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44 and blow your thunderbolt hot again, or heat it afresh in Ætna, and make it blaze lustily, and show a little righteous wrath, worthy of the Jove of younger days; unless, indeed, that be a true story which the Cretans tell, and you be dead and buried too.

Jupiter (in Olympus, disturbed by Timon's clamorous expostulations below). Who in the world, Mercury, is this fellow that's bawling so from Attica, down at the foot of Hymettus,—a perfect scarecrow, he looks, in a dirty goat-skin? Digging, I think he is, by his stooping posture. He's a very noisy impudent fellow. Some philosopher, I fancy, or he wouldn't use such blasphemous language.

Mercury. What do you say, father? don't you know Timon of Athens? He's the man who so often used to treat us with such magnificent sacrifices; that nouveau riche, you know, who used to offer whole hecatombs; at whose expense we were so splendidly entertained at the Diasia.

Jup. What a sad reverse of fortune! That fine, handsome, rich fellow, who had used to have such troops of friends round him! What has brought him to this?—so squalid and miserable, and having to dig for his bread, I suppose, by the way he drives his spade into the ground?

Mercury proceeds to inform his father that Timon's reckless generosity has reduced him to poverty, and that all the friends who shared his bounty have now