But the conversion of the Dialogue into a strictly dramatic form gave him opportunity for large insertions .sx We get a short Prologue and a long Argument both delivered by `Lucian,' a definite division of Lucian's continuous narrative without time-intervals into four Acts separated by three nights , consequent original speeches by Timon at the beginning or end of some of these , and finally , after a fourth night , an entirely new fifth Act by Boiardo , introducing two more characters and supplying a conclusion to a story which Lucian left unfinished .sx D'Ancona , who sketches the piece , classes it among those secular plays containing mythological and allegorical figures Politian's Orfeo 1471 , Nicolo da Correggio's Cefalo 1486 transition pieces to the Commedia erudita from the Sacre Rappresentazioni , a form to which the Greek dialogue with its scenes on Olympus as well as on the earth admirably adapts itself .sx As in the Orfeo there was a double stage , showing however not earth and hell , but earth and heaven ; in the latter of which Jupiter conferred with Mercury and Wealth , while Timon and the other human characters occupied the lower stage .sx An often-mentioned monte would represent Mt Hymettus , and afford Mercury and Wealth a means of transit to the earth .sx The Acts are divided into scenes indicated throughout by short prose stage directions .sx Shakespeare's own scheme was independent and markedly different :sx nevertheless his play exhibits distinct traces , both in language arid treatment , of Boiardo's , from which I take it he also derived all his Lucianic matter .sx The Prologue of 24 lines , spoken by `Lucian,' says `it is Ercole's graciousness that has turned him from a Greek into an Italian and sent him to afford the audience delight .sx ' From his further Argument of 62 lines , equally absent from the Greek text , we learn that Timon's father Echecratides , though gently born , spent his life in amassing wealth by usury , lived poorly , and died leaving his son hardly out of boyhood and utterly ignorant of the value of money .sx A career of extravagance , with gifts of palaces , villas and lands to this one and that , has reduced the heir to poverty unawares ; and mockery and repulse by those he had enriched have driven him to labour for a scanty subsistence , his heart filled with rage against men and blasphemy of gods who , out of a regard for sporadic virtue , omit to efface a wicked world .sx I quote a few lines from this , the .sx only clear statement of Timon's wealthy days open to Shakespeare .sx The piece is in terza rima throughout .sx Lucian retires as Timon enters and begins digging .sx Presently , sus-pending his task , the misanthrope turns his face heavenwards and de-claims against Jupiter , following the Greek closely without addition of consequence .sx Then `the curtains of heaven open,' and Jove and Mercury are discovered ; but again their colloquy follows the Greek closely to the end of Lucian's c. 11 , the next addition of importance being Boiardo's fourth scene , a short soliloquy of 19 lines for Timon ere he retires to rest , showing alike the scholar and the poet , and suggestive for Shakespeare's play .sx He passes to the hillside ; the curtains close , and the first Act is over .sx Only the last two Acts of Timon of Athens correspond to the action presented in Lucian and Boiardo .sx In the first scene of Act IV Timon , quitting Athens , pronounces his heavy curse upon the city .sx Its sustained invective differentiates it from the pathetic lines just quoted ; but it affords at least one marked parallel to them in .sx Boiardo's second Act reproduces Lucian's cc .sx 11-30 , the speakers being Jupiter and Wealth , and afterwards Wealth and Mercury on their way to earth .sx Shakespeare's play dispenses altogether with these mythological and allegorical characters , and affords no distinct reminiscences of Wealth's speeches .sx But Boiardo's third Act begins with another 12 lines inserted for Timon as he resumes work , which are again significant :sx Characters in Menandrian comedy were wont to reproach the sterility of the soil of Attica , and , in Lucian , Wealth as they approach hears the clank of Timon's mattock against the stones ; but his dialogue has no word any-where of poison .sx Yet in Shakespeare , as Timon begins digging , we get an aspiration not unlike Boiardo's , though it might be a mere coincidence :sx and , later , the invocation :sx Shakespeare , of course , omits the long colloquy on the god's arrival ( Luc .sx cc .sx 31-41 ) , making Timon's speech on entry ( Boiardo , Act III , Sc .sx i , just given ) one with that in which he finds the gold ( Boiardo , Act III , Sc .sx iv ) ; and further he deletes entirely that note of exultation at the discovery which appears in the Greek and the Italian .sx There the misanthrope digs eagerly to unearth the just-promised hoard :sx in Shakespeare ( Act IV , Sc .sx iii ) he begins to dig solely for roots to eat ; and the trouvaille , though it astonishes him and suggests the first of the grand passages on gold as the great enemy of mankind , is received at first with a profound indifference :sx Two points here crave a mention .sx In Lucian , cc .sx 29-30 , we had Hermes exclaiming that they had forgotten to bring Treasure , and Wealth replying that it was hidden underground .sx But , in Boiardo , Hermes' simple exclamation is amplified thus :sx Is not this the origin of Shakespeare's expressions italicised just above ?sx As for `Do thy right nature,' it would accord with Timon's personal in-difference to the gold to interpret it of yielding food for man , i.e. , the roots he is seeking :sx but his preceding thought has just suggested the grand mischief as the instrument of his vengeance , and he digs now to unearth it .sx This , indeed , is the use to which he straightway puts it , and for no other purpose does he value it at all .sx Hence , too , his instinctive hiding of it at the first sound of the drum .sx In Lucian , though he is over-joyed at the discovery and talks of building a tower for it and himself , he makes no attempt to hide it , perhaps has not time :sx the first of his visitors , ( Gnathonides , even proposes that some of it will make a good salve for the wound Timon has just given him .sx In Boiardo there are no visitors on the .sx heels of the discovery , and Act in closes with Timon's exit , for the purpose of finding a hiding-place :sx The night gone , Boiardo's fourth Act opens with an original address of 46 lines to the audience by a new allegorical figure ` Fama,' swifter than wind , lightning or wild beast , who , after assuring the ladies she is not going to divulge their secrets and is well aware how ill men treat them , announces that she has spread the news of Timon's find in Athens ; and his hope of gloating over the gold in solitude is likely to be disappointed , for people flock to gold like flies to warm milk .sx Shakespeare has additional reason for deleting Fame ( with all Lucian's allegorical figures ) in that he has already had Rumour prologising in II Hen .sx IV :sx he allows the reader to imagine the report spread by Alcibiades and the women .sx Boiardo continues with a long speech of seventy lines for Timon , the first fifty-four of which , save a hint or two from Wealth's previous speeches , are wholly unrepresented in Lucian .sx Timon begins to feel his new wealth a burden , and himself a slave to its preservation .sx Speculating where to hide it , his eye falls on the tomb of one Timocrates , buried hard by ten years before .sx Men's superstitious dread of violating a grave will make that a safe repository for his treasure .sx As he groans over the task of re-moving the heavy stone which covers it , he reflects on the toil already spent in finding and securing his rich urn , on the agitation it has caused him since , on the exhausting effort now required to place it once more in hiding .sx He will make it sure , however , depositing it at the very bottom .sx To his amazement he finds , within , two more urns filled with coin .sx Does Timocrates still pursue among the dead that life of avarice and extortion which he followed when alive ?sx His son and heir Philocorus lies in prison for debt , and begs 'un soldo' from this man and that .sx Well , let him bear his fate , or a worse :sx Timon shall be the heir of Timocrates .sx The difference here from Shakespeare's treatment is so crucial that we must quote the passage which exhibits it :sx At the moment of this iniquitous decision ( resuming Lucian , c. 45 ) Timon catches sight of men approaching , and the blood leaves his heart .sx The rest of Boiardo's fourth Act is occupied by the successive interviews with Gnathonides , Philiades , Demeas and Thrasycles , all slightly developed from Lucian's cc .sx 46-57 , containing of course the mention of a dithyrambic ode which suggests Shakespeare's Poet , and Demeas' amusing invention of Timon's athletic and military prowess of which we spoke on p. 54 .sx In Shakespeare the place of Thrasycles the philosopher is taken , less amusingly , by cynic Apemantus ; but we may observe that while Lucian's Thrasycles protests his diet is barley-cake , thyme or cress with salt .sx as a luxury ( ) , .sx Boiardo's says ',' which roots are eaten not only by Shakespeare's Timon but by Apemantus at the banquet ( Act I , Sc .sx ii , 73) .sx On the approach of the last batch of visitors , where Lucian's Timon ascends the rock , Boiardo's climbs upon the roof of his hut as a vantage for his missiles ; and , having rid himself of the intruders , turns again to his night's rest .sx Here , with the end of Boiardo's fourth Act , we are at the end of Lucian's dialogue ; so that the Italian's fifth Act is wholly new , though heralded by his previous allusion to dead Timocrates and his imprisoned son Philocorus , and coloured in manner and matter by Plautus .sx We do not , however , part company with Timon ; and this last Act , pure Boiardo , is perhaps more suggestive than any for my thesis .sx It opens with 79 lines spoken by `Lo Auxilio' ( Help ) as in the prologue by `Auxilium' in Plautus' Cistellaria , Act I , Sc .sx iii .sx He points out Timon's mistake inaffecting solitude and complete independence :sx every man , great or small , poor or rich , needs Help at times .sx He has not come , however , to utter platitudes , but to assist the audience by telling them that old Timocrates , foreseeing his son Philocorus' extravagance , reserved most of his property hidden in his tomb , arranging for his own interment by night without lights , and exacting from his son a pledge that after ten years he would visit the tomb , carrying with him a sealed letter , which , having there read it , he is to place beneath his father's head .sx The ten years have now elapsed ; and Philocorus , detained in prison yet mindful of his promise , sends his servant 'or rather his freedman' to the tomb , with the letter yet unopened .sx Auxilio here retires :sx and Timon acquaints us that , after another sleepless night , he has fallen asleep at morn to dream that two ants were busy about his treasure with predatory intent .sx He will kill all ants that he finds at work but the approach of two visitors , small and brown , with the stealthy gait of foxes , suggests a better explanation .sx In the freedman Parmeno we get the first suggestion for the faithful steward , due probably to Stasimus , Lysiteles' servant in the Trinummus , where there is a treasure similarly hidden by an absent father to protect it from his extravagant son .sx Parmeno on his way to the tomb is talking with a slave-friend named Syrus :sx The reader notes the introduction in Philocorus of a parallel case to Timon's , to which Boiardo gives a different issue .sx This is the modified anticipation of the second contrast , between Alcibiades and Timon , alluded to above .sx Questioned about his present errand , Parmeno mentions the sealed letter , which he is too scrupulous to open since it is ad-dressed to Pluto .sx But Syrus , on pretence of looking at the superscription , breaks the seal , and finds Timocrates' announcement of the treasure in reserve , with a charge to Philocorus to govern his life better .sx They approach the misanthrope , hoping he hasn't forestalled them .sx