Timon or The Misanthrope

​Hermes: So Zeus has been deceived, thinking that you enrich, according to his own judgment, as many as he thinks are worthy of being rich? Plutus: And quite rightly so, my good friend, since he sent me, knowing that I am blind, to seek out a thing so hard to find and which has long since disappeared from life, which not even Lynceus could easily find, being so faint and small. Therefore, since the good are few, while the wicked are very many in the cities and occupy the whole, I easily fall upon such people as I go about and am caught by them. Hermes: Then how, when you leave them, do you escape so easily, not knowing the way? Plutus: At that time, somehow, I become sharp-sighted and swift of foot, only for the very moment of escape.

​Hermes: Answer me this as well, how is it that, being blind—for it shall be spoken—and moreover pale and heavy in both legs, you have so many lovers, so that all look towards you, and those who succeed think they are happy, while if they fail they cannot bear to live? Indeed, I know not a few of them who are so madly in love with you that they even throw themselves into the deep-monstered sea and down from sun-pointing cliffs, thinking they are looked down upon by you when you did not even see them in the first place. Nevertheless, even you, I know well, would agree, if you have any self-awareness, that they are out of their minds, raving after such a beloved.

​Plutus: Do you think then that I am seen by them as I really am, lame or blind or with whatever other defects I have? Hermes: But how then, Plutus, if they themselves are not all blind too? Plutus: They are not blind, my excellent friend, but ignorance and deceit, which now possess all things, overshadow them; and furthermore, I myself, so that I might not appear completely misshapen, put on a most lovely mask, gilded and set with precious stones, and having dressed in embroidered robes, I meet them. And they, thinking they see beauty itself without a mask, fall in love and perish if they do not obtain it. For if someone had stripped me entirely and shown me to them, it is clear that they would have condemned themselves for being so dim-sighted and for loving such unlovely and misshapen things.

​Hermes: Why is it then that even when they are already in the midst of being rich and have themselves put on the mask, they are still deceived, and if anyone tries to take it away from them, they would sooner surrender their head than the mask? For surely it is not likely that even then they are ignorant that the beauty is painted on, seeing everything from within. Plutus: Not a few things, Hermes, also assist me in this. Hermes: What kind of things? Plutus: Whenever someone, meeting me for the first time, throws open the door and receives me, there enters along with me, unnoticed, vanity, folly, arrogance, effeminacy, insolence, deceit, and a thousand other things. Being seized in his soul by all of these, he admires what is not admirable and desires what should be avoided, and gapes in wonder at me, the father of all those evils that have entered, while I am escorted by them; and he would suffer anything sooner than endure to let me go.

​Hermes: But how smooth and slippery you are, Plutus, and hard to hold and elusive, offering no firm grip but slipping through the fingers somehow like eels or snakes; while Poverty, on the contrary, is sticky and easy to hold, and has ten thousand hooks growing out of her whole body, so that those who approach are immediately caught and cannot easily get free. But while we were babbling, a matter of no small importance has already escaped us. Plutus: What kind of matter? Hermes: That we did not bring along Treasure, which was most necessary of all.