THE LIFE OF TIMON OF ATHENS
Page: 53

Dead, sure; and this his grave. What's on this tomb
I cannot read; the character I'll take with wax.
Our captain hath in every figure skill,
An ag'd interpreter, though young in days;
Before proud Athens he's set down by this,
Whose fall the mark of his ambition is.

[Exit.]



Scene IV. Before the walls of Athens

[Trumpets sound. Enter ALCIBIADES with his powers.]

ALCIBIADES.
Sound to this coward and lascivious town
Our terrible approach.

[A parley sounded. The SENATORS appear upon the walls.]

Till now you have gone on and fill'd the time
With all licentious measure, making your wills
The scope of justice; till now, myself, and such
As slept within the shadow of your power,
Have wander'd with our travers'd arms, and breath'd
Our sufferance vainly. Now the time is flush,
When crouching marrow, in the bearer strong,
Cries of itself, 'No more!' Now breathless wrong
Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease,
And pursy insolence shall break his wind
With 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 loves
Above their quantity.

SECOND SENATOR.
So did we woo
Transformed Timon to our city's love
By humble message and by promis'd means.
We were not all unkind, nor all deserve
The common stroke of war.

FIRST SENATOR.
These walls of ours
Were not erected by their hands from whom
You have receiv'd your griefs; nor are they such
That these great towers, trophies, and schools, should fall
For private faults in them.

SECOND SENATOR.
Nor are they living
Who were the motives that you first went out;
Shame, that they wanted cunning, in excess
Hath 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 food
Which nature loathes,-take thou the destin'd tenth,
And by the hazard of the spotted die
Let die the spotted.

FIRST SENATOR.
All have not offended;
For those that were, it is not square to take,