THEOBALD
It’s worse than that, I fear.
NEWSPAPER DATED 1808
COVENT GARDEN THEATRE DESTROYED BY FIRE
A mysterious fire swept through the heart of London’s theatre district last night. Covent Garden Theatre was destroyed before the blaze could be controlled, along with the Theatre Museum in the basement. It is reported that a strange, imp-like figure was seen darting into the building shortly before the conflagration.
“We’ve lost playbills, so much of the rich pageant of England’s historic stage,” said Mr Humphrys, the manager. “It’s impossible to work out the loss. For instance, we lost all three copies of the play that Mr Theobald based his Double Falsehood on. Which many people claim was written by
Here the extract ends abruptly, the rest of the page being missing. It is interesting to speculate on how it might have continued, but the loss of material is, to say the least, frustrating.
* * *
There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. And a Dalek mothership can spot the fall of a sparrow from geostationary orbit.
* * *
HAMLET
This transcript of Hamlet (Act V Scene i) survives from the first performance, and shows some interesting, not to say enigmatic, variation from the accepted text.
GRAVEDIGGER
Here’s a skull now. This skull hath lien you i’ th’ earth threeand-twenty years.
HAMLET
Whose was it?
GRAVEDIGGER
A whoreson mad fellow’s it was.
Enter a CLOWN, guised most strangely in great coat, long scarf of rainbow colours and brimmed hat.
CLOWN
Well, whose do you think it was?
HAMLET
Nay, I know not.
CLOWN
I’m not surprised. He’s not looking his best just now, is he?
GRAVEDIGGER
A pestilence on thee for a mad rogue! ’A pour’d a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick’s skull, the King’s jester.
HAMLET
This?
GRAVEDIGGER
E’en that.
CLOWN
You don’t say.
HAMLET
Let me see.
Takes the skull.
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio.
CLOWN
Oh everyone knew poor Yorick. Dreadful teeth, I seem to remember.
HAMLET
A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times. And now how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kiss’d I know not how oft.
CLOWN
Well, you can’t be expected to remember everything. Unless you’re a Time Lord of course. And even then . . .
HAMLET
Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? Quite chapfall’n? Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come. Make her laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.
HORATIO
What’s that, my lord?
HAMLET
Who ist this fool?
HORATIO
Marry, I know not.
CLOWN
Does he mean me?
HORATIO
I think he does.
HAMLET
Ay you, sirah. What is your business here among the quick and the dead.
Puts down the skull.
CLOWN
[Suddenly dark and grim of countenance.]
I’ll tell you my business, Prince Hamlet. My business is that skull.
HAMLET
E’en this?
CLOWN
The same. Yorick? Pah! That’s no more Yorick than I’m a monkey’s uncle.
GRAVEDIGGER
Pay no heed, my lord. The fellow is . . . distracted.
CLOWN
That’s what you’d like them to think, isn’t it grave digger.
Or should I say – Lord Grathnave of the Erstwhile Collision.
Hmmm?
GRAVEDIGGER
But – how could you . . . ?
HAMLET
What sayest thou?
CLOWN
And this skull is the missing second skull of the Fendahl. It’s been lost for centuries.
GRAVEDIGGER
Give it to me!
CLOWN
No, I don’t think so. No one should have the power this skull can impart.
The GRAVEDIGGER tries to take the skull from the CLOWN, who trips him with his scarf. The GRAVEDIGGER falls into the grave he was digging.
HAMLET
What madness is this?
CLOWN
Ah well, that as they say is the question.
Exit the CLOWN, with skull.
* * *
Do you not know I am a Time Lord? When I think, I must speak.
* * *
THE TIMELESS SHAKESPEARE
This section presents material generally taken from later years, right up to the present day, that would seem to elaborate on Shakespeare’s apparent contention that the strange ‘doctor’ was somehow unbounded by the limitations of time. It includes post-Shakespearean material such as reviews of performances, critical reception, and academic analysis of the work.
* * *
TIMON OF ATHENS
Editors have often agreed that the text of Timon of Athens we have is problematic. ‘The copy from which the folio was printed had been mangled and interpolated’ (Deighton, 1905). There has been much speculation as to whether this was caused by the theatre company or the printers of the 1623 Folio, but there is broad consensus that the play we have is incomplete.
The first three acts in the Folio show us Timon, a retired soldier who has become fabulously wealthy. He is surrounded by flatterers who he makes extravagant gifts to, until his gold runs out. He appeals to his friends and the Athenian government for a loan, and is turned away by them all.
In Act IV we find Timon a starving beggar in the desert. Digging for roots, he finds more gold, but instead of rejoining society, he rails against his false friends and the Athenians, seeming to encourage the exiled General Alcibiades to attack the city.
In Act V the play ends suddenly, with Timon seemingly dead and Alcibiades rather abruptly the master of Athens. Several scenes appear to have been written by other hands (‘There can be little doubt that the whole scene [V.III], which is quite irrelevant, is an interpolation.’ Deighton, 1905).
For many centuries, Timon has been regarded as an incomplete or troubling masterpiece little suited to the stage. The Stationer’s Register for 1618 contains notice of the intention by the printer Henry Dunwich to publish ‘The Tragedie of Timon, or All For Gold’. The inclusion in the Shakespeare Notebooks of a partial and corrupt copy of this recently discovered and anonymous ‘Bad Quarto’ allows us to reconstruct some of the last two acts of the play.
ACT IV, SCENE III – WOODS AND CAVE, NEAR THE SEA-SHORE
Enter TIMON from the Cave.
TIMON
Therefore, be abhorr’d
All feasts, societies, and throngs of men!
His semblance, yea, himself, Timon disdains:
Destruction fang mankind! Earth, yield me roots!
[Digging]
What is here? Gold! Yellow, glittering, precious gold!
Thy most operant poison. Ha! You gods, why this?
Why, this
Will lug your priests and servants from your sides.
This yellow slave will knit and break religions.
Come damned Earth, I will make thee
Do thy right nature
[Covers the gold]
Enter THE QUEEN OF THE AXONS
AXONIA
Halt, good Timon. Why hids’t thou thy glory?
TIMON
Good Timon, say ye?
AXONIA
Ay, good.
TIMON
Good?
There’s no good in Timon.
He is fly-blown, empty, spoil’d.
AXONIA
But what of our gold? Does that not reflect good on thee?
TIMON
Thy mirror’d glory is now a crack’d and
Blackened stone. For far too late have I
Learned the bitter lesson of thy gold.
AXONIA
Did we not give thee all that thou desired?
TIMON
Consumptions sow in hollow bones of men.
A muddy soldier you found poor Timon
And cleaned me quite in royal Danae’s shower.
That which you gave me I gave all away.
I brought friendship, fame and power, but yet
None held I sure. No thing on earth shall last
Graves only be men’s works and death their gain.
AXONIA
I know thee well
But in thy fortunes am unlearn’d and strange.
TIMON
I know thee too; and more than that I know thee
I not desire to know. Follow thy drum;
With man’s blood paint the ground, rouge, rouge.
Axonia, I was by thy shining words beguiled
Yet let me rub the lustre from thy tongue.
Grabs a handful of dust. AXONIA retaliates
AXONIA
Hold you up your hands and your words, Timon,
They are dusty as thy dreams. We did but what you asked.
We gave you wealth, and you gave us Athens
We have gilded your city and there’s naught but that
We touch, we own. To hold coin is but to be
By it possessed.
TIMON
Aye, I know that full well. A lesson learned too late.
But what now of Athens? Tell me of its fate.
AXONIA
Soon it shall be empty.
TIMON
’Tis empty now. Scoured of merit, of valour void.
AXONIA
We shall empty it of life.
TIMON
Oh, I like not that.
AXONIA
You like not much, or so I hear.
TIMON
Hate all, curse all, show charity to none.
And yet, but yet, even yet – shall Timon
Let you unleash self-engendering death on all, Axon?
A plague of gold that eats the souls it touches?
AXONIA
Gold that will eat the world until the world’s all gold
It is for this that thou the world’s soul sold.
TIMON
Accursed queen, I’ll stop thee yet.
Exeunt
ACT IV, SCENE IV – PLAIN OUTSIDE ATHENS
TIMON comes upon the General ALCIBIADES
ALCIBIADES
What, Timon? I thought thou had washed thy hands of me.
TIMON
No, gentle General, for I have more gold for thee.
ALCIBIADES
Gold? Thou’rt rich again?
TIMON
Aye, and so rich I know how poor I am.
I shall give you Athens if you shall give me all its gold.
ALCIBIADES
What?
TIMON
The city’s gold is cursed, well, the coin that came from me.
It is but fool’s gold. A plague of gold full lethal to the touch.
See, see I sicken already? ’Tis death.
My coughing turns my coffers to coffin.
ALCIBIADES
I am sorry for you. What must I do?
TIMON
Beat at the city gates and demand my gold.
They’ll resist you first, but soon, I tell you,
My gold shall bite. And you shall have both the
City and the gold. Beat down vile Athens
But touch not the gold.
ALCIBIADES
Do you so care?
TIMON
Not for Athens, nor for you. You are as honest
As any man can be.
If Alcibiades kill my Countrymen,
Let Alcibiades know this of Timon,
That Timon cares not. But if he sack fair Athens,
Then let him know, and tell him Timon speaks it,
In pity of our aged, and our youth,
I cannot choose but tell him that I care not,
But that gold, there’s evil in it. Bring it back to me.
ACT IV, SCENE V – OUTSIDE THE GATES OF ATHENS
Trumpets sound. ALCIBIADES approaches with his Powers before Athens.
ALCIBIADES
Sound to this Coward and lascivious town,
Our terrible approach.
Sounds a Parly.
The SENATORS appear upon the walls.
SENATORS
General, what means you here? The city’s sick
A plague affects the body politick.
ALCIBIADES
I bring a cure.
SENATORS
What?
ALCIBIADES
Give me your gold.
SENATORS
A costly cure indeed.
ALCIBIADES
The gold is poisoned. ’Tis death to all who touch it.
SENATORS
Explain.
ALCIBIADES
Damned senators and noble villains.
Know that I come as Alcibiades to claim thy
City and thy gold. You have done Timon wrong.
And, by his turn, he fears he has done you wrong.
He claims his gold is cursed, and would have it back.
SENATORS
If he wishes position again, why so did we offer it.
Why wants he back his gold?
We heard he does have more.
ALCIBIADES
You still want the gold and not the man.
I want neither man nor gold.
He pressed me the case the gold is cursed.
I surround your city. My force is great.
Give me Timon’s gold.
And also give me those who have it touched.
SENATORS
We were not all unkinde, nor all deserve
The common stroke of war. These walls of ours
Were not erected by their hands, from whom
You have received your grief: Nor are they such,
That these great Towres, Trophees, & Schools shold fall
For private faults in them. Nor are they living
Who were ones that seized his gold
Shame hath broke their hearts.
ALCIBIADES
Shame?
SENATOR 1
Ay, shame.
SENATOR 2
And plague.
ALCIBIADES
Then there’s my Glove, open your uncharged Ports,
Those Enemies of Timon must fall and no more.
Save the city and give me his damned gold.
SENATORS
Approach the Fold, and cull th’ infected forth,
But kill not altogether.
The city gates open
ACT V, SCENE I – TIMON’S CAVE
Enter ALCIBIADES, with gold.
ALCIBIADES
The Senators of Athens greet thee, Timon.
TIMON
I thank them, and would send them backe the plague,
Could I but catch it for them.
ALCIBIADES
The city’s mine, the gold is yours.
Sour Timon, thanks. The plague has overcome them quite.
TIMON
Touched thou the gold?
ALCIBIADES
No. I saw them that held it sicken and so fall.
Athens was but happy to give you all.
TIMON
And do you give it all to me? Every last ingot?
ALCIBIADES
All.
TIMON
You are most human, and so must lie.
ALCIBIADES
I kept back but a trinket. A mere souvenir.
TIMON
Then that pocket token’s mortal. Farewell,
Alcibiades, none can save you now.
Enjoy your vengeance and your city,
But not long life. You have given that away
At a cheap price.
ALCIBIADES
Here, here, take your shining morsel.
TIMON
Too late. Away.
Exit ALCIBIADES
TIMON places all the gold in his tomb and lies atop it.
TIMON
Why I was writing of my Epitaph,
It will be seene to morrow. My long sickness
Of Health, and Liuing, now begins to mend,
And nothing brings me all things.
AXONIA
You have all our Axonite?
TIMON
Accursed queen, I have you overthrown.
My bed is gold, my sepulchre glows.
You heal me of this life. Reversed alchemy.
Transformed is Timon’s gold to lead.
The city’s saved for Alcibiades.
I wish them joy of each other.
Go, live still, Athens.
Be Alcibiades your plague; you his,
And last so long enough.
AXONIA
Bring out our Axonite.
TIMON
I have thrown feasts with it.
Now thy gold shall feast on me.
A dinner of herbs, a lethal repast.
Until we both are spent.
Learn from me, Axonia. Man is deadly.
Come not to me again, but say to Athens,
Timon hath made his everlasting Mansion.
What is amiss, Plague and Infection mend.
Graves only be mens works, and Death their gain;
Sunne, hide thy beams, Timon hath done his Raigne.
TIMON lies down on the pile of gold and pulls the mausoleum shut about him.
Exit AXONIA
ACT V, SCENE II – ATHENS
Trumpets sound. Enter ALCIBIADES triumphant
Enter a MESSENGER.
MESSENGER
My Noble General, Timon is dead,
Entomb’d vpon the very hemme o’th’ Sea,