Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies

And to make whores a bawd.

That is, enough to make a whore leave whoring, and a bawd leave making whores.

IV.iii.139 (357,9) I'll trust to your conditions] You need not swear to continue whores, I will trust to your inclinations.

IV.iii.140 (358,1) Yet may your pains, six months,/Be quite contrary] The explanation [Warburton's] is ingenious, but I think it very remote, and would willingly bring the author and his readers to meet on easier terms. We may read,

—Yet may your pains six months
Be quite contraried.—

Timon is wishing ill to mankind, but is afraid lest the whores should imagine that he wishes well to them; to obviate which he lets them know, that he imprecates upon them influence enough to plague others, and disappointments enough to plague themselves. He wishes that they may do all possible mischief, and yet take pains six months of the year in vain.

In this sense there is a connection of this line with the next. Finding your pains contraried, try new expedients, thatch your thin roofs, and paint.

To contrary is on old verb. Latymer relates, that when he went to court, he was advised not to contrary the king.

IV.iii.153 (359,3) mens' spurring] Hanmer reads sparring, properly enough, if there be any ancient example of the word.

IV.iii.158 (359,5)

take the bridge quite away
Of him, that his particular to foresee
Smells from the general weal]

[W: to forefend] The metaphor is apparently incongruous, but the sense is good. To foresee his particular, is to provide for his private advantage, for which he leaves the right scent of publick good. In hunting, when hares have cross'd one another, it is common for some of the hounds to smell from the general weal, and foresee their own particular. Shakespeare, who seems to have been a skilful sportsman, and has alluded often to falconry, perhaps, alludes here to hunting.

To the commentator's emendation it may be objected, that he used forefend in the wrong meaning. To forefend, is, I think, never to provide for, but to provide against. The verbs compounded with for or fore have commonly either an evil or negative sense.

IV.iii.182 (361,8) eyeless venom'd worm] The serpent, which we, from the smallness of his eyes, call the blind worm, and the Latins, caecilia.

IV.iii.183 (361,9) below crisp heaven] [W: cript] Mr. Upton declares for crisp, curled, bent, hollow.

IV.iii.188 (361,1) Let it no more bring out ingrateful man!] [W: out to ungrateful] It is plain that bring out is bring forth, with which the following lines correspond so plainly, that the commentator might be suspected of writing his note without reading the whole passage.

IV.iii.193 (362,2) Dry up thy marrows, vines, and plough torn leas] I cannot concur to censure Theobald [as Warburton did] as a critic very unhappy. He was weak, but he was cautious: finding but little power in his mind, he rarely ventured far under its conduct. This timidity hindered him from daring conjectures, and sometimes hindered him happily.

This passage, among many others, may pass without change. The genuine reading is not marrows, veins, but marrows, vines: the sense is this; O nature! cease to produce men, ensear thy womb; but if thou wilt continue to produce them, at least cease to pamper them; dry up thy marrows, on which they fatten with unctuous morsels, thy vines, which give them liquorish draughts, and thy plow-torn leas. Here are effects corresponding with causes, liquorish draughts with vines, and unctuous morsels with marrows, and the old reading literally preserved.

IV.iii.209 (363,3) the cunning of a carper] Cunning here seems to signify counterfeit appearance.

IV.ii.223 (364,4) moist trees] Hanmer reads very elegantly,

—moss'd trees.

IV.iii.37 (364,5)

Tim. Always a villain's office, or a fool's.
Dost please thyself in't?
Apem. Ay.
Tim. What! a knave too?]

Such was Dr. Warburton's first conjecture ["and know't too"], but afterwards he adopted Sir T. Hanmer's conjecture,

What a knave thou!

but there is no need of alteration. Timon had just called Apemantus fool, in consequence of what he had known of him by former acquaintance; but when Apemantus tells him, that he comes to vex him, Timon determines that to vex is either the office of a villain or a fool; that to vex by design is villainy, to vex without design is folly. He then properly asks Apemantus whether he takes delight in vexing, and when he answers, yes, Timon replies, What! and knave too? I before only knew thee to be a fool, but I now find thee likewise a knave. This seems to be so clear as not to stand in need of a comment.

IV.iii.242 (365,6) Willing misery/Out-lives incertain pomp; is crown'd before] Arrives sooner at high wish; that is, at the completion of its wishes.

IV.iii.247 (365,7) Worse than the worst, content] Best states contentless have a wretched being, a being worse than that of the worst states that are content. This one would think too plain to have been mistaken. (1773)

IV.iii.249 (365,8) by his breath] It means, I believe, by his counsel, by his direction.

IV. iii. 252 (366,l) Hadst thou, like us] There is in this speech a sullen haughtiness, and malignant dignity, suitable at once to the lord and the man-hater. The impatience with which he bears to have his luxury reproached by one that never had luxury within his reach, is natural and graceful.

There is in a letter, written by the earl of Essex, just before his execution, to another nobleman, a passage somewhat resembling this, with which, I believe every reader will be pleased, though it is so serious and solemn that it can scarcely be inserted without irreverence.

"God grant your lordship may quickly feel the comfort I now enjoy in my unfettered conversion, but that you may never feel the torments I have suffered for my long delaying it. I had none but deceivers to call upon me, to whom I said, if my ambition could have entered into their narrow breasts, they would not have been so precise. But your lordship hath one to call upon you, that knoweth what it is you now enjoy; and what the greatest fruit and end is of all contentment that this world can afford. Think, therefore, dear earl, that I have staked and buoyed all the ways of pleasure unto you, and left them as sea-marks for you to keep the channel of religious virtue. For shut your eyes never so long, they must be open at the last, and then you must say with me, there is no peace to the ungodly."

IV.iii.252 (366,2) from our first swath] From infancy. Swath is the dress of a new-born child.

IV.iii.258 (366,3) precepts of respect] Of obedience to laws.

IV.iii.259 (366,4) But myself] The connection here requires some attention. But is here used to denote opposition; but what immediately precedes is not opposed to that which follows. The adversative particle refers to the two first lines.

Thou art a slave, whom fortune's tender arm
With favour never claspt; but bred a dog.
—But myself,
Who had the world as my confectionary, &c.

The intermediate lines are to be considered as a parenthesis of passion.

IV.iii.271 (367,5) If thou wilt curse, thy father, that poor rag,/ Must be thy subject] If we read poor rogue, it will correspond rather better to what follows.

IV.iii.276 (367,6) Thou hadst been knave and flatterer] Dryden has quoted two verses of Virgil to shew how well he could have written satires. Shakespeare has here given a specimen of the same power by a line bitter beyond all bitterness, in which Timon tells Apemantus, that he had not virtue enough for the vices which he condemns.

Dr. Warburton explains worst by lowest, which somewhat weakens the sense, and yet leaves it sufficiently vigorous.

I have heard Mr. Bourke commend the subtilty of discrimination with which Shakespeare distinguishes the present character of Timon from that of Apemantus, whom to vulgar eyes he would now resemble. (see 1763, VI, 249, 6) (rev. 1778, VIII, 424, 4)

IV.iii.308 (369,8) Ay, though it look like thee] Timon here supposes that an objection against hatred, which through the whole tenor of the conversation appears an argument for it. One would have expected him to have answered,

Yes, for it looks like thee.

The old edition, which always gives the pronoun instead of the affirmative particle, has it,

I, though it look like thee.