SECOND SENATOR.
And enter in our ears like great triumphers
In their applauding gates.
TIMON.
Commend me to them,
And tell them that to ease them of their griefs,
Their fears of hostile strokes, their aches, losses,
Their pangs of love, with other incident throes
That nature’s fragile vessel doth sustain
In life’s uncertain voyage, I will some kindness do them;
I’ll teach them to prevent wild Alcibiades’ wrath.
FIRST SENATOR.
[Aside.] I like this well, he will return again.
TIMON.
I have a tree which grows here in my close
That mine own use invites me to cut down,
And shortly must I fell it. Tell my friends,
Tell Athens, in the sequence of degree
From high to low throughout, that whoso please
To stop affliction, let him take his haste,
Come hither ere my tree hath felt the axe
And hang himself. I pray you do my greeting.
FLAVIUS.
Trouble him no further; thus you still shall find him.
TIMON.
Come not to me again, but say to Athens
Timon hath made his everlasting mansion
Upon the beached verge of the salt flood,
Who once a day with his embossed froth
The turbulent surge shall cover; thither come,
And let my gravestone be your oracle.
Lips, let sour words go by, and language end:
What is amiss, plague and infection mend;
Graves only be men’s works and death their gain,
Sun, hide thy beams, Timon hath done his reign.
[Exit Timon into his cave.]
FIRST SENATOR.
His discontents are unremovably
Coupled to nature.
SECOND SENATOR.
Our hope in him is dead. Let us return
And strain what other means is left unto us
In our dear peril.
FIRST SENATOR.
It requires swift foot.