One phrase of Apemantus is
as true of Shakespeare as of Timon and is worth noting:
"The middle of humanity thou never knewest, but the
extremity of both ends."
The tragic sonnet-note is given to Flavius:
"What viler thing upon the earth than friends
Who can bring noblest minds to basest ends!"
In so far as Timon is a character at all he is manifestly Shakespeare,
Shakespeare who raves against the world, because he finds no honesty in
men, no virtue in women, evil everywhere--"boundless thefts in limited
professions." This Shakespeare-Timon swings round characteristically as
soon as he finds that Flavius is honest:
"Had I a steward
So true, so just, and now so comfortable?
It almost turns my dangerous nature mild.
Let me behold thy face. Surely this man
Was born of woman.
Forgive my general and exceptless rashness,
You perpetual-sober gods! I do proclaim
One honest man--mistake me not--but one ..."
I cannot help putting the great and self-revealing line [Footnote: This
passage is among those rejected by the commentators as un-Shakespearean:
"it does not stand the test," says the egregious Gollancz.
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