[Jimbee (OP)]

"'Tis not enough to give.
Methinks I could deal kingdoms to my friends
And ne'er be weary. Alcibiades,
Thou art a soldier, therefore seldom rich.
It comes in charity to thee, for all thy living
Is 'mongst the dead, and all the lands thou hast
Lie in a pitched field."

-Timon of Athens,
Act I, Scene 2.

I first heard of the Shakespeare play "Timon of Athens" around 2000. It is one of his lesser know works. I have taken an interest lately in studying it and reading about it. In this scene from the play, Timon is getting in trouble with his advisors for overspending. But what is too much, he asks? He's rich, so it'd be kingdoms probably. Alcibiades, a general, is an honored guest too. But Alcibiades feels cheapened, because the rich people paid for his battlefields.

Timon goes on, that even for his esteemed guests that would be charity in its purest form, for Alcibiades. Because he's still a soldier and seldom rich. Alcibiades accepts his gift of money, but adds with irony that his pitched fields are not just tainted with death, but tainted because rich people paid for them. (A pun on "defiled = death" and Shakespeare was referring to Ecclesiasticus 13:1 because pitched in Shakespeare's time also meant standing in a row, i.e., troops).

So I am still a little confused by that last time. Did he mean his battlefields are tainted by rich people's money because someone else paid for them, or because Timon did? Or is it a warning to Timon? Because all the other guests at his banquet are just sycophants?

I will go by anyone's knowledge of Shakespeare here for this quote. But people often take a different, or even their own, interpretation of Shakespeare. So I may go with that too.

BTW, here is an excerpt for this quote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQCTxRfIvwk&t=1730s

[alancalverd]

Three important points here.

1. Wars are not started for the benefit of the combatants but for the glorification of scum like priests and politicians. So the attacking force is right to feel cheapened at best and damned to eternal hell at worst.

2. Maimonides defined levels of charity, the highest being where the giver and receiver do not know each other's identity. Which is why tax-funded health services are either the expression of the finest human behavior or a zionist plot to undermine the finance industry.

3. But a fully funded defensive and maybe retaliatory force is essential  for the preservation of whatever it is defending, and if that territory has a sound moral basis, is essential for the preservation of civilised values. You can run it on a "people's army" basis or on sworn loyalty to the head of state. The latter is constitutionally simpler and entirely acceptable if the money comes from general taxation via a democratic government. Things only get contentious where an action is privately funded or farmed out to an unaccountable contractor.

[Petrochemicals]

Poetic forboding possibly, disguised as chit chat, or some other device to advance the story. Basically saying he is a receiver of money and not rich, he doesn't do parties and any land he possesses is due to it being a battle.

Maybe it's an Ides moment.