Timon of Athens
Act I Sc. 1
“My free drift
Halts not particularly, but moves along
In a wide sea of wax. No levell’d malice
Infects one comma in the course I hold,
But flies an eagle’s flight, bold and forth on,
Leaving no tract behind.”
There is much here that seems dubious. Holds might seem preferable to ‘Halts’; yet I would make no change; for ‘Halts not particularly,’ I think, may mean stops at, dwells on, no individual. For ‘wax’ we might read, as has been proposed, verse; but the allusion may be to the waxed tables on which the ancients wrote. We might also read Which for ‘But,’ yet it is more probable that a line is lost before it.
“To those have shut him up; which failing him.”
So Capell also; 2nd folio to him.
“My friend when he must need me.”
Better, perhaps, with 3rd folio, most needs.
“Therefore he will be, Timon.”
Something is lost after ‘be,’ and Timon is never addressed during his prosperity by any one but Apemantus without Lord or some other title of honour. I therefore read ‘he will be blest, Lord Timon.’ In ii. 2, we have an omission of ‘Lord’ by the printer. Singer proposed rewarded after ‘be.’ Possibly ‘Timon’ was a mere addition of the printer’s.
“That I had no angry wit to be a lord.”
I cannot find a meaning in this. Perhaps ‘no’ should be so, and ‘angry’ little, mean, poor, or something of the kind. Warburton read hungry. Singer’s folio an empty.
“Traffic’s thy god, and may thy god confound thee!”
Sc. 2
“Than my fortunes are to me.”
“But yonder man is ever angery.”
“Let me stay here at thine apperil, Timon.”
Timon had assigned him ‘a table by himself.’
“Here’s that which is too weak to be a sinner.”
We should, of course, read liar to rime with mire.
“Amen, amen. So fall to’t.”
“Much good dich thy good heart, Apemantus!”
This might seem to be a mere misprint of do it; but it is in reality a mere corruption of it.
“Please you, my lord, there are certain ladies who are.”
“The ear,
Taste, touch, smell, pleased from thy table rise.”
The admirable restoration of Warburton. The 4tos and folio had “There, taste, touch, all pleas’d from thy table rise.” The two first letters of smell had probably been effaced. See on Ham. iii. 4.
“You have added worth and lustre unto it.”
In the originals ‘unto’t and lustre.’ The 2nd folio reads ’and lively lustre.’
“Vouchsafe me a word; it does concern you near.—
Neär? Why, then, another time I’ll hear thee.
I pr’ythee let us be provided now
To show them entertainment.—I scarce know how.”
Metre and rime both seem to require this addition. Perhaps in the two first lines we should read ‘nearly,’ thus making a rime, or omit ‘thee.’
“May it please your honour, the lord Lucius.”
“Four milk-white horses, trapp’d in silver-harness.”
“Thy horses shall be trapp’d,
Their harness studded all with gold and pearl.”
Tam. of Shrew, Induct. ii.
“And now I remember me, my lord, you gave.”
“I doubt me whether their legs be worth the sums.”