ALL LORDS. None so welcome. TIM. I take all and your several visitations 6 Thou art a foldier, therefore seldom rich, It comes in charity to thee: for all thy living Lie in a pitch'd field. ALCIB. Ay, defiled land,' my lord. 1. Lord. We are so virtuously bound,- TIM. Am I to you. 2. LORD. And fo So infinitely endear'd,-TIM. All to you. * _ Lights; more lights. Again, in King John: 6 8 I'll tell thee, Hubert, half my power, this night-." STEEVENS. 'tis not enough to give; Methinks, I could deal kingdoms -) Thus the passage flood in all the editions before Sir T. Hanmer's, who restored - My thanks. JOHNSON. I have displaced the words inserted by Sir T. Hanmer. What I have already given, says Timon, is not fufficient on the occafion: Methinks I could deal kingdoms, i. e. could dispense them on every fide with an ungrudging diftribution, like that with which I could deal out cards. STEEVENS. 7 Ay, defiled land, I, - is the old reading, which apparently depends on a very low quibble. Alcibiades is told, that his eftate lies in a pitch'd field. Now pitch, as Falstaff fays, doth defle. Alcibiades, therefore replies, that his eftate lies in defiled land. This, as it happened, was not understood, and all the editors published: I defy land, JOHNSON. I being always printed in the old copy for Ay, the editor of the second folio made the abfurd alteration mentioned by Dr. Johnfon. MALONE. * All to you.] i. e. all good wishes, or all happiness to you. So, Macbeth: "All to all." STEEVENS. 1. LORD. The best of happiness, Honour, and fortunes, keep with you, lord Timon! TIM. Ready for his friends. 19 [Exeunt ALCIBIADES, Lords, &c. What a coil's here! Serving of becks, and jutting out of bums! Ready for his friends.] I suppose, for the sake of enforcing the sense, as well as restoring the measure, we should read: Ready ever for his friends. STEEVENS. Serving of becks,] Beck means a falutation made with the head. So. Milton; "Nods and becks, and wreathed smiles." To ferve a beck, is to offer a falutation. JOHNSON. To serve a beck, means, I believe, to pay a courtly obedience to xod. Thus. in The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington, 1601: "And with a low beck " Prevent a sharp check." Again, in The play of the Four P's, 1569: " Then I to every foul again, " Did give a beck them to retain." In Ram-Alley or Merry Tricks, 1611, I find the same word: I had my winks, my becks, treads on the toe." Again, in Heywood's Rupe of Lucrece, 1630: wanton looks, " And privy becks, favouring incontinence." Again, in Lyly's Woman in the Moon, 1597: "And he that with a beck controuls the heavens." It happens then that the word beck has no less than four diftin& fignifications. In Drayton's Polyolbion, it is enumerated among the appellations of small streams of water. In Shakspeare's Antony and Cleopatra, it has its common meaning-a fign of invitation made by the hand. In Timon, it appears to denote a bow, and in Lyly's play, a nod of dignity or command; as well as in Marius and Sylla, 1594: "Yea Sylla with a beck could break thy neck." Again, in the interlude of Jacob and Efau, 1568: " For what, O Lord, is so possible to man's judgment See Surrey's Poems, p.29: STEEVENS. "And with a becke full lowe he bowed at her feete." 1 TYRWHITT. I doubt whether their legs be worth the fums That are given for 'em. Friendship's full of dregs: Methinks, false hearts should never have found legs. Thus honeft fools lay out their wealth on court'fics. TIM. Now, Apemantus, if thou wert not fullen, I'd be good to thee. APFM. No, I'll nothing: for, If I should be brib'd too, there would be none left To rail upon thee; and then thou would'st sin the fafter. Thou giv'st so long, Timon, I fear me, thou An you begin to rail on fociety once, [Exit. So;- Thou'lt not hear me now, thou shalt not then, Thy heaven from thee. O, that men's ears should I'll lock 5 be To counfel deaf, but not to flattery! [ Exit. 3 I doubt whether their legs &c.] He plays upon the word lig, as it signifies a limb, and a bow or act of obeisance. JOHNSON. See Vol. XII. p. 286, n. 6. MALONE. 4 I fear me, thou, Will give away thyself in paper shortly:] i. e. be ruined by his securities entered into. WARBURTON. * Thou'lt not hear me now, - thou shalt not then, I'll lock-] The measure will be restored by the omiffion of an unneceffaty word-me: Thou'lt not hear now, thou shalt not then, I'll lock --. STEEVENS. Thy heaven) The pleasure of being flattered. JOHNSON. E ACT II. SCENE I. The fame. A Room in a Senator's House. Enter a Senator, with papers in his hand. SEN. And late, five thousand to Varro; and to He owes nine thousand; besides my former sum, 1 Apemantus never intended, at any event, to flatter Timon, nor did Timon expect any flattery from him. By his heaven he means good advice, the only thing by which he could be faved. The following lines confirm this explanation. M. MASON. 6 -- twenty-] Mr. Theobald has-ten. Dr. Farmer pro poses to read_twain. REED. Ask nothing, give it him, it foals me, ftraight, Ten able horfes. STEEVENS. If I want gold (says the senator) let me fteal a beggar's dog, and give it Timon, the dog coins me gold. If I would fell my horse, and had a mind to buy ten better instead of him; why, I need but give my horse to Timon, to gain this point; and it presently fetches me an horse." But is that gaining the point proposed? The first folio reads: And able horses: But rather one that smiles, and still invites 8 Which reading, joined to the reasoning of the passage, gave me the hint for this emendation. THEOBALD. The paffage which Mr. Theobald would alter, means only this: "If I give my horse to Timon, it immediately foals, and not only produces more, but able horses." The same conftru&ion occurs in Much Ado About Nothing: " -- and men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones too." Something fimilar occurs also in Beaumont and Fletcher's Hu morous Lieutenant: some twenty, young and handsome, "As also able maids, for the court service." STEEVENS. Perhaps the letters of the word me were transposed at the prefsy Shakspeare might have written: --it foals 'em ftraight And able horses. If there be no corruption in the text, the word twenty in the preceding line, is understood here after me. We have had this fentiment differently expressed in the preceding aa: 8 " -- no meed but he repays "Seven-fold above itself; no gift to him, "All use of quittance." MALONE. No porterat his gate; But rather one that smiles, and still invites - ) I imagine that a line is loft here, in which the behaviour of a furly porter was described. JOHΝΣΟΝ. There is no occafion to suppose the loss of a line. Sternness was the characteristick of a porter. There appeared at Killingworth caftle, [1575] "a porter, tall of person, big of lim, and flearn of countinauns." FARMER. So also, in A Knight's Conjuring &c. by Decker: "You mistake, if you imagine that Plutoes porter is like one of those big fellowes that stand like gyants at Lordes gates &c. - yet hee's as furly as those key-turners are." STEEVENS. The word-one, in the second line, does not refer to porter, but means a person. He has no stern forbidding porter at his gate, to keep people out, but a person who invites them in. M. MASON. |