Timon: “Lust and liberty

Shakespeare would not have been at all surprised by the recent spate of rioting in America. Civil disorder was often on the mind of every educated Englishman. England under Elizabeth had a clear memory of the War of the Roses, an extended period of civil clashes over a disputed crown, and people were generally terrified of a recurrence. And with good reason – just a generation after Shakespeare, religious disputes would spark another period of civil war involving Oliver Cromwell.

So this speech by Timon in Timon of Athens provides the full nightmare scenario of what would happen when the proper, agreed rules of civil order are upended. Timon has left Athens in disgust at what he has seen there:

Timon: “Let me look back upon thee. O thou wall,
That girdlest in those wolves, dive in the earth,
And fence not Athens!“

Ordinarily a city wall would keep the wolves out, but Timon believes the Athenian wall girdles in the wolves. Timon was an aristocrat who for years was generous in offering financial gifts to his friends, only to see them turn on him when his own wealth ran out. He feels that honor among the privileged required them to help him back on his feet after he had helped so many of them. Now disillusioned, he views the entire social order as collapsed, and presents his nightmare vision in detail (incontinent here means promiscuous):

 Timon: “Matrons, turn incontinent!
Obedience fail in children! slaves and fools,
Pluck the grave wrinkled senate from the bench,
And minister in their steads!“

Well, happily slavery is no more in this part of the world, but if fools were to pluck the grave wrinkled senate from the bench/and minister in their steads, I doubt many of us would be able to tell the difference. Timon goes on (trusters means lenders: bound servants means bonded servants; pill by law means steal by using the law):

Timon: “Bankrupts, hold fast;
Rather than render back, out with your knives,
And cut your trusters’ throats! bound servants, steal!
Large-handed robbers your grave masters are,
And pill by law. Maid, to thy master’s bed;
Thy mistress is o’ the brothel! Son of sixteen,
pluck the lined crutch from thy old limping sire,
With it beat out his brains!”

There’s something enticing about tearing up the social contract and starting with a fresh piece of paper, but it has rarely ended well, not in the Soviet Union, not in Cambodia under Pol Pot, and likely not in Portland, Oregon these days, though time will tell. And that last image, of one person bashing out another’s brains, is rare in Shakespeare (although Lady Macbeth evokes it to put some steel in her husband’s spine when he impresses her as weak-minded).

Timon next reminds the audience of what is lost during rebellions and revolts, by listing all the practices, rituals, and traditions that are overthrown at such times (neighborhood means neighborliness in the way Shakespeare is using the term):

Timon: “Piety, and fear,
Religion to the gods, peace, justice, truth,
Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighbourhood,
Instruction, manners, mysteries, and trades,
Degrees, observances, customs, and laws,
Decline to your confounding contraries,
And let confusion live!“

And then a moment later we come to this, and Timon’s use of liberty is not the same as Thomas Jefferson’s; Timon’s is closer to libertinism:

Timon: “Lust and liberty

Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth,
That ‘gainst the stream of virtue they may strive,
And drown themselves in riot! Itches, blains,
Sow all the Athenian bosoms; and their crop
Be general leprosy! Breath infect breath,
at their society, as their friendship, may
merely poison!“

Obviously, he’s ready to emigrate, he’s tired of turning on the TV everyday and seeing his downtown in flames, and so he next turns next to his relocation plans. Hint: he won’t need a U-Haul;

Timon: “Nothing I’ll bear from thee,
But nakedness, thou detestable town!
Take thou that too, with multiplying bans!
Timon will to the woods; where he shall find
The unkindest beast more kinder than mankind.
The gods confound—hear me, you good gods all—
The Athenians both within and out that wall!
And grant, as Timon grows, his hate may grow
To the whole race of mankind, high and low! Amen.”

This isn’t Shakespeare’s last word on social upheaval, not by a longshot, and we will next take a look at a speech by Ulysses, speaking to Nestor and Agamemnon in Troilus and Cressida that covers similar ground. Meanwhile – happy rioting!