Timon of Athens
Play
Summary
Timon is an Athenian nobleman of boundless generosity who lavishes his fortune on flatterers and hangers-on, refuses all counsel about his approaching ruin, and discovers — abruptly and absolutely — that none of his many "friends" will lend him a fraction of what he gave them when he is bankrupt. The reversal is total: where he once loved all mankind, he now hates all mankind with equal intensity. Retiring to a cave outside Athens, he subsists on roots, rails against humanity to any who visit, and refuses every attempted reconciliation — including Alcibiades's and even his loyal steward Flavius's. His misanthropy is as extreme and philosophically serious as his former benevolence, making him one of Shakespeare's most purely ideological tragic heroes; the play seems to argue that absolute idealism of either kind is fatal.
Notable Quotations
"I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind." *(4.3)*
"Let me look back upon thee. O thou wall / That girdles in those wolves, dive in the earth / And fence not Athens!" *(4.1)*
"Timon will to the woods, where he shall find / The unkindest beast more kinder than mankind." *(4.1)*
"The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction / Robs the vast sea; the moon's an arrant thief." *(4.3)*
"Nothing I'll bear from thee / But nakedness, thou detestable town!" *(4.1)*
"Hate all, curse all, show charity to none." *(4.3)*
Cross-references
- Timon of Athens — the play
- Tragedies
- character_apemantus — the cynic who saw through the flattery all along
- character_flavius — his loyal steward, the one true friend
- character_alcibiades — the Athenian general whose parallel banishment mirrors his own