Act V · Scene IV

Before the walls of Athens.

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Trumpets sound. Enter ALCIBIADES with his powers

ALCIBIADES

Sound to this coward and lascivious townOur terrible approach.

A parley sounded

Enter Senators on the walls

ALCIBIADES

Till now you have gone on and fill'd the timeWith all licentious measure, making your willsThe scope of justice; till now myself and suchAs slept within the shadow of your powerHav e wander'd with our traversed arms and breathedOur sufferance vainly: now the time is flush,When crouching marrow in the bearer strongCries of itself 'No more:' now breathless wrongShall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease,And pursy insolence shall break his windWith fear and horrid flight.

First Senator

Noble and young,When thy first griefs were but a mere conceit,Ere thou hadst power or we had cause of fear,We sent to thee, to give thy rages balm,To wipe out our ingratitude with lovesAbove their quantity.

Second Senator

So did we wooTransformed Timon to our city's loveBy humble message and by promised means:We were not all unkind, nor all deserveThe common stroke of war.

First Senator

These walls of oursWere not erected by their hands from whomYou have received your griefs; nor are they suchThat these great towers, trophies and schoolsshould fallFor private faults in them.

Second Senator

Nor are they livingWho were the motives that you first went out;Shame that they wanted cunning, in excessHath broke their hearts. March, noble lord,Into our city with thy banners spread:By decimation, and a tithed death--If thy revenges hunger for that foodWhich nature loathes--take thou the destined tenth,And by the hazard of the spotted dieLet die the spotted.

First Senator

All have not offended;For those that were, it is not square to takeOn those that are, revenges: crimes, like lands,Are not inherited. Then, dear countryman,Bring in thy ranks, but leave without thy rage:Spare thy Athenian cradle and those kinWhich in the bluster of thy wrath must fallWith those that have offended: like a shepherd,Approach the fold and cull the infected forth,But kill not all together.

Second Senator

What thou wilt,Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smileThan hew to't with thy sword.

First Senator

Set but thy footAgainst our rampired gates, and they shall ope;So thou wilt send thy gentle heart before,To say thou'lt enter friendly.

Second Senator

Throw thy glove,Or any token of thine honour else,That thou wilt use the wars as thy redressAnd not as our confusion, all thy powersShall make their harbour in our town, till weHave seal'd thy full desire.

ALCIBIADES

Then there's my glove;Descend, and open your uncharged ports:Those enemies of Timon's and mine ownWhom you yourselves shall set out for reproofFall and no more: and, to atone your fearsWith my more noble meaning, not a manShall pass his quarter, or offend the streamOf regular justice in your city's bounds,But shall be render'd to your public lawsAt heaviest answer.

Both

'Tis most nobly spoken.

ALCIBIADES

Descend, and keep your words.

The Senators descend, and open the gates

Enter Soldier

Soldier

My noble general, Timon is dead;Entomb'd upon the very hem o' the sea;And on his grave-stone this insculpture, whichWith wax I brought away, whose soft impressionInterprets for my poor ignorance.

ALCIBIADES

[Reads the epitaph] 'Here lies awretched corse, of wretched soul bereft:Seek not my name: a plague consume you wickedcaitiffs left!Here lie I, Timon; who, alive, all living men did hate:Pass by and curse thy fill, but pass and staynot here thy gait.'These well express in thee thy latter spirits:Though thou abhorr'dst in us our human griefs,Scorn'dst our brain's flow and those ourdroplets whichFrom niggard nature fall, yet rich conceitTaught thee to make vast Neptune weep for ayeOn thy low grave, on faults forgiven. DeadIs noble Timon: of whose memoryHereafter more. Bring me into your city,And I will use the olive with my sword,Make war breed peace, make peace stint war, make eachPrescribe to other as each other's leech.Let our drums strike.

Exeunt