_Zeus_. Hermes, who is that calling out from Attica? there, on the
lower slopes of Hymettus--a grimy squalid fellow in a smock-frock;
he is bending over a spade or something; but he has a tongue in his
head, and is not afraid to use it. He must be a philosopher, to judge
from his fluent blasphemy.

_Her_. What, father! have you forgotten Timon--son of Echecratides, of
Collytus? many is the time he has feasted us on unexceptionable
victims; the rich _parvenu_ of the whole hecatombs, you know, who used
to do us so well at the Diasia.

_Zeus_. Dear, dear, _quantum mutatus_! is this the admired, the rich,
the popular? What has brought him to this pass? There he is in filth
and misery, digging for hire, labouring at that ponderous spade.

_Her_. Why, if you like to put it so, it was kindness and generosity
and universal compassion that ruined him; but it would be nearer the
truth to call him a fool and a simpleton and a blunderer; he did not
realize that his proteges were carrion crows and wolves; vultures were
feeding on his unfortunate liver, and he took them for friends and
good comrades, showing a fine appetite just to please him. So they
gnawed his bones perfectly clean, sucked out with great precision any
marrow there might be in them, and went off, leaving him as dry as a
tree whose roots have been severed; and now they do not know him or
vouchsafe him a nod--no such fools--, nor ever think of showing him
charity or repaying his gifts. That is how the spade and smock-frock
are accounted for; he is ashamed to show his face in town; so he hires
himself out to dig, and broods over his wrongs--the rich men he has
made passing him contemptuously by, apparently quite unaware that his
name is Timon.