The Life of Timon of Athens. Уильям Шекспир

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      SCENE II. The Same. A room of state in TIMON’S House

      [Hautboys playing loud music. A great banquet served in; FLAVIUS and Others attending: then enter LORD TIMON, ALCIBIADES, Lords, and Senators, VENTIDIUS and Attendants. Then comes, dropping after all, APEMANTUS, discontentedly, like himself.]

      VENTIDIUS.

      Most honour’d Timon,

      It hath pleas’d the gods to remember my father’s age,

      And call him to long peace.

      He is gone happy, and has left me rich:

      Then, as in grateful virtue I am bound

      To your free heart, I do return those talents,

      Doubled with thanks and service, from whose help

      I deriv’d liberty.

      TIMON.

      O! by no means,

      Honest Ventidius: you mistake my love;

      I gave it freely ever; and there’s none

      Can truly say he gives, if he receives:

      If our betters play at that game, we must not dare

      To imitate them; faults that are rich are fair.

      VENTIDIUS.

      A noble spirit.

      [They all stand ceremoniously looking on TIMON.]

      TIMON.

      Nay, my lords, ceremony was but devis’d at first

      To set a gloss on faint deeds, hollow welcomes,

      Recanting goodness, sorry ere ’tis shown;

      But where there is true friendship there needs none.

      Pray, sit; more welcome are ye to my fortunes

      Than my fortunes to me.

      [They sit.]

      FIRST LORD.

      My lord, we always have confess’d it.

      APEMANTUS.

      Ho, ho! confess’d it; hang’d it, have you not?

      TIMON.

      O! Apemantus, you are welcome.

      APEMANTUS.

      No,

      You shall not make me welcome:

      I come to have thee thrust me out of doors.

      TIMON.

      Fie! thou’rt a churl; ye’ve got a humour there

      Does not become a man; ’tis much to blame.

      They say, my lords, Ira furor brevis est;

      But yond man is ever angry.

      Go, let him have a table by himself;

      For he does neither affect company,

      Nor is he fit for it, indeed.

      APEMANTUS.

      Let me stay at thine apperil, Timon:

      I come to observe; I give thee warning on’t.

      TIMON.

      I take no heed of thee; thou’rt an Athenian, therefore, welcome.

      I myself would have no power; prithee; let my meat make thee

      silent.

      APEMANTUS.

      I scorn thy meat; ‘t’would choke me, for I should

      Ne’er flatter thee. O you gods! what a number

      Of men eats Timon, and he sees ’em not!

      It grieves me to see so many dip their meat

      In one man’s blood; and all the madness is,

      He cheers them up too.

      I wonder men dare trust themselves with men:

      Methinks they should invite them without knives;

      Good for their meat, and safer for their lives.

      There’s much example for ‘t; the fellow that

      Sits next him now, parts bread with him, pledges

      The breath of him in a divided draught,

      Is the readiest man to kill him: ‘t has been prov’d.

      If I were a huge man, I should fear to drink at meals;

      Lest they should spy my wind-pipe’s dangerous notes:

      Great men should drink with harness on their throats.

      TIMON.

      My СКАЧАТЬ