THE LIFE OF TIMON OF ATHENS
Page: 31

unfortunate a beggar.

TIMON.
Think not on't, sir.

SECOND LORD.
If you had sent but two hours before,--

TIMON.
Let it not cumber your better remembrance.

[The banquet brought in.]

Come, bring in all together.

SECOND LORD.
All covered dishes!

FIRST LORD.
Royal cheer, I warrant you.

THIRD LORD.
Doubt not that, if money and the season can yield it.

FIRST LORD.
How do you? What's the news?

THIRD LORD.
Alcibiades is banished: hear you of it?

FIRST AND SECOND LORDS.
Alcibiades banished!

THIRD LORD.
'Tis so, be sure of it.

FIRST LORD.
How? how?

SECOND LORD.
I pray you, upon what?

TIMON.
My worthy friends, will you draw near?

THIRD LORD.
I'll tell you more anon. Here's a noble feast toward.

SECOND LORD.
This is the old man still.

THIRD LORD.
Will't hold? will't hold?

SECOND LORD.
It does; but time will--and so--

THIRD LORD.
I do conceive.

TIMON.
Each man to his stool with that spur as he would to the lip
of his mistress; your diet shall be in all places alike. Make not
a city feast of it, to let the meat cool ere we can agree upon
the first place: sit, sit. The gods require our thanks.--
You great benefactors sprinkle our society with thankfulness.
For your own gifts make yourselves praised: but reserve still to
give, lest your deities be despised. Lend to each man enough,
that one need not lend to another; for, were your god--heads to
borrow of men, men would forsake the gods. Make the meat be
beloved more than the man that gives it. Let no assembly of
twenty be without a score of villains: if there sit twelve women
at the table, let a dozen of them be as they are. The rest of
your foes, O gods! the senators of Athens, together with the
common lag of people, what is amiss in them, you gods, make
suitable for destruction. For these my present friends, as they
are to me nothing, so in nothing bless them, and to nothing are
they welcome.
Uncover, dogs, and lap.

[The dishes uncovered are full of warm water.]

SOME SPEAK.
What does his lordship mean?

SOME OTHER.
I know not.

TIMON.