Act 3, Scene 6

A room of State in TIMON'S House.

[Music. Tables set out: Servants attending. Enter divers LORDS, SENATORS, and Others, at several doors.]
First Lord
1274 The good time of day to you, sir.
Second Lord
1275 I also wish it to you. I think this honourable lord
1276 did but try us this other day.
First Lord
1277 Upon that were my thoughts tiring when we encountered:
1278 I hope it is not so low with him as he made it seem in the trial
1279 of his several friends.
Second Lord
1280 It should not be, by the persuasion of his new feasting.
First Lord
1281 I should think so: he hath sent me an earnest inviting,
1282 which many my near occasions did urge me to put off; but he hath
1283 conjured me beyond them, and I must needs appear.
Second Lord
1284 In like manner was I in debt to my importunate business, but he
1285 would not hear my excuse. I am sorry, when he sent to borrow of
1286 me, that my provision was out.
First Lord
1287 I am sick of that grief too, as I understand how all things go.
Second Lord
1288 Every man here's so. What would he have borrowed you?
First Lord
1289 A thousand pieces.
Second Lord
1290 A thousand pieces!
First Lord
1291 What of you?
Second Lord
1292 He sent to me, sir—here he comes.
[Enter TIMON and Attendants.]
Timon
1293 With all my heart, gentlemen both; And how fare you?
First Lord
1294 Ever at the best, hearing well of your lordship.
Second Lord
1295 The swallow follows not summer more willing than we
1296 your lordship.
[Aside.]
Timon
1297 Nor more willingly leaves winter; such summer-birds
1298 are men. Gentlemen, our dinner will not recompense this long
1299 stay: feast your ears with the music awhile, if they will fare so
1300 harshly o' the trumpet's sound; we shall to't presently.
First Lord
1301 I hope it remains not unkindly with your lordship that
1302 I return'd you an empty messenger.
Timon
1303 O! sir, let it not trouble you.
Second Lord
1304 My noble lord,—
Timon
1305 Ah! my good friend, what cheer?
Second Lord
1306 My most honourable lord, I am e'en sick of shame, that
1307 when your lordship this other day sent to me I was so
1308 unfortunate a beggar.
Timon
1309 Think not on't, sir.
Second Lord
1310 If you had sent but two hours before,—
Timon
1311 Let it not cumber your better remembrance.
[The banquet brought in.]
Timon
1312 Come, bring in all together.
Second Lord
1313 All covered dishes!
First Lord
1314 Royal cheer, I warrant you.
Third Lord
1315 Doubt not that, if money and the season can yield it.
First Lord
1316 How do you? What's the news?
Third Lord
1317 Alcibiades is banished: hear you of it?
Third Lord
1318 FIRST AND SECOND LORDS.
1319 Alcibiades banished!
Third Lord
1320 'Tis so, be sure of it.
First Lord
1321 How? how?
Second Lord
1322 I pray you, upon what?
Timon
1323 My worthy friends, will you draw near?
Third Lord
1324 I'll tell you more anon. Here's a noble feast toward.
Second Lord
1325 This is the old man still.
Third Lord
1326 Will't hold? will't hold?
Second Lord
1327 It does; but time will—and so—
Third Lord
1328 I do conceive.
Timon
1329 Each man to his stool with that spur as he would to the lip
1330 of his mistress; your diet shall be in all places alike. Make not
1331 a city feast of it, to let the meat cool ere we can agree upon
1332 the first place: sit, sit. The gods require our thanks.—
1333 You great benefactors sprinkle our society with thankfulness.
1334 For your own gifts make yourselves praised: but reserve still to
1335 give, lest your deities be despised. Lend to each man enough,
1336 that one need not lend to another; for, were your god—heads to
1337 borrow of men, men would forsake the gods. Make the meat be
1338 beloved more than the man that gives it. Let no assembly of
1339 twenty be without a score of villains: if there sit twelve women
1340 at the table, let a dozen of them be as they are. The rest of
1341 your foes, O gods! the senators of Athens, together with the
1342 common lag of people, what is amiss in them, you gods, make
1343 suitable for destruction. For these my present friends, as they
1344 are to me nothing, so in nothing bless them, and to nothing are
1345 they welcome.
1346 Uncover, dogs, and lap.
[The dishes uncovered are full of warm water.]
A Lord (speaking out)
1347 What does his lordship mean?
Another Lord
1348 I know not.
Timon
1349 May you a better feast never behold,
1350 You knot of mouth-friends! smoke and lukewarm water
1351 Is your perfection. This is Timon's last;
1352 Who, stuck and spangled with your flatteries,
1353 Washes it off, and sprinkles in your faces
[Throwing the water in their faces.]
Timon
1354 Your reeking villainy. Live loath'd, and long,
1355 Most smiling, smooth, detested parasites,
1356 Courteous destroyers, affable wolves, meek bears,
1357 You fools of fortune, trencher-friends, time's flies,
1358 Cap and knee slaves, vapours, and minute-jacks!
1359 Of man and beast the infinite malady
1360 Crust you quite o'er! What, dost thou go?
1361 Soft! take thy physic first,—thou too,—and thou;—
1362 Stay, I will lend thee money, borrow none.
[Throws the dishes at them.]
Timon
1363 What, all in motion? Henceforth be no feast,
1364 Whereat a villain's not a welcome guest.
1365 Burn, house! sink Athens! henceforth hated be
1366 Of Timon man and all humanity!
[Exit.]
[Re-enter the LORDS, SENATORS, and &c.]
First Lord
1367 How now, my lords!
Second Lord
1368 Know you the quality of Lord Timon's fury?
Third Lord
1369 Push! did you see my cap?
Fourth Lord
1370 I have lost my gown.
First Lord
1371 He's but a mad lord, and nought but humour sways him.
1372 He gave me a jewel th' other day, and now he has beat it out of
1373 my hat: did you see my jewel?
Third Lord
1374 Did you see my cap?
Second Lord
1375 Here 'tis.
Fourth Lord
1376 Here lies my gown.
First Lord
1377 Let's make no stay.
Second Lord
1378 Lord Timon's mad.
Third Lord
1379 I feel't upon my bones.
Fourth Lord
1380 One day he gives us diamonds, next day stones.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 1295rhetorical device
“swallow follows not summer more willing”
Second Lord flatters Timon with a comparison: just as the swallow follows summer wherever it goes, so the lords follow him. Timon's immediate aside (TLN 1297-98) turns the compliment against the speaker: like the swallow, these 'summer-birds' follow the warmth of his money and will be just as quick to leave it. The simile sets up the whole scene's exposure of fair-weather friendship.
TLN 1317historical topical
“Alcibiades is banished”
Third Lord drops the news that Alcibiades has been banished by Athens. The audience has just seen the Senate do exactly this in Act 3 Scene 5, where Alcibiades pleaded too insistently for a soldier's pardon and was expelled for it. His banishment mirrors Timon's own rejection by the city and sets up his later march on Athens with an army — the public counterpart to Timon's private rage.
classical Alcibiades and ungrateful Athens
TLN 1330cultural context
“make not a city feast of it, to let the meat cool”
A 'city feast' was an official civic banquet of the London guilds and aldermen, notorious for elaborate seating disputes over precedence — who sits where in strict order of rank — that could keep the guests standing and the food cooling for a long time. Timon mockingly tells the lords to sit immediately, as if rank did not matter. The irony is thick: he has already decided to treat them all alike — as nothing.
TLN 1333rhetorical device
“You great benefactors sprinkle our society with thankfulness”
Timon delivers what sounds like a table-grace — a prayer of thanks before a meal — but it is a curse in disguise. He addresses the gods as 'great benefactors' but subverts every phrase: 'give, lest your deities be despised' mocks gods who need to keep giving to be respected; 'let a dozen of them be as they are' (of the twelve women) means let half be what they are — prostitutes; 'your foes, O gods! the senators of Athens' finally breaks into open condemnation. The prayer form makes the betrayal all the more savage.
historical Timon's mock-banquet
TLN 1346stage direction note
“Uncover, dogs, and lap”
'Uncover' is the command to lift the lids off the serving dishes — the normal signal at a banquet that the food is ready. Instead of food, the uncovered dishes hold only warm water. 'Lap' means to drink by lapping with the tongue, the action of a dog at a bowl. In a single three-word line Timon both reveals the trick and turns the lords from honored guests into dogs licking up scraps.
historical Timon's mock-banquet
TLN 1350archaic vocab
“knot of mouth-friends”
A 'mouth-friend' is someone who is a friend only with his mouth — in words, in flattery, in protestations at the dinner table — but not in deeds. A 'knot' is a tightly bound cluster or group. The compound is Shakespeare's own coining and one of the play's sharpest phrases: these are men who were friendly only so long as Timon kept feeding them.
TLN 1355rhetorical device
“Most smiling, smooth, detested parasites, Courteous destroyers, affable wolves, meek bears”
Timon drives his guests out with a rapid-fire catalogue of oxymorons: 'courteous destroyers,' 'affable wolves,' 'meek bears' — each pairs a word of surface politeness with one of predation or danger. 'Trencher-friends' are people who are friendly only at the trencher (a flat wooden plate), i.e., at dinner. 'Time's flies' are like flies that appear in the warmth and vanish with the cold. 'Cap and knee slaves' are flatterers who bow ('cap') and kneel excessively. 'Minute-jacks' are small clock-figures that strike the bell mechanically, used for any servile, clockwork toady.
TLN 1363rhetorical device
“Henceforth be no feast, Whereat a villain's not a welcome guest”
Timon ends with a rhymed couplet that twists a truism: a proper feast excludes villains, but Timon says there should be NO feast at which a villain is NOT welcome — meaning every feast is now made for villains, because all men are villains. The syntax requires a double negative. His next couplet, 'Burn, house! sink Athens! henceforth hated be / Of Timon man and all humanity!', is a formal curse-declaration that closes his life as an Athenian citizen.
historical The fall of princes (de casibus tragedy)classical Fortune and her wheel