The Life of Timon of Athens

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Уильям Шекспир

Жанр

Европейская старинная литература

Год написания книги

2017

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FOOL. I think no usurer but has a fool to his servant: my mistress is one, and I am her fool. When men come to borrow of your masters, they approach sadly, and go away merry; but they enter my mistress' house merrily, and go away sadly: the reason of this?

VARRO'S SERVANT

I could render one.

APEMANTUS. Do it, then, that we may account thee a whoremaster and a knave; which notwithstanding, thou shalt be no less esteemed.

VARRO'S SERVANT

What is a whoremaster, fool?

FOOL. A fool in good clothes, and something like thee. 'Tis a spirit: sometime 't appears like a lord; sometime like a lawyer; sometime like a philosopher, with two stones more than's artificial one. He is very often like a knight; and generally, in all shapes that man goes up and down in from fourscore to thirteen, this spirit walks in.

VARRO'S SERVANT

Thou art not altogether a fool.

FOOL. Nor thou altogether a wise man: as much foolery as I have, so much wit thou lackest.

APEMANTUS

That answer might have become Apemantus.

VARRO'S SERVANT

Aside, aside; here comes Lord Timon.

[Re-enter TIMON and FLAVIUS.]

APEMANTUS

Come with me, fool, come.

FOOL. I do not always follow lover, elder brother, and woman; sometime the philosopher.

[Exeunt APEMANTUS and FOOL.]

FLAVIUS

Pray you walk near: I'll speak with you anon.

[Exeunt SERVANTS.]

TIMON

You make me marvel: wherefore, ere this time,
Had you not fully laid my state before me,
That I might so have rated my expense
As I had leave of means?

FLAVIUS

You would not hear me,
At many leisures I propos'd.

TIMON

Go to:
Perchance some single vantages you took,
When my indisposition put you back;
And that unaptness made your minister
Thus to excuse yourself.

FLAVIUS

O my good lord!
At many times I brought in my accounts,
Laid them before you; you would throw them off,
And say you found them in mine honesty.
When for some trifling present you have bid me
Return so much, I have shook my head, and wept;
Yea, 'gainst the authority of manners, pray'd you
To hold your hand more close: I did endure
Not seldom, nor no slight checks, when I have
Prompted you in the ebb of your estate
And your great flow of debts. My loved lord,
Though you hear now, too late, yet now's a time,
The greatest of your having lacks a half
To pay your present debts.

TIMON

Let all my land be sold.

FLAVIUS

'Tis all engag'd, some forfeited and gone;
And what remains will hardly stop the mouth
Of present dues; the future comes apace:
What shall defend the interim? and at length
How goes our reckoning?

TIMON

To Lacedaemon did my land extend.

FLAVIUS