Page:The Psychology of Shakespeare.pdf/218

Rh “Here's gold; go suck the subtle blood of the grape,

'Till the high fever seethe your blood to froth, And so 'scape hanging.” Gold, which has been his own curse, has become in his the curse of all.

eyes

It is “the common whore of mankind.”

His

contemptuous distribution of the “yellow slave,” the “damned earth,” the “strong thief,” with blows and maledictions to the mean wretches who seek it from him, is the keenest sa

tire upon the state of society, which for want of it has thrown him from its bosom.

It has been said both by Schlegel and Hazlitt, that Timon is more a satire than a drama. This idea may have been derived from the little development of character which it ex hibits. Each character is placed clear and definitely formed in the page, and remains so. Timon's alone undergoes one radical change, of which we see the effect, rather than the transition. During the fourth and fifth acts, the movements of the drama are solely devised with the intention of bringing the several personages under Timon's withering denunciation. There are, however, some passages which hint of change, and are more important than the more prominent and elo quent ones in affording an estimate of Timon's mental state. By the other personages he is evidently regarded as mad. Alcibiades thus excuses his anathemas on

the

ladies

of

pleasure. “Pardon him, sweet Timandra ; for his wits Are drowned and lost in his calamities.”

The good steward expresses wondering grief at the change in his appearance, the pregnant sign of the mind's disease. “Flav. O, you gods ! Is yon despis'd and ruinous man my lord 7 Full of decay and failing 7 O, monument And wonder of good deeds evilly bestow'd What an alteration of honour has

Desperate want made