Timon or The Misanthrope

​Zeus: Nevertheless, Hermes, take Plutus with you and go to him with all speed. And let Plutus bring Treasure with him too, and let them both remain with Timon and not depart so easily, even if he should drive them out of his house again by reason of his goodness. As for those flatterers and the ingratitude they showed toward him, I will consider it on another occasion, and they shall pay the penalty as soon as I have repaired my thunderbolt; for its two greatest rays have been broken and blunted, since the other day I hurled it with rather too much zeal at the sophist Anaxagoras, who was persuading his disciples that we gods do not exist at all. But I missed him— for Pericles held his hand over him—and the thunderbolt, glancing off into the Anaceum, burnt it down and was itself almost shattered against the rock. However, in the meantime, even this will be sufficient punishment for them: to see Timon exceedingly rich.

​Hermes: What a great thing it was to have shouted aloud, and to have been troublesome and bold! This is useful not only for those pleading in court, but also for those praying. See, at any rate, Timon will immediately be made rich from being utterly destitute, because he cried aloud, spoke with frankness in his prayer, and turned the attention of Zeus; whereas if he had been digging in silence, bending over, he would still be digging, neglected. Plutus: But I would not go to him, O Zeus. Zeus: Why, my good Plutus, and that too when I command it?

​Plutus: Because, by Zeus, he insulted me and cast me out and divided me into many parts, and that too though I was a friend of his father’s; and he almost drove me out of the house with pitchforks, just like people flinging fire from their hands. Should I then go back again to be delivered over to parasites, flatterers, and courtesans? Send me, O Zeus, to those who will appreciate the gift, who will cherish me, with whom I am honored and longed for. But let these gulls dwell with Poverty, whom they prefer to us; and receiving from her a leather jerkin and a mattock, let them be content, wretched creatures, taking home four obols, they who carelessly threw away ten-talent gifts.

​Zeus: Timon will do no such thing to you anymore; for the mattock has thoroughly educated him, unless his loins are altogether without feeling, so as not to know that he ought to choose you instead of Poverty. You, however, seem to me to be a great complainer; you who now blame Timon because he flung the doors wide open for you and let you roam about freely, neither shutting you in nor being jealous; while at other times, on the contrary, you were indignant at the rich, saying that you were locked up by them under bolts, keys, and seals, so that it was not even possible for you to peep out into the light. At any rate, you used to lament these things to me, saying that you were suffocated in the thick darkness; and because of this you appeared pale to us and full of anxiety, clenching your fingers in the habit of calculations, and threatening that you would run away from them if you got an opportunity. And in short, the matter seemed to you exceedingly terrible, to be kept like a virgin in a bronze or iron chamber just like Danae, brought up by strict and uttermost scoundrel tutors, Interest and Calculation.

​At any rate, you used to say that they acted absurdly, loving you to excess, yet not daring to enjoy you although they could, nor using their love with impunity although they were masters of it, but keeping watch sleeplessly, staring at the seal and the bolt without blinking, and thinking that to have the power of not sharing the enjoyment with anyone, rather than enjoying it themselves, was sufficient enjoyment—just like the dog in the manger, which neither eats the barley herself nor allows the hungry horse to do so. And besides, you even laughed at them for sparing and guarding, and, most strangely, being jealous of themselves, while not knowing that an accursed slave or a rogue of a steward, slipping in secretly, will drink himself drunk, leaving the miserable and unlovely master to keep watch over his interest by the light of a dim, narrow-necked little lamp and a thirsty wick. How then is this not unjust of you, to blame those things of old, and now to charge Timon with the very opposite?