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Summary
The Poet and the Painter come to Timon’s cave in the wilderness, discussing the news that Timon is rich again. They suspect Timon’s apparent bankruptcy has just been a trial for his friends. Therefore, the two artists plan to be extremely ingratiating so he’ll favor them when he returns to Athens. Neither man has any artwork to present to Timon, but they are both convinced that the promise of future work is as good as the work itself.
As Timon watches the two men approach, he notes to himself that they are flatterers and second-rate artists. He then approaches them, and while they fawn over him, he repeatedly asks if they are honest men. They say they’ve come to offer their services, but he asks if they haven’t come because they heard he had gold. They admit they’ve heard about the gold, but they didn’t come for it. In riddling language, he tells them they each trust a rotten man who deceives them, and he says he’ll give them gold as soon as they find the villain that hounds them. Yet his riddle implies that they are each other’s villain, and, in a fit of fury, he chases them away.
Next, two senators arrive at Timon’s cave, escorted by Flavius. They call out to Timon, who emerges, wishing plague on them when they greet him. The senators say they have come to beg Timon to return to Athens. The Athenians have decided they were unfair to him and promise to make him a wealthy and respected man should he return. They also promise to make him a leader so he can help them defend against Alcibiades.
But Timon is uninterested; he says he doesn’t care if Alcibiades sacks Athens and kills his countrymen. Timon then reflects that he does love his country, and he tells the senators that he has advice for his fellow Athenians about how to avoid Alcibiades’s wrath. The senators listen as Timon tells of a tree near his cave. To prevent the misery of Alcibiades’s attack, Timon says, anyone who wants should come to the tree and hang himself. Then Timon instructs the senators to leave and to tell Athenians that he has died; his grave will lie where the earth meets the sea. He curses humanity again and withdraws to his cave. The senators leave.
Analysis
The final act begins with an echo of the play’s opening scene. The earlier scene began with the Poet, the Painter, the Jeweler, and the Merchant approaching Timon’s house with the wares that their patron has commissioned from them, and for which they are eager to receive payment. Money is also the main motivating factor at the beginning of act 5. Yet two differences distinguish this later scene from the earlier one. First, here it is only the Poet and the Painter who have come to seek out Timon in the woods. Second, and more important, neither artist has come with any work to present to Timon. They are prepared to flatter their former patron, hoping that he will favor them in the event of his return to Athens. However, they tell themselves that there was no need to produce new work for him now, since it is now the fashion to make promises for the future: “Promising is the very air o’ th’ time. . . . To promise is most courtly and fashionable” (5.1.22–23, 26). The irony, of course, is that such promises are no different from the arrangements of credit and debt that led to Timon’s downfall. Essentially, they’re hoping to get something for nothing.
Having learned his lesson, Timon is quick to sniff out these sycophants and chase them off. But before he does so, he entertains himself by repeatedly pointing out their hypocrisy. Again and again, he asks these men if they are honest, even though it is plain that they are lying about their intentions in visiting him. He concludes their interaction with a rather confounding riddle that exposes their villainy. Yet as soon as he’s rid of this pair of “rascal dogs” (5.1.114), Flavius brings along two senators who are equally self-seeking: they want him to return to Athens to save their hides from the wrathful Alcibiades, whose army is swiftly approaching. Timon remains fully in character as “Misanthropos” and curses them for their selfishness. But once again, he has a bit of sadistic fun before sending these men on their way. He tricks them into thinking he’s had a change of heart toward the city of his birth, only to travesty their hopes. The only kindness he’s willing to show Athenians is a gruesome form of hospitality: they can come to the tree outside his cave and hang themselves!
