Act I. Scene I

SCENE I. Athens. A hall in Timon's house.

Enter Poet, Painter, Jeweller, Merchant, and others, at several doors
Poet
Good day, sir.

Painter
I am glad you're well.

Poet
I have not seen you long: how goes the world?

Painter
It wears, sir, as it grows.

Poet
Ay, that's well known:
But what particular rarity? what strange,
Which manifold record not matches? See,
Magic of bounty! all these spirits thy power
Hath conjured to attend. I know the merchant.

Painter
I know them both; th' other's a jeweller.

Merchant
O, 'tis a worthy lord.

Jeweller
Nay, that's most fix'd.

Merchant
A most incomparable man, breathed, as it were,
To an untirable and continuate goodness:
He passes.
Jeweller: I have a jewel here--

Merchant
O, pray, let's see't: for the Lord Timon, sir?
Jeweller: If he will touch the estimate: but, for that--

Poet
[Reciting to himself] 'When we for recompense have
praised the vile,
It stains the glory in that happy verse
Which aptly sings the good.'

Merchant
'Tis a good form.

Looking at the jewel

Jeweller
And rich: here is a water, look ye.

Painter
You are rapt, sir, in some work, some dedication
To the great lord.

Poet
A thing slipp'd idly from me.
Our poesy is as a gum, which oozes
From whence 'tis nourish'd: the fire i' the flint
Shows not till it be struck; our gentle flame
Provokes itself and like the current flies
Each bound it chafes. What have you there?

Painter
A picture, sir. When comes your book forth?

Poet
Upon the heels of my presentment, sir.
Let's see your piece.

Painter
'Tis a good piece.

Poet
So 'tis: this comes off well and excellent.

Painter
Indifferent.

Poet
Admirable: how this grace
Speaks his own standing! what a mental power
This eye shoots forth! how big imagination
Moves in this lip! to the dumbness of the gesture
One might interpret.

Painter
It is a pretty mocking of the life.
Here is a touch; is't good?

Poet
I will say of it,
It tutors nature: artificial strife
Lives in these touches, livelier than life.

Enter certain Senators, and pass over

Painter
How this lord is follow'd!

Poet
The senators of Athens: happy man!

Painter
Look, more!

Poet
You see this confluence, this great flood
of visitors.
I have, in this rough work, shaped out a man,
Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug
With amplest entertainment: my free drift
Halts not particularly, but moves itself