Timon
Lucian of Samosata (lucian-of-samosata)Timo 26 · perseus-eng2More by Lucian of Samosata (lucian-of-samosata)
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TIMON
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Ho, Zeus, you Protector of Friends and Guests and Comrades, Keeper of the Hearth, Lord of the Lightning, Guardian of Oaths, Cloud-Compeller, Loud-thunderer and whatever else crazy poets call you, above all when they are in trouble with their verses, for then to help them out you assume a multitude of names and so shore up the weak spots in their metre and fill up the gaps in their rhythm! Where now is your pealing levin, your rolling thunder and your blazing, flashing, horrid bolt?
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All that has turned out to be stuff and nonsense, pure poetic vapour except for the resonance of the names. That famous, far-flying, ready weapon of yours has been completely quenched in some way or other and is cold, not even retaining a tiny spark of resentment against wrong doers.
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Indeed, anyone who should undertake to commit perjury would be more afraid of a guttering rushlight than of the blaze of your all-conquering thunderbolt. What you menace them with is such a mere firebrand, they think, that they do not fear flame or smoke from it and expect the only harm they will get from the stroke is to be covered with soot. That is why even Salmoneus dared to rival your thunder, and he was far from ineffective at it, for he was a man of fiery deeds flaunting his prowess in the face of a Zeus so lukewarm in spirit. And why not, when you lie asleep as if you were drugged with mandragora? You neither hear perjurers nor see wrong-doers; you are short-sighted and purblind to all that goes on and have grown as hard of hearing as aman in his dotage.
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Yet while you were still young and quick-tempered and violent in your wrath, you were very active against sinners and oppressors and you never made truce with them then. No, your bolt was always busy at all costs; your aegis shook, your thunder pealed, and your lightning was launched out incessantly like skirmish fire. The earth shook like a sieve, the snow fell in heaps, the hail was like cobblestones (if I may talk with you familiarly), and the rain-storms were fierce and furious, every drop a river; consequently, such a flood took place all in a moment in the time of Deucalion that when everything else had sunk beneath the waters a single chest barely escaped to land at Lycoreus, preserving a vital spark of human seed for the engendering of greater wickedness.
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The result is that you are reaping the fruit of your laziness. Nobody either sacrifices or wears wreaths in your honour any longer, except now and then a man who does it as something incidental to the games at Olympia; and even in that case he does not think he is doing anything at all necessary, but just contributes to the support of an ancient custom. Little by little, most noble of the gods, they have ousted you from your high esteem and are turning you into a Cronus. I will not say how many times they have robbed your temple already; some of them, however, have actually laid their hands upon your own person at Olympia, and you, High-thunderer though you be, were too sluggish to rouse the dogs or to call in the neighbours that they might come to your rescue and catch the fellows while they were still packing up for flight. No, you noble Giant-killer and Titan-conqueror, you sat still and let them crop your long locks, holding a fifteen-foot thunderbolt in your right hand!According to Pausanias (v. 11, 1), the Zeus at Olympia held a Victory in his right hand and a sceptre surmounted by an eagle in his left. This is borne out by late coins (see Gardner, Greek Sculpture, p. 259). The error is odd in so good an observer as Lucian. Come, you marvellous ruler, when will you stop overlooking these things in such a careless way? When will you punish all this wrong-doing? How many conflagrations and deluges will be enough to cope with such overwhelming insolence in the world?
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For instance, let me put aside generalities and speak of my own case. After raising so many Athenians to high station and making them rich when they were wretchedly poor before and helping all who were in want, nay more, pouring out my wealth in floods to benefit my friends, now that I have become poor thereby I am no longer recognized or even looked at by the men who formerly cringed and kowtowed and hung upon my nod. On the contrary, if I chance to meet any of them in the road, they treat me as they would the gravestone of aman long dead which time has overturned, passing by without even a curious glance..-- Indeed, some of them, on catching sight of me in the distance, turn off in another direction, thinking that the man who not long ago showed himself their saviour and benefactor will be an unpleasant and repulsive spectacle.
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Therefore
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my wrongs have driven me to this outlying farm, where, dressed in skins, I till the soil as a hired labourer at four obols a day, philosophizing with the solitude and with my pick. By so doing, I expect to gain at least thus much, that I shall no longer see a great many people enjoying undeserved success; for that, certainly, would be more painful. Come then, son of Cronus and Rhea, shake off at length that deep, sound sleep, for you have slumbered longer than Epimenides;
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fan your thunderbolt into flame or kindle it afresh from Aetna, and make a great blaze, evincing anger worthy of a stalwart and youthful Zeus—unless indeed the tale is true that the Cretans tell about you and your tomb in their island.
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ZEUS Who is that, Hermes, who is shouting from Attica, near Hymettus, in the foot-hills, all dirty and squalid and dressed in skins? He is digging, I think, with his back bent. A mouthy fellow and an impudent one. Very likely he is a philosopher, otherwise he would not talk so impiously against us. HERMES What, father! Don’t you know Timon of Collytus, the son of Echecratides? He is the man who often treated us to perfect sacrifices; the one who had just come into a fortune, who gave us the complete hecatombs and used to entertain us brilliantly at his house during the Diasia. ZEUS Ah, what a reverse! He the fine gentleman, the rich man, who had all the friends about him? What has happened to him to make hin like this, poor man, a dirty fellow digging ditches and working for wages, it seems, with such a heavy pick to swing?
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HERMES Well, you might say that he was ruined by kind-heartedness and philanthropy and compassion on all those who were in want; but in reality it was senselessness and folly and lack of discrimination in regard to his friends. He did not perceive that he was showing kindness to ravens and wolves, and while so many birds of prey were tearing his liver, the unhappy man thought they were his friends and sworn brothers, who enjoyed their rations only on account of the good-will they bore him. But when they had thoroughly stripped his bones and gnawed them clean, and had very carefully sucked out whatever marrow there was in them, they went away and left him like a dry tree with severed roots, no longer recognizing him or looking at him—why should they, pray?—or giving him help or making him presents in their turn. So, leaving the city out of shame, he has taken to the pick and the coat of skin, as you see, and tills the soil for hire, brooding” crazily over his wrongs because the men whom he enriched pass him by very disdainfully without even knowing whether his name is Timon or not.
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ZEUS Come now, we must not overlook the man or neglect him, for he had reason to be angry in view of his wretched plight. Why, we should be like those vile toadies of his if we left a man forgotten who has burned so many fat thigh-bones of bulls and goats on the altar to honour us; indeed, I have the steam of them still in my nostrils! However, business has been so heavy, the perjurers and oppressors and plunderers have made such a hubbub, and I have been so afraid of the temple-robbers, who are numerous and hard to guard against and do not let me close my eyes for an.instant, that I haven't even looked at Attica for a long time, particularly since philosophy and debates grew rife among the Athenians, for it is impossible even to hear the prayers on account of their wrangling and shouting; one must therefore either sit with his ears stopped or be dinned to death with their harangues about “virtue” and “things incorporeal”’ and other piffle. That is how I happened to neglect this man, who is not a bad sort.
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However, take Riches, Hermes, and go to him quickly; let Riches take Treasure along too, and let them both stay with Timon and not be so ready to go away, however much he may try to chase them out of the house again in the kindness of his heart. About those toadies and the thanklessness which they showed toward him I shall take measures later, and they shall be punished as soon as I get my thunderbolt put in order; for the two longest tines of it are broken and blunted since yesterday, when I let drive a little too vigorously at the sophist Anaxagoras, who was teaching his disciples that we gods do not count at all. I missed him, for Pericles held his
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hand over him,
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and the bolt, glancing off into the Anaceum, set the temple afire and itself came near being broken to bits on the rock. But in the meantime it will be punishment enough for them if they see Timon enormously rich.
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HERMES What an advantageous thing it is to shout loudly and to be annoying and impudent! It is useful not only to pleaders in court but to petitioners to Heaven. Lo and behold, Timon, who is now wretchedly poor, will become rich in an instant because he prayed vociferously and outspokenly and drew the attention of Zeus; but if he had bent his back and dug in silence he would still be digging neglected. RICHES But I really can’t go to him, Zeus. ZEUS Why not, my good Riches, when I have bidden you to do so?
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RICHES Why, by Zeus, because he treated me contumeliously, bundled me out, made ducks and drakes of me, although I was his father’s friend, and all but thrust me out of the house with a pitchfork, throwing me away as people throw hot coals out of their hands. Am I to go back, then, and be betrayed into the hands of parasites and toadies and prostitutes?. Send me to men who will be pleased with the gift, Zeus, who will be attentive to me, who hold me in honour and yearn for me, and let these noddies abide with Poverty, whom they prefer to me; let them get a coat of skin and a pick from her and be content, poor wretches, with a wage of four obols, they who heedlessly fling away ten-talent gifts.
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ZEUS Timon will never again treat you in any such way, for unless the small of his back is completely insensible, his pick has certainly taught him that he should have preferred you to Poverty. It seems to me, however, that you are very fault-finding. Now you are blaming Timon because he flung his doors open for you and let you go abroad freely, neither locking you in nor displaying jealousy; but at other times it was quite the reverse’; you used to get angry at the rich and say that they locked you up with bolts and keys and seals to such an extent that you could not put your head out into the light of day. At all events that was the lament you used to make to me, saying that you were being stifled in deep darkness. That was why you presented yourself to us pallid and full of worries, with your fingers deformed from the habit of counting on them, and threatened that if you got a chance you would run away. In short, you thought it a terrible thing to lead a virginal life like Danae in a chamber of bronze or iron, and to be brought up under the care of those precise and unscrupulous guardians, Interest and Accounts.
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As a matter of fact, you used to say that they acted absurdly in that they loved you to excess, yet did not dare to enjoy ‘you when they might, and instead of giving free rein to their passion when it lay in their power to do so, they kept watch and ward, looking fixedly at the seal and the bolt; for they thought it enjoyment enough, not that they were able to enjoy you themselves, but that they were shutting out everyone else from a share in the enjoyment, like the dog in the manger that neither ate the barley herself nor permitted the hungry horse to eat it. Moreover, you laughed them to scorn because they scrimped and saved and, what is strangest of all, were jealous of themselves, all unaware that a cursed valet or a shackle-burnishing steward would slip in by stealth and play havoc, leaving his luckless, unloved master to sit up over his interests beside a dim, narrownecked lamp with a thirsty wick. Why, then, is it not unjust in you, after having found fault with that sort of thing in the past, to charge Timon with the opposite now?
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RICHES Really, if you look into the truth, you will think that I do both with good reason, for Timon’s extreme laxity may fairly be deemed inconsiderate and unfriendly toward me; and on the other hand, when men kept me locked up in dark coffers, taking pains to get me fat and plump and overgrown, and neither laid a finger on me themselves nor brought me out into the light of day for fear that I might be seen by someone else, I used to consider them senseless and arrogant because they let me grow soft in such durance when I had done no wrong, and were unaware that after a little they would go away and leave me to some other favourite of fortune.
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I have no praise, therefore, either for these men or for those who are very free with me, but only for those who will do what is best and observe modera- tion in the thing, neither holding hands off altogether nor throwing me away outright. Look at it in this way, Zeus, in the name of Zeus. If a man should take a young and beautiful woman for his lawful wife and then should not keep watch of her or display jealousy at all, but should let her go wherever she would by night and by day and have to do with anyone who wished, nay more, should himself induce her to commit adultery, opening his doors and playing the go-between and inviting everybody in to her, would such a man appear to love her? You at least, Zeus, who have often been in love, would not say so!
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On the other hand, suppose a man should take a woman of gentle birth into his house in due form for the procreation of children, and then should neither lay a finger on the ripe and beautiful maiden himself nor suffer anyone else to look at her, but should lock her up and keep her a maid, childless and sterile, asserting, however, that he loved her and making it plain that he did so by his colour and wasted flesh and sunken eyes. Would not such a man appear to be out of his mind when, although he ought to have children and get some good of his marriage, he lets so fair and lovely a girl fade by keeping her all her life as if she were vowed to Demeter? That is the sort of thing I myself am angry about; for some of them kick me about shamefully and tear my flesh and pour me out like water, while others keep me in shackles like a runaway slave with a brand on his forehead.
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ZEUS Then why are you angry at them? Both sorts pay a fine penalty; for these last, like Tantalus, go hungry and thirsty and dry-lipped, merely gaping at their gold, while the others, like Phineus, have their food snatched out of their mouths by the Harpies. But be off with you now to Timon, whom you will find far more discreet. RICHES What, will he ever stop acting as if he were in a leaky boat and baling me out in haste before I have entirely flowed in, wanting to get ahead of the entering stream for fear that I will flood the boat and swamp him? No, and so I expect to carry water to the jar of the Danaids and pour it in without result, because the vessel is not tight but all that flows in will run out almost before it flows in, so much wider is the vent of the jar and so unhindered is the escape.There are two distinct figures here. In both of them wealth is compared to water; but in the first it leaks in and is ladled out, while in the second it is ladled in and leaks out. In the first figure we want a word meaning “boat,” not ‘“basket”; and I assume therefore that κόφινος means “a coracle” here.
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ZEUS Well, if he doesn’t intend to stop that vent and it turns out to have been opened once for all, you will speedily run out and he will have no trouble in finding his coat of skin and his pick again in the lees of the jar. But be off now and make him rich; and when you come back, Hermes, be sure to bring me the Cyclopes from Actna, so that they may point my thunderbolt and put it in order, for we shall soon need it sharp.
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HERMES Let us be going, Riches. What’s this? You're limping? I didn’t know that you were lame as well as blind, my good sir. RICHES It is not always this way, Hermes. When I go to visit anyone on a mission from Zeus, for some reason or other I am sluggish and lame in both legs, so that I have great difficulty in reaching my journey’s end, and not infrequently the man who is awaiting me grows old before I arrive. But when I am to go away, I have wings, you will find, and am far swifter than a dream. Indeed, no sooner is the signal given for the start than I am proclaimed the winner, after covering the course so fast that sometimes the onlookers do not even catch sight of me. HERMES What you say is not so. I myself could name you plenty of men who yesterday had not a copper to buy a rope with, but to-day are suddenly rich and wealthy, riding out behind a span of white horses when they never before owned so much as a donkey. In spite of that, they: go about dressed in purple, with rings on their fingers, themselves unable to believe, I fancy, that their wealth is not a dream.
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RICHES That is a different matter, Hermes; I do not go on my own feet then, and it is not Zeus but Pluto who sends me; for he, too, is a bestower of riches and a generous giver, as his name implies. When I am to go from one man to another, they put me in wax tablets, seal me up carefully, take me up and carry me away. The dead man is laid out in a dark corner of the house with an old sheet over his knees, to be fought for by the weasels, while those who have expectations regarding me wait for me in the public square with their mouths open, just as the swallow’s chirping brood waits for her to tly home.
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When the seal is removed, the thread cut, and the tablets opened, they announce the naine of my new master, cither a relative or a toady or a lewd slave held in high esteem since the days of his wanton youth, with his chin still shaven clean, who in this way gets a generous recompense, deserving fellow that he is, for many and various favours which he did his master long after he had earned a discharge. Whoever he may be, he snatches me up, tablets and all, and runs off with me, changing his name from Pyrrhias or Dromo or Tibius to Megacles or Megabyzus or Protarchus, while those others who opened their mouths in vain are left looking at one another and mourning in earnest because such a fine fish has made his escape from the inmost pocket of their net after swallowing quantities of bait.
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As for the man who has been flung head over ears into riches, an uncultivated, coarse-grained fellow who still shudders at the irons, pricks up his ear if anyone casually flicks a whip in passing, and worships the mill as if it were the seat of the mysteries, he is no longer endurable to those who encounter him, but insults gentlemen and whips his fellow-slaves, just to see if he himself can do that sort of thing, until at length he falls in with a prostitute or takes a fancy to breed horses or gives himself into the keeping of toadies who swear that he is better looking than Nireus, better born than Cecrops or Codrus, sharper witted than Odysseus and richer than sixteen Croesuses in one; and then in a moment, poor devil, he pours out all that was accumulated little by little through many perjuries, robberies and villainies.
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HERMES Yes, that is just about the way of it. But when you go on your own feet, how do you find the way, since you are so blind, and how do you tell who the people are whom Zeus sends you to because he thinks they deserve to be rich? RICHES Do you suppose I find the way or tell who they are? Good Heavens, not a bit of it! Otherwise I would not have left Aristides in the lurch"to--go to Hipponicus and Callias and a great many others who do not deserve a copper.Hipponicus was the father of Callias, and the son of another Callias, the founder of the family fortunes. There were several sinister stories current about the source of his wealth, but Lucian is probably thinking of the version given by Plutarch in the life of Aristides. HERMES But what do you do when he sends you down? RICHES I wander up and down, roaming about until I come upon someone unawares, and that man, whoever he may be who happens on me, takes me home and keeps me, paying homage to you, Hermes, for his unexpected stroke of good-luck.All windfalls were attributed to Hermes.
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HERMES Then you have cheated Zeus, who thinks that you observe his decrees and enrich those who in his opinion deserve riches? RICHES Yes, and very properly, my friend, for although he knew that I was blind, he kept sending me to search for a thing so hard to find, which long ago became eclipsed in the world; even a Lynceus could not find it easily, so dim and tiny is its light. So, as the good men are few and wicked men in great numbers fill the cities, it is easier for me to fall in with then in my wanderings and to get into their nets. HERMES Then how is it that when you leave them you escape easily, since you do not know the way? RICHES For some reason I become sharp of eye and swift of foot then, but only for the time of ny escape.
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HERMES
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Now just answer me this one more question. How is it that although you are blind (pardon my frankness), and not only that but pale and heavy-footed, you have lovers in such number that all men regard you with adimiration and count themselves lucky if they win you, but cannot bear to live if they fail? In fact, I know a good many of them who were so desperately in love with you that they went and flung themselves “into the deep-bosomed sea” and “over the beetling crags”
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because they thought you were cutting them when as a matter of fact you could not see them at all. But you yourself will admit, I am sure, if you know yourself, that they are crazy to lose their heads over such a beloved.
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RICHES Do you suppose they see me as I am, lame and blind and with all my other bad points? HERMES But how can they help it, Riches, unless they themselves are all blind? RICHES They are not blind, good friend, but Ignorance and Deceit, who now hold sway everywhere, darken their vision. Moreover, to avoid being wholly ugly, I always put on a very lovely mask, gay with tinscl and jewels, and an embroidered robe before I meet them; whereupon, thinking that they sce my beauty face to face, they fall in love with me and despair of life if they do not win me. If anyone’ should strip me and show me to them, without a doubt they would reproach themselves for being shortsighted to that extent and for falling in love with things hateful and ugly.
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HERMES Why is it, then, that even after they are in the very midst of riches and have put the mask on their own face, they are still deluded, and would sooner lose their head than the mask if anyone should try to take it away? Surely it is not likely that they do not know that your beauty is put on when they see all that is under it. RICHES There are many things that help me in this too, Hermes. HERMES What are they? RICHES When a man, on first encountering me, opens his doors and takes me in, Pride, Folly, Arrogance, Effeminacy, Insolence, Deceit, and myriads more, enter unobserved in my train. Once his soul is obsessed by all these, he admires what he should not admire and wants what he should shun; he worships me, the progenitor of all these ills that have come in, because I am attended by them, and he would endure anything in the world rather than put up with losing me.
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HERMES But how smooth and slippery you are, Riches, how hard to hold and how quick to get away! You offer people no secure grip at all, but make your escape through their fingers in some way or other, like an eel or a snake. Poverty, on the other hand, is sticky and easy to grip, and has no end of hooks growing out all over her body, so that when people come near her she lays hold of them at once and cannot be disengaged easily. But in the midst of our gossip we have forgotten something rather important. RICHES What is it? HERMES We have not brought along Treasure, whom we needed most.
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RICHES Be easy on that score; I always leave him on earth when I go up to you, bidding him to stay at home with the door locked and not to open to anyone unless he hears me calling. HERMES Well, then, let’s alight in Attica now. Take hold of my cloak and follow me till I reach the outlying farm. RICHES It is very good of you to lead me, Hermes, for if you should leave me behind I would soon run against Hyperbolus or Cleon as I strayed about. But what is that noise as of iron on stone?
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HERMES Our friend Timon is digging ina hilly and stony piece of ground close by. Oho, Poverty is with him, and so is Toil; likewise Endurance, Wisdom, Manliness, and the whole host of their fellows that serve under Captain Starvation, a far better sort than your henchmen. RICHES Then why not beat a retreat as quickly as possible, Hermes? We can’t accomplish anything worth mentioning with a man that is hedged in by such an army. HERMES Zeus thought differently, so let’s not be cowardly.
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POVERTY Where are you going with that person whom you have by the hand, Hermes? HERMES Zeus sent us to Timon here. POVERTY Is he sending Riches to Timon now, when I have made a noble and a valuable man of him, after taking him over in a wretched plight that was due to Luxury and putting him in charge of Wisdom and Toil? Then am I, Poverty, so easy to slight, think you, and so easy to wrong that I can be robbed of my only possession after I have thoroughly perfected him in virtue, in order that Riches, taking him over again and giving him into the hands of Insolence and Pride, may make him soft, unmanly and base as before, and then return him to me reduced to a clout? HERMES It was the will of Zeus, Poverty.
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POVERTY I am going; follow me, Toil and Wisdom and the rest of you. ‘This man will soon find out whom he is deserting in me—a good helpmate and a teacher of all that is best, through whose instruction he kept well in body and sound in mind, leading the life of a real man, relying on himself and holding all this abundance and excess to be nothing to him, as indeed it is. HERMES They are going; let us approach him.
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TIMON Who are you, plague take you, and what do you want that you come here to bother a man at work and earning his wage? You will go away sorry that you came, vile wretches that you are, every one of you; for I'll very soon throw these clods and stones at you and break every bone in your bodies. HERMES No, no, Timon! don’t throw at us, for we are not men. I am Hermes and this is Riches. We were sent by Zeus in answer to your prayers. So desist from your labours and accept prosperity, and good luck to you! TIMON You shall catch it too, even if you are gods, as you say, for I hate all alike, both gods and men, and as for this blind fellow, whoever he may be, I shall certainly break his head with my pick. RICHES Let’s go, Hermes, in the name of Zeus, in order that I may not come to some harm before going; for the man is uncommonly crazy, it seems to me.
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HERMES Let’s have no roughness, Timon. Lay aside this excessive rudeness and asperity, stretch out your hands and take your good fortune. Be rich once more and a leading man in Athens, and cut the acquaintance of those ingrates of old, keeping your wealth to yourself. TIMON I don’t want anything of you; don’t bother me. My pick is riches enough for me, and in all other respects I am as happy as can be if only nobody comes near me. HERMES Such an uncivil answer, friend? Will you I carry to Zeus those words so repellent and stubborn? Iliad, 15, 202 True enough, it is reasonable for you to hate men after they have treated you so horribly, but not in the least to hate the gods, who take such good care of you.
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TIMON I am very much obliged to you, Hermes, and to Zeus for the care, but I must decline to take your friend Riches. HERMES Why, pray? TIMON Because in bygone days he caused me_ infinite harm by giving me over to toadies, setting plotters upon me, stirring up hatred against me, corrupting me with high living, making me envied and finally abandoning me in such a faithless and traitorous way. But my good friend Poverty developed my body with tasks of the most manly sort, conversed with me truthfully and frankly, gave me all that I needed if only I worked for it, and taught me to despise the wealth I once cherished, making me depend upon myself for my hope of a living and showing me wherein lay my own riches, which could not be taken away either by a toady with flattery or by a blackmailer with threats, by a mob in a gust of passion, a voter with his ballot or a tyrant with his intrigues.
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Strengthened, therefore, by my labours, I work upon this farm with pleasure in my toil, secing nothing of the ills in the city and getting ample and suflicient sustenance from my pick. So wend your way back again, Hermes, taking Riches up to Zeus. For my part, I should be content if I could bring sorrow to the whole world, young and old alike. HERMES Don’t say that, my friend; they do not all deserve sorrow. Come, stop this childish display of illtemper and take Riches. Gifts that come from Zeus are not to be flung away. RICHES Do you want ine to rcason with you, Timon, or shall you be offended at me if I say anything? TIMON Speak, but not at length nor with a preface, like a rascally orator. I will endure a few words from you for the sake of Hermes.
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RICHES Perhaps I ought really to speak at length in reply to so many charges made by you. However, judge whether I have wronged you as you say. It is I who brought you everything that is delightful,—honour, precedence, civic crowns, and every form of luxury; and you were admired and puffed and courted, thanks to me. On the other hand, if you have suffered any cruel treatment at the hands of the toadies, I am not to blame; rather have I myself been wronged by you because you so basely put me at the mercy of scoundrels who praised you and bewitched you and intrigued against me in every way. Again, in closing, you said that I played you false; but on the contrary I could myself bring that charge against you, for you drove me off in every way and thrust me head-foremost out of your house. That is why Poverty, whom you hold so dear, has dressed you in this coat of skin instead of a soft mantle of wool, So Hermes will testify how ardently I besought Zeus not to make me come to you again after you had treated me with such hostility.
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HERMES But now you see how mild he has become, Riches; so do not hesitate to remain with him. Timon, go on digging without more ado, and you, Riches, bring Treasure underneath his hoe, for ‘Treasure will obey your call. TIMON I must comply, Hermes, and be rich again, for what can a man do when the gods constrain him? But look at all the trouble you are plunging me into, curse the luck! Until now I was leading the happiest of lives, but in a moment, though I have done no wrong, I am to receive so much gold and to take on so many cares.
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HERMES Endure it, Timon, for my sake, even if it is difficult and unbearable, in order that those toadies may burst with envy. And now I am going to fly up to Heaven by way of Aetna. RICHES He has gone, it seems; for I infer it from the fluttering of his wings. Wait here, and I will go away and send Treasure to you. But, no, strike in. Ho, Treasure of Gold! Submit to Timon and let yourself be dug up. Dig, Timon, and bring down deep strokes. I will leave you to yourselves.
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TIMON
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Come, pick, be strong for me now and don’t flag in the task of calling Treasure out of the depths to the light of day. O Zeus, god of miracles! O gracious Corybants! O Hermes, god of gain! Where did all this gold come from? « Is this a dream? I am afraid I may wake up and find nothing but ashes. No,
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verily it is coined gold, red and heavy and mighty good to look upon.
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O gold, thou fairest gift that comes to man!
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Euripides, Danae, fr. 326 Nauck.
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In very truth you stand out like blazing fire, not only by night but by day.
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Come to me, my precious, my pretty! Now I am convinced that Zeus once turned into gold, for what maid would not open her bosom and receive so beautiful a lover coming down through the roof in a shower?
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O Midas! O Croesus! O treasures of Delphi! How little worth you are beside Timon and the wealth of Timon! Yes, even the king of Persia is not a match for me. Pick and darling coat of skin, it is best that I should hang you up here as an offering to Pan. For myself, I purpose now to buy the whole farm, build a tower over the treasure just large enough for me to live in, and have it for my tomb when I am dead. “Be it resolved and enacted into law, to be binding for the rest of my life, that I shall associate with no one, recognize no one and scorn everyone. Friends, guests, comrades and Altars of MercyThere was such an altar in Athens; cf. Demonax 57. shall be matter for boundless mockery. To pity one who weeps, to help one who is in need shall be a misdemeanour and an infringement of the constitution. My life shall be solitary, like that of wolves; Timon shall be my only friend,
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and all others shall be enemies and conspirators. To talk to any of them shall be pollution, and if I simply see one of them, that day shall be under a curse. In short, they shall be no more than statues of stone or bronze in my sight. I shall receive no ambassadors from them and make no treaties with them, and the desert shall sunder me from them. Tribe, clan, deme and native land itself shall be inane and useless names, and objects of the zeal of fools. Timon shall keep his wealth to himself, scorn everyone and live in luxury all by himself, remote from flattery and tiresome praise. He shall sacrifice to the gods and celebrate his feast-days by himsclf, his own sole neighbour and crony, shaking free of all others. Be it once for all resolved that he shall give himself the farewell hand-clasp when he comes to die, and shall set the funeral wreath upon his own brow.
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His favourite name shall be ‘the Misanthrope,’ and his characteristic traits shall be testiness, acerbity, rudeness, wrathfulness and inhumanity. If I see anyone perishing in a fire and begging to have it put out, I am to put it out with pitch and oil; and if anyone is being swept off his feet by the river in winter and stretches out his hands, begging me to take hold, I am to push him in head-foremost, plunging him down so deep that he cannot come up again. In that way they will get what they deserve. Moved by Timon, son of Echecratides, of Collytus; motion submitted to the assembly by the aforesaid Timon.” Good! Let us pass this resolution and abide by it stoutly.
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Yet I would have given a great deal if everybody could have found out somehow that I am tremendously rich; they would be fit to hang themselves over the thing. But what is this? I say, what haste they make! They are running up from all sides, dusty and out of breath, for they scent the gold somehow or other. Shall I climb this hill and drive them off with a skirmish fire of stones from above, or shall I break the law to the extent of talking to them just this once, in order that they may be hurt even more by being treated with contempt? That way is better, I think; so let us stand our ground now and receive them. Let me see, who is the first of them? Gnathonides the toady, the man who gave me a rope the other day when I asked for a loan, though often he has spewed up whole jars of wine at my house. I am glad he came: he shall be the first to smart.
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GNATHONIDES Didn’t I say that the gods would not neglect an upright man like Timon? Good day to you, Timon, first in good looks, first in good manners and first in good fellowship. TIMON The same to you, Gnathonides, first of all vultures in voracity and first of all mankind in rascality. GNATHONIDES You are always fond of your joke. But where are we to dine? I have brought you a new song from one of the playsLiterally: “From one of the dithyrambs.” The allusion is anachronistic, for in Timon’s day the dithyramb was not dramatic in character. Cf. Bywater, Aristotle on the Art of Poetry, p. 99. that have just been put on. TIMON I assure you, it will be a very mournful dirge that you will sing, with this pick of mine to prompt you. GNATHONIDES What’s this? A blow, Timon? I appeal to the witnesses. O Heracles! Oh! Oh! I summon you before the Areopagus for assault and battery. TIMON If you will only linger one moment more, the summons will be for murder. GNATHONIDES No, no! Do heal my wound, at least, by putting alittle gold on it. That is a wonderful specific for staunching blood. TIMON What, are you still bent on staying? GNATHONIDES I am going; but you shall be sorry that you left off being a gentleman and became such a boor.
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TIMON Who is this coming up, with the bald pate? Philiades, the most nauseous toady of them all. He received from me a whole farm and a dower of two talents for his daughter in payment for praising me once, when I had sung a song and everybody else kept still, but he lauded me to the skies, vowing on his word of honour that I was a better singer than a swan. Yet when he saw me ill the other day and I went up to him and begged for alms, the generous fellow bestowed a thrashing on me.
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PHILIADES Oh, what effrontery! So you all recognize Timon now? So Gnathonides is his friend and booncompanion now? Then he has had just what he deserved for being so thankless. But we, who are old acquaintances and schoolmates and neighbours, go slow in spite of that, in order not to appear too forward. Good day, sir; be on your guard against these despicable toadies who are only concerned with your table and otherwise are no better than ravens. You can’t trust anybody nowadays; everyone is thankless and wicked. For my part, I was just bringing you a talent so that you might have something to use for your pressing needs when I heard on the way, not far from here, that you were tremendously rich. So I have come to give you this advice. But as you are so wise, perhaps you will have no need of suggestions from me, for you could even tell Nestor what to do in an emergency. TIMON No doubt, Philiades. But come here, so that I may give you a friendly greeting with my pick! PHILIADES Help! The ingrate has broken my head because I gave him good advice.
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TIMON
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Lo and behold! here comes a third, the orator Demeas, holding a resolution in his hand and saying that he is a relative of mine. That fellow paid the city treasury sixteen talents within a single day, getting his money from me, for he had been condemned to a fine and put in jail while it was unpaid. And yet when it became his duty recently to distribute the show-money to the Erechtheis tribe,
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and I went up and asked for my share, he said he did not recognize me as a citizen!
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DEMEAS Good day, Timon, great benefactor of your kin, bulwark of Athens, shield of Greece! ‘The assembly and both the councils are in session and awaiting your pleasure this long time. But before you go, listen to the resolution that I drew up in your behalf. “Whereas Timon of Collytus, the son of Echecratides, a man who is not only upright but wise beyond any other in Greece, labours always in the best interests of the city, and has won the boxing match, the wrestling match, and the foot-race at Olympia in a single day, as well as the horse-races, both with the regular chariot and with the span of colts””— - TIMON But I never was even a delegateAn official representative of the state. Cf. Aristophanes, Wasps 1188 ff. to the games at Olympia! DEMEAS What of that? You will be, later. It is best to put in plenty of that sort of thing. — "and fought bravely for the city at Acharnae vee and cut to pieces two divisions of Spartans"—
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TIMON What do you mean by that? I wasn’t even posted on the muster-roll because I had no arms. DEMEAS You are modest in talking about yourself, but we should be ungrateful if we failed to remember. — “and furthermore has been of great service to the city by drawing up resolutions and serving on the council and acting as general; “On all these grounds be it resolved by the council, the assembly, the panel of jurors, the tribes and the demes, both severally and in common, to erect a golden statue of Timon beside Athena on the Acropolis with a thunderbolt in his hand and a haloLiterally, “rays,” the attribute of Helius. The colossal statue of Nero had these rays. upon his head, and to crown him with seven crowns of gold, said crowns to be awarded by proclamation to-day at the Dionysia when the new tragedies are performed; for the Dionysia must be held to-day on his account. Moved by the orator Demeas, his next of kin and his pupil; for Timon is an excellent orator and anything else that he wants to be.”
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There you have the resolution. I wish I had brought my son to see you; I have called him Timon after you. TIMON How can that be, Demeas, when you aren't even married, as far as I know? DEMEAS No, but I am going to marry next year, Zeus willing, and havea child; and I now name it Timon, for it will be a boy. TIMON Perhaps you don’t care to marry now, sirrah, on getting such a clout from me. DEMEAS Oh! Oh! What does this mean? Timon, you are trying to make yourself tyrant and you are beating free men when you yourself have not a clear title to your freedom. You shall soon pay for this, and for burning the Acropolis too.
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TIMON But the Acropolis has not been burned, you scoundrel, so it is plain that you are a blackmailer. DEMEAS Well, you got your money by breaking into the treasury. TIMON That has not been broken into, so you can’t make good with that charge either. - DEMEAS The breaking in will be done later, but you have all the contents now. TIMON Well then, take that! DEMEAS Oh, my back! TIMON Don’t shriek or I will give you a third. It would be too ridiculous if I had cut up two divisions of Spartans unarmed and then couldn’t thrash a single filthy little creature like you. My victory at Olympia in boxing and wrestling would be all for nothing!
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But what have we here? Isn’t this Thrasyc yeles? No other! With his beard spread out and his eyebrows uplifted, he marches along deep in haughty meditation, his eyes glaring like a Titan’s and his hair tossed back from his forehead, a typical Boreas or Triton such as Zeuxis used to paint. Correct in his demeanour, gentlemanly in his gait, and inconspicuous in his dress, in the morning hours he discourses forever about virtue, arraigns s the votaries of pleasure and praises contentment with little; but when he comes to dinner after his bath and the waiter hands him a large cup (and the stiffer it is, the better he likes it) then it is as if he had drunk the water of Lethe, for his practice is directly opposed to his preaching of the morning. He snatches the meat away from others like a kite, elbows his neighbour, covers his beard with gravy, bolts his food like a dog, bends over his plate as if he expected to find virtue in it, carefully wipes out the dishes with his forefinger so as not to leave a particle of the sauce, and grumbles continually, even if he gets the whole cake or the whole boar to himself.
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He is the height of gluttony and insatiability, and he gets so drunken and riotous that he not only sings and dances, but even abuses people and flies into a passion. Besides he has much to say over his cup—more then than at any other time, in fact!—about temperance and decorum, and he says all this when he is already in a bad way from taking his wine without water and stammers ridiculously. Then a vomit follows, and at last he is picked up and carried out of the diningroom, catching at the flute girl with both hands as he goes. But even when sober, he won’t yield the palm to anyone in lying and impudence and covetousness; on the contrary, he is a peerless toady and he perjures himself with the greatest facility; humbug is his guide and shamelessness his follower, and to sum it up, he is a wonderfully clever piece of work, correct in every detail and perfect in a world of ways. Therefore he shall soon smart for;his superiority. (To Thrasycles): Well, well! I say, Thrasycles, you are late.
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THRASYCLES I have not come with the same intent as all this crowd, Timon. Dazzled by your riches, they have gathered at a run in the expectation of silver and gold and costly dinners, meaning to exercise unlimited flattery upon a man so simple and so free with his gear. You know, of course, that for me barley-cake is dinner enough, and the sweetest relish is thyme or cardamom, or if ever I were to indulge myself, a trifle of salt. My drink is the water of Nine-spouts, and this philosopher’s mantle suits me better than any purple robe. As for gold, I hold it in no higher worth than yonder pebbles on the shore. It was on your account that I came, in order that you might not be corrupted by wealth, that most iniquitous and insidious of possessions, which, many a time to many a man, has proved a source of irreparable misfortunes. If you take my advice, you will by all means throw the whole of it into the sea, for it is not at all essential to a virtuous man who can discern the riches of philosophy; but don’t throw it into the deep water, my dear fellow: just wade in as far as your waist and toss it a short distance outside the breakers, with none but me to see you.
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However, if you are unwilling to do this, then bundle it out of the house quickly in another and a better way without leaving as much as a copper for yourself by distributing it to all the needy, five drachmas to this man, a mina to that one and half a talent to a third. If a philosopher should apply he ought to get a double or a triple portion. As for me, I do not ask for it on my own account but to share with those of my comrades who are needy, and it will be plenty if you let me have the fill of this wallet, which holds not quite two bushels Aeginetan.Aeginetan weights were heavier than the Attic, but Aeginetan measures were no larger than any others, One is tempted to write “two bushels Avoirdupois.” A man in philosophy should be easily satisfied and temperate, and should limit his aspirations to his wallet. TIMON Well said, Thrasycles! But instead of filling the wallet, please allow me to fill your head with lumps, measured out with my pick. THRASYCLES Democracy and the Laws! The scoundrel is beating me, in a free city! TIMON What are you angry about, my dear fellow? Surely I haven’t given you short measure? Come, Pll throw in four pecks over the amount!
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But what have we here? They are gathering in swarms; I see Blepsias yonder, Laches, Guipho and the whole crew of my intended victims. Why not climb this rock, give my long-wearied pick a little rest and handle the situation without it, collecting all the stones I can and raining them down on those fellows from a distance? BLEPSIAS Don’t throw at us, Timon; we are going away. TIMON But not without bloodshed and wounds, I promise you! contemporaries the life that he found in books. was more Interesting and_more réal than. that, in°which he lived and “moved. What his satire Toses in pungency on this account, it gains in universality of appeal.