: Be whores ftill; 8 Be quite contrary: And thatch your poor thin roofs 2 And to make whores, a bawd.] That is, enough to make a whore leave whoring, and a bawd leave making whores. JOHNSON. 6 The immortal gods that hear you,] The fame thought is found in Antony and Cleopatra, Act I. fc. iii: Though you with swearing shake the throned gods." Again, in The Winter's Tale: 66 Though you would seek to unfphere the stars with oaths." I'll truft to your conditions:] You need not fwear to continue whores, I will truft to your inclinations. JOHNSON. See Vol. IX. p. 494, n. 5. MALONE. 8 And be no turncoats:] By an old ftatute, those women who lived in a state of prostitution, were, among other articles concerning their drefs, enjoined to wear their garments, with the wrong-fide outward, on pain of forfeiting them. Perhaps there is in this paffage a reference to it. HENLEY. I do not perceive how this explanation of―turncoat, will accord with Timon's train of reafoning; yet the antiquary may perhaps derive fatisfaction from that which affords no affiftance to the commentator. STEEVENS. 9 Yet may your pains, fix months, Be quite contrary:] This is obfcure, partly from the ambiguity |