_Tim_. Come, spade, show your mettle; stick to it; invite Thesaurus to
step up from his retreat.... O God of Wonders! O mystic priests! O
lucky Hermes! whence this flood of gold? Sure, 'tis all a dream;
methinks 'twill be ashes when I wake. And yet--coined gold, ruddy and
heavy, a feast of delight!

O gold, the fairest gift to mortal eyes!
be it night, or be it day,
Thou dost outshine all else like living fire.

Come to me, my own, my beloved. I doubt the tale no longer; well might
Zeus take the shape of gold; where is the maid that would not open her
bosom to receive so fair a lover gliding through the roof?

Talk of Midas, Croesus, Delphic treasures! they were all nothing to
Timon and his wealth; why, the Persian King could not match it. My
spade, my dearest smock-frock, you must hang, a votive offering to
Pan. And now I will buy up this desert corner, and build a tiny castle
for my treasure, big enough for me to live in all alone, and, when I
am dead, to lie in. And be the rule and law of my remaining days to
shun all men, be blind to all men, scorn all men. Friendship,
hospitality, society, compassion--vain words all. To be moved by
another's tears, to assist another's need--be such things illegal and
immoral. Let me live apart like a wolf; be Timon's one friend--Timon.

All others are my foes and ill-wishers; to hold communion with them is
pollution; to set eyes upon one of them marks the day unholy; let them
be to me even as images of bronze or stone. I will receive no herald
from them, keep with them no truce; the bounds of my desert are the