s, for those (he said) would live, if they grew up, to be
traitors; but to steel his eyes and ears against any sights or sounds
that might awaken compassion; and not to let the cries of virgins,
babes, or mothers, hinder him from making one universal massacre of the
city, but to confound them all in his conquest; and when he had
conquered, he prayed that the gods would confound him also, the
conqueror: so thoroughly did Timon hate Athens, Athenians, and all
mankind.

While he lived in this forlorn state, leading a life more brutal than
human, he was suddenly surprised one day with the appearance of a man
standing in an admiring posture at the door of his cave. It was Flavius,
the honest steward, whom love and zealous affection to his master had
led to seek him out at his wretched dwelling, and to offer his services;
and the first sight of his master, the once noble Timon, in that abject
condition, naked as he was born, living in the manner of a beast among
beasts, looking like his own sad ruins and a monument of decay, so
affected this good servant, that he stood speechless, wrapped up in
horror, and confounded. And when he found utterance at last to his
words, they were so choked with tears, that Timon had much ado to know
him again, or to make out who it was that had come (so contrary to the
experience he had had of mankind) to offer him service in extremity. And
being in the form and shape of a man, he suspected him for a traitor,
and his tears for false; but the good servant by so many tokens
confirmed the truth of his fidelity, and made it clear that nothing but
love and zealous duty to his once dear master had brought him there,
that Timon was forced to confess that the world contained one honest
man; yet, being in the shape and form of a man, he could not look upon
his man's face without abhorrence, or hear words uttered from his man's
lips without loathing; and this singly honest man was forced to depart,
because he was a man, and because, with a heart more gentle and
compassionate than is usual to man, he bore man's detested form and
outward feature.

But greater visitants than a poor steward were about to interrupt the
savage quiet of Timon's solitude. For now the day was come when the
ungrateful lords of Athens sorely repented the injustice which they had
done to the noble Timon. For Alcibiades, like an incensed wild boar, was
raging at the walls of their city, and with his hot siege threatened to
lay fair