QUOTES FROM THE BARD

PLAY: Timon of Athens
ACT/SCENE: 5.6
SPEAKER: Alcibiades
CONTEXT:
ALCIBIADES
Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft:
Seek not my name: a plague consume you wicked
caitiffs left!
Here lie I, Timon; who, alive, all living men did hate:
Pass by and curse thy fill, but pass and stay not here thy gait.
These well express in thee thy latter spirits:
Though thou abhorredst in us our human griefs,
Scornedst our brain’s flow and those our droplets which
From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit
Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye
On thy low grave, on faults forgiven. Dead
Is noble Timon: of whose memory
Hereafter more. Bring me into your city,
And I will use the olive with my sword,
Make war breed peace, make peace stint war, make each
Prescribe to other as each other’s leech.
Let our drums strike.

DUTCH:

Daar wil ik bij het zwaard de’ olijftak voeren:
Krijg bare vrede, vrede stremm’ den krijg;
Aan de’ eenen vall’ des and’ren raad ten deel;

MORE:
Corse=Corpse
Thy fill=As much as you like
Gait=Walk
Brain’s flow=Tears
Niggard=Niggardly, miserly
Rich conceit=Wealth of ideas
Olive=Olive branch, peace and reconciliation
Leech=Cure, bloodletting
Compleat:
Corse=Lijk
Take your fill of it=Neemt ‘er uw genoegen van
Niggardly=Vrekachtig
Leech=Bloedzuiger

Burgersdijk notes:
Hier ligt een arm, arm lijf, enz. Voor den dood van Timon is Plutarchus weder de bron geweest. Deze zegt, volgens de vertaling van Thomas North: He died in the city of Thales, and was buried upon the seaside. Now it chanced so, that the sea getting in, it compassed his tomb round about, that no man could come to it; and upon the same was written this epitaph: —
Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft;
Seek not my name: a plague consume you wicked wretches left.
It is reported that Timon himself when he lived made this
epitaph; for that which was commonly rehearsed was not his,
but made by the poet Callimachus: —
Here lie I, Timon, who alive all living ,nan did hate;
Pass by and curse thy fill; but pass, and stay not here thy gaits.”
De bewerker, of verknoeier, van Shakespeare’s stuk heeft deze twee tegenstrijdige grafschriften letterlijk overgenomen en tot den enkel samengevoegd.

Topics: dispute, patience