gh, even from my boyish days,
To the very moment that he bade me tell it.
Wherein I spoke of most disastrous chances
Of moving accidents, by food and field;
Of hair-breadth 'scapes, the imminent deadly breach;
Of being taken by the insolent foe,
And sold to slavery; of my redemption thence
And demeanor in my travel's history;
Wherein of caverns vast and deserts idle,
Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven,
It was my hint to speak, such was the process
And of the cannibals that each other eat,
The anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders. These things to hear
Would Desdemona seriously incline;
But still the house affairs would draw her thence;
Which ever as she could with haste despatch,
She'd come again, and with a greedy ear
Devour up my discourse; which I observing
Took once a pliant hour; and found good means
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart,
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate
Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
But not intentively; I did consent;
And often did beguile her of her tears,
When I did speak of some distressful stroke
That my youth suffered. My story being done
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs;
She swore--in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange;
'Twas pitiful; 'twas wondrous pitiful;
She wished she had not heard it; yet she wished,
That heaven had made her such a man, she thanked me,
And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,
I should but teach him how to tell my story,
And that would woo her. Upon this hint, I spake;
She loved me for the dangers I had passed;
And I loved her that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have used,
Here comes the lady, let her witness it!"_

Timon of Athens, a wealthy, spendthrift lord, becomes bankrupt by his
generous entertainment of friends, but maddened by their ingratitude,
retires to a forest cave by the sea, giving this parting curse to the
people of Athens, and later scattering gold among a band of thieves. Hear
the self-ruined epicure:

_"Let me look back upon thee, O thou wall
That girdlest in those wolves! Dive in the earth,
And fence not Athens! Matrons turn incontinent!
Obedience fail in children! Slaves and fools,
Pluck the grave, wrinkled senate from the bench
And minister in the