Mojo, The Bard, & Me

 

If thou wert the wolf, thy greediness would afflict thee, and oft thou shouldst hazard thy life for thy dinner: wert thou the unicorn, pride and wrath would confound thee, and make thine own self the conquest of thy fury:

 

-Timon

Timon Of Athens                   Act IV, Scene iii, Line 335

 

And he goes on. If thou wert the bear, the horse, the leopard, and so on. Timon is talking to Apemantus. The latter has come to Timon’s cave, mostly to harass him, and the two are trading insults. When Timon asks him what he would do with the world if he had the power, Apemantus says that he would give it back to the beasts. Timon replies that then Apemantus would have to be one of the beasts and he goes through a list of beasts that Apemantus might be. Timon ends the litany with a question:

 

What beast couldst thou be, that were not subject to a beast? And what a beast art thou already, that seest not thy loss in transformation?

 

There’s a lot to unpack there, and we could spend the day talking about just those two lines alone. But as enjoyable, and perhaps enlightening, as that would be, alas we won’t. Suffice it to say that these are a couple of really bitter old men. I guess there’s a lot of old people who are bitter like this. And that’s a pity. Not that I’m bitter like this, because I’m not, but I wonder if the beasts of this world will get to live without man again. In truth, looking at what mankind has done to the world, I think they might just be a little better off. Ahh, good ol’ Timon.

I bet that these guys wouldn't miss us.