Timon of Athens: ‘Nothing Emboldens Sin So Much as Mercy’

**Philip Rowe** (0:09)
Welcome to The History Of European Theatre podcast, and thanks for joining me on this journey through millennia of theatrical history. Episode 215, Timon of Athens. Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.
Last time, Ben Jonson regained his stride in the public theatre with his comedy Volpone, and at moment, sparkling satire of greed and avarice. Just about the only parallel that I can draw between this and Shakespeare's next offering, Timon of Athens, is that the study of greed appears in both. But they are very different plays in tone, character and intent. Shakespeare not only continued his recent sombre mood, but deepened it significantly with this play. When reading around the play in preparation for this episode, on more than one occasion, I saw the play cited as Shakespeare's least popular play. It is certainly one that is rarely performed, and there are many questions about the whys and hows of its creation. So buckle up. This might well be more than a little challenging.
Timon of Athens first appeared in print in the first folio. And before that, there is absolutely no mention of the play. Because it shares some themes and some rare vocabulary with King Lear, scholars have placed its writing just before that great play, sometime in 1604 or 1605 being the accepted date. Without a record of early performances, this is the very best that we can do. It was possibly influenced by an earlier play written for an academic audience in about 1602 and by the description of the titular character in Painter's Palace of Pleasures, which, you will remember, was a story collection that Shakespeare had previously used for the plot of All's Well That Ends Well. The main source is Plutarch's Lives where in a long digression during the life of Mark Antony, Plutarch tells the story of the Athenian misanthrop Timon. The epitaph at the end of the play is taken almost word for word from Plutarch. It's also likely that Lucian's dialogue, Timon Mythanthropus, was also used for some minor points.
The text we have from the first folio is considered to be one of the strangest in the collection. For starters, and based on very close study of the printing of the folio, it looks like the play was not to be included in the first edition, and it was only when there were problems getting the rights to include Troilus and Cressida that the play was inserted into it. The most likely explanation for this initial decision not to include the play in the folio is thought to be that it is a collaboration. The hand of another author was first detected in the 1830s, and study since then has concluded that a young Thomas Middleton wrote about one third of the play, this being based on rare language and the use of oaths in the play, among other details. The most significant of which that is now generally accepted is that the folio was set from each author's foul papers, so that their particular writing habits are particularly obvious in this case. The latest thinking espoused in the Oxford University Press Edition of the play is that Middleton wrote the first banqueting scene, the scenes involving Timon and his creditors, Alcibiades' confrontation with the Athenian senators and most of the scenes between Timon and his steward.
You will also see that the play is referred to as unfinished, which depending on who is writing about the play seems to mean anything between a draft through unpolished to literally unfinished. However desperate Hemings and Condell were to fill the empty space in their great collection, it seems unlikely that they would have included a play that was unperformed or completely without merit. So unfinished seems too unkind and certainly I prefer the idea that it was complete, but a less than successful collaboration that would have benefited from some more work.
Here's a brief summary of the plot of the play.
At the home of Timon in Athens a crowd has gathered. Amongst them a poet, a painter, a jeweller and a merchant each hope to benefit from his generosity by selling him an item. Timon arrives surrounded by people all on a similar mission. He hears from a messenger that his friend Ventidius is in jail for debt. Timon immediately offers to repay the debt so that he can be freed. In another encounter an old man complains to Timon that his servant Lucilius has been courting his daughter. Timon calls Lucilius in and offers to match the old man's dowry for his daughter so that the marriage can go ahead. Timon calls his guests to a sumptuous feast where they are entertained by a mask featuring the mythical Amazons. At the event's conclusion, Timon gifts a precious jewel to one friend and a valuable horse to another, while Flavius his steward and his friend Apimantus try unsuccessfully to warn him about the imprudence of his generosity.