Timon, or the Misanthrope (26-30)

HERMES 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”[*] 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.

RICHES Do you suppose they see me as I am, lame and blind and with all my other bad points ?

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.

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,

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.

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.