A Poet is a verse-maker who lives by acquiring the support (and therefore money) of rich men whom he praises in his poems.
Somewhat wiser to the ways of the world than his companion crawler the Painter, he attempts to warn Timon of the possibility that his luck might not hold and that his so-call friends are not true ones. Affected and afflicted by false modesty, he pretends not to work at his poetry and that what he produces is merely trifles, though he clearly hopes they will be taken otherwise. The moment he hears that the ruined Timon has found gold, he runs to try his old tricks and get some money off of him, hypocritically swearing that he has come to visit simply out of friendship – with unexpected results, though he does get some gold out of it.
