ABSTRACT
Since Timon of Athens is by far Shakespeare’s most obscure tragedy, it might be helpful to open with a passage that encapsulates its vituperative tenor: 1 I doubt it not a number of you here, Adorned in borrowed coats and mortgaged shoon, The heels with fretful paces fast outworn, Cannot afford the meat you have devour’d, And sup on stolen time, again robbing Your creditors an hour’s recompense. ’Tis evident what mean and sneaking lives You live; for my old sight experience Has whetted keen as sun the eagle’s eye. Forever clinging to thy utmost edge, Forever clawing traffic’s gilded doors, Forever clambering through brackish debt, An ancient slough, aes alienum, Forever promising to pay tomorrow, The morrow next, a se’ennight hence, and then, Accursèd by thy heirs, dying today, Insolvent, buried by another’s brass. And always currying thy neighbor’s favor, His precious custom, by how many modes: As lying, flatt’ring, contracting thyself Into a nutshell of civility, Dilating to a putrid atmosphere Of thin and vap’rous generosity.
