Athens. A Room in a Senator’s House. | |
| |
Enter a Senator, with papers in his hand. | |
| Sen. And late, five thousand: to Varro and to Isidore | |
| He owes nine thousand; besides my former sum, | 4 |
| Which makes it five-and-twenty. Still in motion | |
| Of raging waste! It cannot hold; it will not. | |
| If I want gold, steal but a beggar’s dog | |
| And give it Timon, why, the dog coins gold; | 8 |
| If I would sell my horse, and buy twenty more | |
| Better than he, why, give my horse to Timon, | |
| Ask nothing, give it him, it foals me, straight, | |
| And able horses. No porter at his gate, | 12 |
| But rather one that smiles and still invites | |
| All that pass by. It cannot hold; no reason | |
| Can found his state in safety. Caphis, ho! | |
| Caphis, I say! | 16 |
| |
Enter CAPHIS. | |
| Caph. Here, sir; what is your pleasure? | |
| Sen. Get on your cloak, and haste you to Lord Timon; | |
| Importune him for my moneys; be not ceas’d | 20 |
| With slight denial, nor then silenc’d when— | |
| ‘Commend me to your master’—and the cap | |
| Plays in the right hand, thus;—but tell him, | |
| My uses cry to me; I must serve my turn | 24 |
| Out of mine own; his days and times are past, | |
| And my reliances on his fracted dates | |
| Have smit my credit: I love and honour him, | |
| But must not break my back to heal his finger; | 28 |
| Immediate are my needs, and my relief | |
| Must not be toss’d and turn’d to me in words, | |
| But find supply immediate. Get you gone: | |
| Put on a most importunate aspect, | 32 |
| A visage of demand; for, I do fear, | |
| When every feather sticks in his own wing, | |
| Lord Timon will be left a naked gull, | |
| Which flashes now a phœnix. Get you gone. | 36 |
| Caph. I go, sir. | |
| Sen. ‘I go, sir!’ Take the bonds along with you, | |
| And have the dates in compt. | |
| Caph. I will, sir. | 40 |
| Sen. Go. [Exeunt. | |
