Update: reread this again in 2023 (*watched the Stratford, Ontario Theatre production—excellent!—with copy of the play in hand, reading along. I know. I’m a geek). The sharp tongue of Timon in his sarky accusations takes the cake, baby. This one still sits like an overlooked gem on a dusty shelf.

It’s hard to love a depressing and hopeless kind of story, and this is one of those. 

Another problem play here. It is most certainly a pitiable tragedy, but in places appears to have a satirical glimmer. I can’t see it being satire overall and throughout, as the irony is delivered in invective, the sharpest cutting sarcasm, bitter and unforgiving. There is no room for redemption within the story for characters through understanding of the irony—only destruction and hatred for all. The play seems to be warning against … against…? The enticement of wealth? The falsehood of a rich man’s friends? Does the play suggest that all friends of a rich man are not true friends—that they’re either jealous or pandering or contemptuous? And does a rich man need more wisdom in choosing friends than a poor man? The warning that unchecked generosity to one’s friends ends in greed, betrayal and disaster is loud and clear—but then Timon impoverished becomes a deranged misanthropist full of hatred and lacking an ounce of forgiveness. It brings to mind a sharp contrast of character with another entity who is loved when richly generous and hated when poor: God as King of heaven and as Christ on earth. I’m not sure Shakespeare meant the comparison, but it is clear to me that man is portrayed as incapable of responding in endless forgiving generosity the same way God is—because his wealth runs dry if he attempts to over-give pretending himself to be God-like in the power of his riches, and with the waning wealth also ebbs his sense of charity and capacity for unconditional love.

There is great insight as to the play’s ‘moral’ at the centre as delivered by Flavius, Timon’s Chief Servant:

‘O, the fierce wretchedness that glory brings us!

Who would not wish to be from wealth exempt,

Since riches point to misery and contempt?

Who would be so mock'd with glory? or to live

But in a dream of friendship? 

To have his pomp and all what state compounds

But only painted, like his varnish'd friends?

Poor honest lord, brought low by his own heart,

Undone by goodness! Strange, unusual blood,

When man's worst sin is, he does too much good! 

Who, then, dares to be half so kind again?

My dearest lord, bless'd, to be most accursed,

Rich, only to be wretched, thy great fortunes

Are made thy chief afflictions.’

(Highlight mine) For all characters in this play the lesson is heavy: look to God for your bounty, recognise it all comes from him, give as if giving back to God, and don’t let money be the reason for nor barometer in your friendships.

A difficult play to ‘enjoy’ but certainly a warning message needing repeated: Love not wealth nor those who crave it, for such a twisted love will be the destruction of your heart and the deterioration of your soul.

Mm. Didn’t love it, but sure glad I read it.