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Summary
Timon stands outside the wall of Athens and curses the city. He wishes death and destruction as well as plague and misfortune upon the city’s inhabitants. After speaking at length of all the ways he’d like Athens to succumb to topsy-turvy chaos, he turns to the hills, where he expects to “find / Th’ unkindest beast more kinder than mankind” (4.1.35–36). He predicts that his hatred for mankind will only grow greater.
Back at Timon’s house, Flavius and several servants discuss what has happened. They’re amazed that such a great house has fallen and that none of them have yet gone into the wilderness with Timon to serve him. The servants must depart, and they are sad. Flavius divvies up the last remaining gold, and they all swear to greet each other kindly should they meet again in future. As everyone departs, Flavius considers how anyone would wish for wealth, since riches inevitably lead to misery and false friendship. He mourns his lord’s fall, which came about through his own kindness. When Timon has suffered so much for his kindness, Flavius wonders why anyone should try to be kind. After reflecting mournfully on how the ingratitude of his “monstrous friends” (4.2.46) has caused Timon to flee in a rage, Flavius pledges to continue serving his master. He takes his share of the remaining gold and sets off for the wilderness.
Analysis
Act 4 opens with an astonishing and lengthy tirade in which Timon continues his transformation into a misanthrope. His language is deeply embittered and even violent as he calls for disorder and villainy to erupt in Athens. The imagery of Timon’s speech is notable for its rhetoric of rebellion. He says he wants children to be disobedient, servants to steal, and debtors to refuse to pay their creditors. Much of his language is also rooted in reversals, such that he envisions maidens becoming promiscuous and prostitutes becoming chaste. Ultimately, Timon wants chaos and cruelty to reign throughout the “detestable town” (4.1.33) that has so thoroughly let him down. In making such an elaborate curse on Athens, Timon echoes a conventional pastoral trope in which disaffected urbanites flee the corruption of the city for the virtuous countryside, trading a complicated life of anxiety and restriction for a simple life of calm and leisure. Timon’s parting words for Athens are admittedly unconventional in their intensity. Even so, his belief that the woods will put him in community with beast that are “more kinder than mankind” (4.1.36) contains a hint of pastoralism that recalls other Shakespeare plays, such as As You Like It and The Winter’s Tale.
Meanwhile, as Timon laments his friendlessness, his steward Flavius demonstrates that he is one of his master’s few true friends. Up to this point in the play, Flavius has primarily concerned himself with Timon’s finances. He has been equally frustrated by Timon’s refusal to look at the accounting books as by his flagrant acts of generosity. Yet in scene 2, even as he muses on the question of why anyone would show kindness when it only leads to suffering, Flavius shows that Timon’s ways have rubbed off on him. As he says goodbye to the other servants who have kept Timon’s estate up and running, he takes the last remaining coins from Timon’s treasury and shares them out equally. Yet however generous this act may be, it’s also clear that there isn’t much money left. Timon’s staff is just as fated to poverty as Timon is. That said, their new state of poverty may turn out to be a boon to them—especially if, as Flavius says, riches have an intrinsically corrupting power that always “point[s] to misery and contempt” (4.2.32). If Timon’s wealth attracted friends who were merely “painted” or “varnished” (4.2.36), then his poverty will reveal who his true friends may be.
