rce trusting their own eyes; at a
signal given, the dishes were uncovered, and Timon's drift appeared:
instead of those varieties and far-fetched dainties which they expected,
that Timon's epicurean table in past times had so liberally presented,
now appeared under the covers of these dishes a preparation more
suitable to Timon's poverty, nothing but a little smoke and lukewarm
water, fit feast for this knot of mouth-friends, whose professions were
indeed smoke, and their hearts lukewarm and slippery as the water with
which Timon welcomed his astonished guests, bidding them, "Uncover,
dogs, and lap;" and before they could recover their surprise,
sprinkling it in their faces, that they might have enough, and throwing
dishes and all after them, who now ran huddling out, lords, ladies, with
their caps snatched up in haste, a splendid confusion, Timon pursuing
them, still calling them what they were, "smooth smiling parasites,
destroyers under the mask of courtesy, affable wolves, meek bears, fools
of fortune, feast-friends, time-flies." They, crowding out to avoid him,
left the house more willingly than they had entered it; some losing
their gowns and caps, and some their jewels in the hurry, all glad to
escape out of the presence of such a mad lord, and from the ridicule of
his mock banquet.

This was the last feast which ever Timon made, and in it he took
farewell of Athens and the society of men; for, after that, he betook
himself to the woods, turning his back upon the hated city and upon all
mankind, wishing the walls of that detestable city might sink, and the
houses fall upon their owners, wishing all plagues which infest
humanity, war, outrage, poverty, diseases, might fasten upon its
inhabitants, praying the just gods to confound all Athenians, both young
and old, high and low; so wishing, he went to the woods, where he said
he should find the unkindest beast much kinder than mankind. He stripped
himself naked, that he might retain no fashion of a man, and dug a cave
to live in, and lived solitary in the manner of a beast, eating the wild
roots, and drinking water, flying from the face of his kind, and
choosing rather to herd with wild beasts, as more harmless and friendly
than man.

What a change from Lord Timon the rich, Lord Timon the delight of
mankind, to Timon the naked, Timon the man-hater! Where were his
flatterers now? Where were his attendants and retinue? Would the bleak
air, that boisterous servitor,