Timon Come, spade, show your mettle; stick to it; invite Thesaurus to step up from his retreat.... O God of Wonders!

O mystic priests! O lucky Hermes! whence this flood of gold? Sure, ’tis all a dream; methinks ’twill be ashes when I wake. And yet—coined gold, ruddy and heavy, a feast of delight!

 O gold, the fairest gift to mortal eyes! 

be it night, or be it day,
 Thou dost outshine all else like living fire. 

Come to me, my own, my beloved. I doubt the tale no longer; well might Zeus take the shape of gold; where is the maid that would not open her bosom to receive so fair a lover gliding through the roof?

 Talk of Midas, Croesus, Delphic treasures! they were all nothing to Timon and his wealth; why, the Persian King could not match it. My spade, my dearest smock-frock, you must hang, a votive offering to Pan. And now I will buy up this desert corner, and build a tiny castle for my treasure, big enough for me to live in all alone, and, when I am dead, to liein. And be the rule and law of my remaining days to shun all men, be blind to all men, scorn all men. Friendship, hospitality, society, compassion—vain words all. To be moved by another’s tears, to assist another’s need—be such things illegal and immoral. Let me live apart like a wolf; be Timon’s one friend—Timon.

 All others are my foes and ill-wishers; to hold communion with them is pollution; to set eyes upon one of them marks the

 

day unholy; let them be to me even as images of bronze or stone. I will receive no herald from them, keep with them no truce; the bounds of my desert are the line they may not cross. Cousin and kinsman, neighbour and countryman—these are dead useless names, wherein fools may find a meaning. Let Timon keep his wealth to himself, scorn all men, and live in solitary luxury, quit of flattery and vulgar praise; let him sacrifice and feast alone, his own associate and neighbour, far from Reading, with Dindorf, ἑκὰς ὤν for ἐκσείων. the world. Yea, when his last day comes, let there be none to close his eyes and lay him out, but himself alone.