Note 134 — Chapter XI

"Comedia de Timone per el Magnifico Conte Matheo Maria Boyardo Conte de Scandiano traducta de uno Dialogo de Luciano. Stampata in Venetia per Georgio di Rusconi Milanese, del MDXVIII. adì iii di Decembre." From the play itself we learn that it must have been represented on a double stage, a lower one standing for earth and a higher one for heaven. The first three acts consist chiefly of soliloquies by Timon and conversations with celestial personages—Jove, Mercury, Wealth, Poverty. In the fourth act we are introduced to characters of Athenians—Gnatonide, Phylade, Demea, Trasycle, who serve to bring Timone's misanthropy into relief; and the fifth act brings two slaves, Syro and Parmeno, upon the scene, with a kind of underplot which is not solved at the close of the play. The whole piece must be regarded rather as a Morality than a Comedy, and the characters are allegories or types more than living persons.