Page:Masterpieces of Greek Literature (1902).djvu/479

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TIMON OF ATHENS. ACT III
449


Gnathonides. What means this, Tirnon ? How dare you strike ? I protest. Heracles ! Oh ! Oh ! I cite you before the court of Areopagus for assault and battery.

Thyion. Well, if you linger here a moment longer, I shall have to be indicted pretty soon for murder. (Still heating him.)

Gnathonides. Don't ! Don't ! But really, you 'd effect a complete cure of the wound by scattering a little of your gold upon it. For that 's a potent remedy for staunching blood.

Timon. What ! Are you still hanging around ? Gnathonides. Well, I'll go. But you shall re- pent having become such a boor, from being the kindly fellow you once were.

[Exit GNATHONIDES

Timon (seeing some one else approaching). Who 's this man coming toward me — he with the bald head ? It 's Philiades, of all flatterers the most disgusting. He received from me a whole estate and two talents as dowry for his daughter, as a reward for his compliments, when he alone amid the general silence indulged in fulsome praise of my singing, de- claring with an oath that I was more musical than the swans. But when he recently saw me ailing, and I went up to him with the request for help, he laid all the more blows upon me — the generous fellow !


• Enter PHILIADES.

Philiades (seeing Gnathonides departing). Oh, what impudence ! Do you now presume to be ac- quainted with Timon? Is Gnathonides now his friend and boon companion? So then the fellow has ygot his deserts — such an ingrate is he. But we,