That nature, being sick of man’s unkindness

Timon
That nature, being sick of man’s unkindness,
Should yet be hungry! (He digs.) Common mother, thou
Whose womb unmeasurable and infinite breast
Teems and feeds all; whose selfsame mettle—
Whereof thy proud child, arrogant man, is puffed—
Engenders the black toad and adder blue,
The gilded newt and eyeless venomed worm,
With all th’ abhorrèd births below crisp heaven
Whereon Hyperion’s quick’ning fire doth shine:
Yield him who all thy human sons do hate,
From forth thy plenteous bosom, one poor root!
Ensear thy fertile and conceptious womb;
Let it no more bring out ingrateful man.
Go great with tigers, dragons, wolves, and bears;
Teem with new monsters, whom thy upward face
Hath to the marbled mansion all above
Never presented. O, a root! Dear thanks!

Ensear thy fertile and conceptious womb;
Let it no more bring out ingrateful man.
Go great with tigers, dragons, wolves, and bears

Dry up thy marrows, vines, and plow-torn leas,
Whereof ingrateful man with liquorish drafts
And morsels unctuous greases his pure mind,
That from it all consideration slips—
 Enter Apemantus.
More man? Plague, plague!
Apemantus
I was directed hither. Men report
Thou dost affect my manners and dost use them.
Timon
’Tis, then, because thou dost not keep a dog,
Whom I would imitate. Consumption catch thee!
Apemantus
This is in thee a nature but infected,
A poor unmanly melancholy sprung
From change of future. Why this spade? This place?
This slavelike habit and these looks of care?
Thy flatterers yet wear silk, drink wine, lie soft,
Hug their diseased perfumes, and have forgot
That ever Timon was. Shame not these woods
By putting on the cunning of a carper.
Be thou a flatterer now, and seek to thrive
By that which has undone thee. Hinge thy knee,
And let his very breath whom thou ’lt observe
Blow off thy cap; praise his most vicious strain,
And call it excellent. Thou wast told thus.
Thou gav’st thine ears, like tapsters that bade welcome,
To knaves and all approachers. ’Tis most just
That thou turn rascal. Had’st thou wealth again,
Rascals should have ’t. Do not assume my likeness.
Timon
Were I like thee, I’d throw away myself.
Apemantus
Thou hast cast away thyself, being like thyself—
A madman so long, now a fool. What, think’st
That the bleak air, thy boisterous chamberlain,
Will put thy shirt on warm? Will these moist trees,
That have outlived the eagle, page thy heels
And skip when thou point’st out? Will the cold brook,
Candied with ice, caudle thy morning taste
To cure thy o’ernight’s surfeit? Call the creatures
Whose naked natures live in all the spite
Of wreakful heaven, whose bare unhousèd trunks,
To the conflicting elements exposed,
Answer mere nature. Bid them flatter thee.
O, thou shalt find—
Timon
A fool of thee. Depart.
Apemantus
I love thee better now than e’er I did.
Timon
I hate thee worse.
Apemantus
Why?
Timon
Thou flatter’st misery.
Apemantus
I flatter not but say thou art a caitiff.
Timon
Why dost thou seek me out?
Apemantus
To vex thee.
Timon
Always a villain’s office or a fool’s.
Dost please thyself in ’t?
Apemantus
Ay.
Timon
What, a knave too?
Apemantus
If thou didst put this sour cold habit on
To castigate thy pride, ’twere well, but thou
Dost it enforcedly. Thou ’dst courtier be again
Wert thou not beggar. Willing misery
Outlives incertain pomp, is crowned before;
The one is filling still, never complete,
The other at high wish. Best state, contentless,
Hath a distracted and most wretched being,
Worse than the worst, content.
Thou shouldst desire to die, being miserable.
Timon
Not by his breath that is more miserable.
Thou art a slave whom Fortune’s tender arm
With favor never clasped but bred a dog.
Hadst thou, like us from our first swathe, proceeded
The sweet degrees that this brief world affords
To such as may the passive drugs of it
Freely command, thou wouldst have plunged thyself
In general riot, melted down thy youth
In different beds of lust, and never learned
The icy precepts of respect, but followed
The sugared game before thee. But myself—
Who had the world as my confectionary,
The mouths, the tongues, the eyes and hearts of men
At duty, more than I could frame employment,
That numberless upon me stuck as leaves
Do on the oak, have with one winter’s brush
Fell from their boughs and left me open, bare,
For every storm that blows—I to bear this,
That never knew but better, is some burden.
Thy nature did commence in sufferance. Time
Hath made thee hard in ’t. Why shouldst thou hate men?
They never flattered thee. What hast thou given?
If thou wilt curse, thy father, that poor rag,
Must be thy subject, who in spite put stuff
To some she-beggar and compounded thee
Poor rogue hereditary. Hence, begone.
If thou hadst not been born the worst of men,
Thou hadst been a knave and flatterer.
Apemantus
Art thou proud yet?
Timon
Ay, that I am not thee.
Apemantus
I, that I was no prodigal.
Timon
I, that I am one now.
Were all the wealth I have shut up in thee,
I’d give thee leave to hang it. Get thee gone.
That the whole life of Athens were in this!
Thus would I eat it.
 He gnaws a root.