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?

 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.
 

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!