Tim. Always a villain's office or a fool's. 235
Dost please thyself in't?[2494]
Apem. Ay.
Tim. What! a knave too?
Apem. If thou didst put this sour-cold habit on[2495]
To castigate thy pride, 'twere well: but thou
Dost it enforcedly; thou'ldst courtier be again,[2496]
Wert thou not beggar. Willing misery 240
Outlives incertain pomp, is crown'd before:[2497]
The one is filling still, never complete,
The other at high wish: best state, contentless,[2498]
Hath a distracted and most wretched being,[2498]
Worse than the worst, content. 245
Thou shouldst desire to die, being miserable.
Tim. Not by his breath that is more miserable.
Thou art a slave, whom Fortune's tender arm
With favour never clasp'd, but bred a dog.[2499]
Hadst thou, like us from our first swath, proceeded 250
The sweet degrees that this brief world affords[2500]
To such as may the passive drugs of it[2501]
Freely command, thou wouldst have plunged thyself[2502]
In general riot, melted down thy youth
In different beds of lust, and never learn'd 255
The icy precepts of respect, but follow'd[2503]
The sugar'd game before thee. But myself,
Who had the world as my confectionary,
The mouths, the tongues, the eyes and hearts of men[2504]
At duty, more than I could frame employment;[2505] 260
That numberless upon me stuck, as leaves[2506]
Do on the oak, have with one winter's brush[2507]
Fell from their boughs, and left me open, bare[2507][2508]
For every storm that blows: I, to bear this,
That never knew but better, is some burthen:[2509] 265
Thy nature did commence in sufferance, time
Hath made thee hard in 't. Why shouldst thou hate men?[2491]
They never flatter'd thee: what hast thou given?
If thou wilt curse, thy father, that poor rag,[2510]
Must be thy subject, who in spite put stuff 270
To some she beggar and compounded thee
Poor rogue hereditary. Hence, be gone![2511]
If thou hadst not been born the worst of men,
Thou hadst been a knave and flatterer.[2512]
Apem. Art thou proud yet?
Tim. Ay, that I am not thee.
Apem. I, that I was[2513] 275
No prodigal.[2513]
Tim. I, that I am one now:
Were all the wealth I have shut up in thee,
I'ld give thee leave to hang it. Get thee gone.
That the whole life of Athens were in this![2491]
Thus would I eat it.[2514] [Eating a root.