[In the following essay, Tinker explores Timon's view of friendship within the framework of the play's larger theme, which Tinker contends is “man shall not live by bread alone.”]

Timon of Athens has provoked an extraordinary divergence of critical opinion.¹ Contrary to those critics who find Timon incomplete and disorganized, I believe the play is highly structured. The theme, simply stated, is “Man shall not live by bread alone.” That theme is brought out by the imagery, the plot structure, and the inversion of the theme in the protagonist, that is, by the representation of a man who does live by bread alone.

With regard to the structure of the play, Una Ellis-Fermor calls Timon “a design not fully comprehended.”² David Cook considers the play to be “powerfully conceived, but not realized in fully developed dramatic terms.”³ Even J. C. Maxwell, the best critic on this play, states that Shakespeare “did not bring his own work on the play to a satisfying state of completion.”⁴ I submit that for an incomplete play it shows a remarkable amount of structural unity. It is divided into two distinct halves of almost exactly the same length (I.i to III.v, III.vi to V.iv).⁵ Each of these halves has near its beginning a banquet given by Timon, and each ends with Alcibiades talking to the Senators of Athens. In the first part of the play we have the entrances of the Poet and Painter, Apemantus, and Alcibiades, in that order. In the second half these characters reappear in precisely the opposite order. Moreover, there is a point about Timon's behaviour critics have apparently overlooked: namely, that his munificence is not confined to the first half of the play. In the second half he continues to give away gold: to Alcibiades, to the prostitutes, to the Banditti, and to Flavius. In short, the whole play seems to be a carefully balanced whole of parallels and contrasts. If we accept the thesis, that the play is unfinished, it seems to me that we must admit that a play with so many obvious and carefully developed structural elements must have been very near to completion.

Earlier critics tended to think of Timon as a noble man who, betrayed by his friends, rejected mankind entirely and became a misanthrope.⁶ More recently critics perceive that there is really nothing essentially noble about Timon in the first half of the play. As Cook comments, “Timon is not discriminatingly or positively generous.”⁷ Maxwell astutely observes that Timon “has no true sense of reciprocity in friendship: ‘there's none Can truly say he gives if he receives,’ and if he seems to recant that later in the scene—‘what need we have any friends, if we should ne'er have need of them?’—the contradiction merely emphasizes his irresponsible attitude.”⁸ The first passage Maxwell quotes is ironic: among Timon's friends “none can truly say he gives” since each receives back more than he gives.

One of the problems is that Timon's generosity is effortless. O. J. Campbell has remarked about the early scenes of the play that the various people who come to Timon “are arranged as a procession of individuals, each one serving as the illustration of the same vice. … The similarity of his response to each of these adulators in turn makes his generosity seem automatic and therefore ridiculous.”⁹ Timon's bounty does not require him to strain himself at all; at a later time his misanthropy will be equally effortless.

In the play Timon's bounty is consistently associated with eating, a natural but necessary function that we tend to think of largely as a pastime, until we are hungry. Timon tells the Painter: “We must needs dine together” (I.i.167). Only a short time later he tells the messenger from Alcibiades: “You must needs dine with me” (I.i.243). Timon's generosity is represented by his feasts. Nobles come to “taste Lord Timon's bounty” (I.i.273). The eating images emphasize what I see as the basic theme of the play. Food becomes a metaphor for material values. Timon and his friends do live by bread alone: indeed, they see the world as a dining hall.

Timon, for all his talk of friendship, does not really understand what friendship is. He thinks friendship lies solely in giving, that because he gives he is good, and that all other men are equally good. It is important to stress Timon's opinion of himself in the first part of the play, because it contrasts sharply with his opinion later. The failure to understand what Timon thinks about Timon has led many critics astray. Almost his first words in the play are “I am not of that feather to shake off / My friend when he must need me” (I.i.103-104). Timon clearly has a high opinion of himself at this point. But why this high opinion? Because he is bountiful, and as he says, “We are born to do benefits” (I.ii.99-100). His high opinion of himself is unjustified, and Timon will learn its falseness all too soon.

Timon's concept of friendship is contrasted with that of Flavius. The steward, who has no bounty, is nevertheless more capable of friendship than is Timon. Any sensible person would have deserted Timon as soon as the course of Timon's fortunes became clear. Most of the sensible people do just that. But sensible people live by bread alone, and Flavius does not. That Flavius is meant to contrast with the flatterers of Timon is obvious; that he is meant to contrast with Timon himself may be overlooked. When Flavius distributes his own savings among the other servants, R. P. Draper thinks that Flavius' action “is a notable instance of the servants' discipleship of the master's idealism and practice.”¹⁰ The critic has missed the point. Flavius' action is not motivated by any desire to give per se. He says, “The latest of my wealth I'll share amongst you” (IV.ii.23). “Share” is a word significantly absent from Timon's vocabulary. As Maxwell points out, in Flavius “we see genuine personal affection, contrasting strongly with Timon's automatism.”¹¹ It is Flavius' acceptance of non-material values that makes him considerably more than a disciple of Timon.

The other major contrast in the play is between Timon and Alcibiades. The first encounter between Alcibiades and the Senate, which Miss Ellis-Fermor finds so hard to account for, is one of the more significant scenes in the play.¹² It illustrates, among other things, the quite specific differences between Alcibiades and Timon. Alcibiades, like Timon, is prepared to give his possessions for his friends: “I'll pawn my victories, all / My honours to you, upon his good returns” (III.v.82-83). However, although Alcibiades and Timon are both willing to give up their possessions, Alcibiades' giving is towards a specific end. Timon gives indiscriminately, Alcibiades for a purpose. There is another crucial difference between Alcibiades and Timon; Alcibiades has no illusions about mankind. He realizes that men are sometimes less than noble: “To be in anger is impiety; / But who is man that is not angry?” (III.v.57-58). Timon, on the other hand, thinks men are faultless and never doubts that his friends will help him until they have in fact not helped him. Alcibiades displays what Maxwell calls “balanced humanity” in contrast to Timon's “inhuman excess.”¹³ I find in this scene a confrontation between the two opposing sets of values: Alcibiades representing non-material values, and the Senate representing purely material ones. Alcibiades is willing to give up his material possessions for the freedom of his friend. This contrast between values will be further developed in the confrontations between Timon and Alcibiades and Timon and Flavius.

In the second half of the play we find Timon outside Athens. A significant element of Timon's change is his self-condemnation. In his first impassioned soliloquy outside the wall, he says:

Timon will to the woods; where he shall find
The unkindest beast more kinder than mankind.
The gods confound—hear me, you good gods all—
The Athenians both within and out that wall!

(IV.i.35-38)

Such a curse must, of necessity, include Timon himself, who is an Athenian. Having previously seen all men as good, Timon now sees all men as evil. And since all men are evil, and Timon is a man, he must accept himself as evil, too. David Cook thinks that “when Timon finds his new supply of gold, his condemnation of the malpractices it could foster is eloquent, but he conveniently overlooks the fact that his own abuse of wealth is to be included in the indictment.”¹⁴ I do not think that Timon “conveniently overlooks” anything. Only a few lines earlier he has said, “There's nothing level in our cursed natures / But direct villainy” (IV.iii.19-20). Among the “cursed natures” Timon includes his own. He believes that his only recourse after the loss of his fortunes is to despise himself: “Not nature, / To whom all sores lay siege, can bear great fortune, / But by contempt of nature” (IV.iii.6-8). He has no values other than material ones to uphold him in his time of need. Timon among men assessed himself and others materially; Timon in exile continues to do so.

The entrance of Alcibiades shortly after Timon's discovery of the gold is crucial. “What art thou there?” asks Alcibiades. “A beast, as thou art” (IV.iii.49-50), replies Timon. Timon again includes himself in his general damnation of mankind. When Alcibiades asks how Timon has changed, Timon tells him:

As the moon does, by wanting light to give.
But then renew I could not, like the moon;
There were no suns to borrow of.

(IV.iii.68-70)

Clearly Timon is not talking about money here. He has money. He has found the gold. “Suns” must refer, not to men with money, but to good men. Timon is saying that there are no good men from whom he may draw kindness. It is highly ironic that one of the few kind people in the play is standing before him, yet Timon cannot recognize the kindness of Alcibiades:

ALCIB.
Noble Timon, what friendship may I do thee?
TIM.
None, but to maintain my opinion.
ALCIB.
What is it, Timon?
TIM.
Promise me friendship, but perform none.
If thou wilt not promise, the gods plague thee, for thou art a man! If thou dost perform, confound thee, for thou art a man!

(IV.iii.71-77)

Timon's reply to the first question is, of course, exactly, what he demanded of friendship before his change of fortune: maintenance of opinion. Just as he previously demanded kindness of men and could see no evil, now he demands evil and can see no kindness. In his reply to the soldier's second question, he damns Alcibiades for his very humanity.

I would argue that part of the difficulty is that Timon has not really changed. The word “bounty” was associated with Timon in the first half of the play, and now the two prostitutes call him “bounteous Timon” (IV.iii.169). It is as easy for him to be misanthropic as it was for him to be generous. It requires no more effort on his part to give stones than it formerly required to give gold. Only material things motivate Timon. In the first half of the play those things took the form of feasts; in the second half they take the form of roots. Timon laments “That nature, being sick of man's unkindness, / Should yet be hungry” (IV.iii.178-179). Only hunger moves Timon. He truly lives on bread alone. Timon is unwilling to accept anything other than material wants in man's nature. He has rejected everything else.

The next person to come in is Apemantus. The contrast set up here is a minor but important one. Apemantus chides Timon for his misanthropy. Furthermore, Apemantus claims that “Thou'dst courtier be again, / Wert thou not beggar” (IV.iii.243-244). The statement is of course false: Timon is at this point neither beggar nor courtier. Apemantus does not have the insight to see through Timon. Timon, however, sees through Apemantus very well.

APEM.
I love thee better now than e'er I did.
TIM.
I hate thee worse.
APEM.
Why?
TIM.
Thou flatter'st misery.

(IV.iii.235-236)

Timon realizes that Apemantus is, in his own way, just as much a flatterer as all the others: “If thou hadst not been born the worst of men, / Thou hadst been a knave and a flatterer” (IV.iii.277-278). Apemantus is what he is because he cannot be what he wants to be. Timon, however, with his new found gold, can be whatever he wants to be. He is what he is by choice.

The conversation continues:

APEM.
Art thou proud yet?
TIM.
Ay, that I am not thee.
APEM.
I, that I was
No prodigal.
TIM.
I, that I am one now.
Where all the wealth I have shut up in thee,
I'ld give thee leave to hang it. Get thee gone.
That the whole life of Athens were in this!
Thus would I eat it. [Eating a root]

(IV.iii.278-284)

There are several insights to be found in these lines. Timon realizes that Apemantus is in some sense worse than Timon is, because Apemantus holds the same views but does not follow them through to the same conclusion—self-exile. Timon also recognizes that his own apparent change is only superficial: he is still prodigal. The irony is that given these realizations Timon cannot advance beyond them. Cook observes, “Timon has found a much more secure retreat than in his previous dream of perfect living. … Timon will not accept the human condition with its confusions and compromises. He must be more, or less, than man.”¹⁵ The last line Timon speaks above again shows his determination to see the world as food. Just before Apemantus leaves, he confirms that determination: “I am sick of this false world, and will love nought / But even the mere necessities upon't” (IV.iii.378-379). Timon again denies non-material values and demonstrates his conviction to live by bread (or roots). He lacks the strength to go beyond “mere necessities.” It is precisely this lack of strength that differentiates him from Alcibiades and Flavius, both of whom recognize values beyond the material.

Apemantus leaves and the Banditti enter. Timon immediately condemns them for the same fault that he condemns all others for: “You must eat men” (IV.iii.428). He soon launches into a long description of nature as a thief:

The Sun's a thief and with his great attraction
Robs the vast sea; the moon's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun;
The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt tears; the earth's a thief
That feeds and breeds by a composture stol'n
From general excrement; each thing's a thief.

(IV.iii.439-445)

It is quite in character that Timon must extend this monomaniacal point of view to everything. In the words of Maxwell: “Since for Timon giving must be only giving, receiving only receiving, even if he has in his adversity expected a reversal of the roles, the normal processes of give-and-take in nature, appear as thievery, on the analogy of the corrupted society of Athens, which has also lost the notion of reciprocity.”¹⁶ Timon has again refused to see the world as anything but evil.

The appearance of Flavius after the Banditti leave seems to me to be the crux of the play. Flavius does not understand what has happened to Timon. He makes the same mistake that Apemantus made: “What an alteration of honor has desp'rate want made!” (IV.iii.465). There is no “desp'rate want,” although Flavius cannot know that. When Timon first sees Flavius he treats him as he treats all other men:

TIM.
Away! What art thou?
FLAV.
Have you forgot me, sir?
TIM.
Why dost ask that? I have forgot all men;
Then, if thou grant'st th'art a man, I have forgot thee.

(IV.iii.475-478)

Flavius, like Alcibiades, is condemned for being a man. There is a notable difference, however, between this confrontation and the others. Flavius weeps, and Timon is moved: “Had I a steward / So true, so just, and now so comfortable? / It almost turns my dangerous nature mild” (IV.iii.494-496). Almost—but not quite. Timon very nearly accepts values beyond material ones. But he does not. And his refusal to do so is tragic.

The existence of Flavius gives the lie to Timon's neat little syllogism: all men are evil; I am a man; therefore, I am evil. But all men are not evil. Flavius is good. Timon totters for a moment on the brink of humanity:

Forgive my general and exceptless rashness,
You perpetual-sober gods! I do proclaim
One honest man. Mistake me not, but one;
No more, I pray—and he's a steward.
How fain I would have hated all mankind!

(IV.iii.499-503)

The tragedy lies in Timon's inability to reject the syllogism even after its major premise has been proven false. If he accepts the possibility that man can be good, then he must also accept the responsibility to be good himself. He must give up the easy life of Misanthropos. He must accept values beyond bread—beyond the material world. And he cannot. Timon drives Flavius away, but not before Flavius has pointedly remarked: “You should have fear'd false times when you did feast” (IV.iii.517). I have pointed out that Timon has not really changed. Flavius does not realize that Timon is still feasting; but Timon does realize it, and in so doing pronounces his own damnation. He has seen someone whose values are not wholly material, recognized those values, (as he did not in the case of Alcibiades), and refused to accept them. Timon has not missed, but rejected, his chance to rise above himself. His self-condemnation is complete.

The next scene serves to emphasize the tragedy. The Painter says:

Promising is the very air o' the' time it opens th' eyes of expectation. Performance is ever the duller for his act; and, but in the plainer and simpler kind of people, the deed of saying is quite out of use.

(V.i.23-26)

Flavius is one of “the plainer and simpler kind of people” and it is precisely the lack of “performance” which has led to Timon's tragedy. “Have I once liv'd to see two honest men?” (V.i.55) cries Timon. The answer is no. But he has lived to see one, and he knows it. Throughout his conversation with the Painter and the Poet he plays on the word “honest,” and in so doing he curses himself. It is the very word he used to describe Flavius, but, in his refusal to admit the failure of his own logic, he has ceased to be honest himself. When he comments to the two, “Each man apart, all single and alone, / Yet an arch-villain keeps him company” (V.i.106-107), the remark applies equally well to himself.

The entrance of the Senators heaps irony upon irony:

FIRST Sen.
Worthy Timon—
TIM.
Of none but such as you, and you of Timon.

(V.i.133-134)

Timon explicitly lumps himself in with those whom he formerly cursed for betraying him. Later he says,

                                                  You witch me in it;
Surprise me to the very brink of tears.
Lend me a fool's heart and a woman's eyes,
And I'll beweep these comforts, worthy senators.

(V.i.154-157)

This speech is a grotesque parody of Flavius' earlier weeping before Timon. Timon, himself incomplete, can only ape the complete man. In his next speech he announces repeatedly that he “cares not” (V.i.167-183), and we know that it is because he has rejected the responsibility of caring. Caring for others implies values beyond those of the material world. Timon's choice is a conscious one. Having seen Flavius, he knows that it is possible to care, and he chooses rather to live by bread.

In the last act Timon admits the failure of his own value system: “My long sickness / Of health and living now begins to mend, / And nothing brings me all things” (V.i.185-187). And indeed it has been a sickness. Timon recognises his own lack of completeness, but we have seen that he has refused to cure himself. The only solution left to him is death. “Man shall not live by bread alone,” and having tried bread alone, Timon may not live. Timon's next to the last words are: “Graves only be men's works and death their gain” (V.i.221-222). So they must be for Timon, but having proclaimed one honest man, Timon knows that there are possibilities of values beyond graves and death.

Timon is dead. Alcibiades returns to Athens, not to destroy it, but to restore it. Cook suggests that “the burden of the play, positively expressed in Alcibiades, is the need to accept and love man as he is, and to acknowledge our human condition.”¹⁷ I would suggest also that Alcibiades in sparing Athens affirms the basic theme. He acts with mercy, a decidedly non-material value. Alcibiades is not perfect. We have seen him with his prostitutes. He is, however, capable of recognizing and accepting humanity in others, as Timon is not. He is even capable of recognizing the humanity in Timon:

Though thou abhorr'ds in us our human griefs,
Scorn'dst our brains' flow and those our droplets which
From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit
Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye
On thy low grave, on faults forgiven.

(V.iv.75-79)

It is the ultimate irony that Timon, who could not forgive himself, is forgiven by something even more impersonal than himself—the sea. But he is also forgiven by Alcibiades, who at the end calls him “noble.”

At the beginning of this essay I asserted that Timon of Athens was a complete, or nearly complete play, and that it could be treated as a unified whole. The unity is principally thematic, and the theme is brought out through the eating imagery associated with material values, through such plot elements as the confrontations between characters holding opposing views, and through the character of Timon—the completely material man. The ending of the play emphasizes the theme by suggesting that insofar as man rises above the level of the beasts—above the level of Timon—he does so by acts such as Alcibiades', by the deliberate choice not to live by bread alone. Alcibiades, by affirming those values that Timon sought to deny, brings humanity back to the world.

Notes

1. It is appropriate that this essay should appear here, since I first studied Timon in an undergraduate seminar with Dr. Crow, and it was he who first pointed out to me the significance of the word “bounty” in the play. My ideas were further developed in a graduate course at the University of Wisconsin under Professor Robert Kimbrough. I would also like to acknowledge the helpfulness of the referees for this volume, whose comments contributed greatly to the clarity of the essay.

2. Una Ellis-Fermor, “Timon of Athens: An Unfinished Play,” Review of English Studies, 18 (1942), 283.

3. David Cook, “Timon of Athens,” Shakespeare Survey, 16 (1963), 94.

4. J. C. Maxwell, “Timon of Athens,” Scrutiny, 15 (1948), 208.

5. All references to the play are to the New Arden edition of Timon of Athens, ed. H. J. Oliver (London: Methuen, 1959; rpt. with minor corrections 1963).

6. A good example of this viewpoint is found in G. Wilson Knight's “The Pilgrimage of Hate: An Essay on Timon of Athens,” The Wheel of Fire (London: Methuen, 1954).

7. Cook, p. 85.

8. Maxwell, p. 200.

9. Oscar James Campbell, Shakespeare's Satire (London: Oxford University Press, 1943), p. 187.

10. R. P. Draper, “Timon of Athens,” Shakespeare Quarterly, 8 (1957), 196.

11. Maxwell, p. 207.

12. Ellis-Fermor, pp. 277-288.

13. Maxwell, p. 206.

14. Cook, p. 91.

15. Cook, p. 92.

16. Maxwell, p. 201.

17. Cook, p. 84.