Page 3198 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

’Tis most nobly spoken.

ALCIBIADES
Descend, and keep your words.

Enter a Soldier.

SOLDIER
My noble general, Timon is dead, [65]
Entomb’d upon the very hem o’th’ sea;

And on his grave-stone this insculpture which
With wax I brought away, whose soft impression
Interprets for my poor ignorance.

ALCIBIADES
[reading the Epitaph]

Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft: [70]
Seek not my name. A plague consume you, wicked caitiffs left!

Here lie I, Timon, who, alive, all living men did hate.
Pass by and curse thy fill, but pass and stay not here thy gait.

These well express in thee thy latter spirits.
Though thou abhorr’dst in us our human griefs,
Scorn’dst our brains’ flow and those our droplets which [75]

From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit
Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye
On thy low grave, on faults forgiven. Dead

Is noble Timon, of whose memory
Hereafter more. Bring me into your city, [80]
And I will use the olive with my sword,
Make war breed peace, make peace stint war, make each
Prescribe to other, as each other’s leech.

Let our drums strike.
[Exeunt]