In a direct address to gold, the eponymous hero of William Shakespeare's The Life of Timon of Athens (1623) derides the ability of money to invert natural hierarchies. According to Timon, gold makes “black white, foul fair,/ Wrong right, base noble, old young, coward valiant” and thus unduly influences men (4.3.29–30). Indeed, by act 4 of the play, the greed of his fellow Athenians has rendered the wealthy and generous Timon misanthropic and broke. Timon concludes his tirade with a vow concerning gold and its source, the earth:

Come, damned earth,

Thou common whore of mankind, that puts odds

Among the rout of nations; I will make thee

Do thy right nature. (4.3.42–45; my italics)

Through “odds,” Timon invokes gambling in a speech that asserts his superiority to his fellows. Other Athenians might succumb to money's unnatural influence, but Timon can use money to restore the natural order. Timon's pose is in line with the ways gambling in the early modern period has been shown to serve the construction of a masculine self. By fashioning himself a “Gamester”—a figure that gained prominence from the Stuart period onward and may be defined as a “dedicated, habitual gambler”—Timon can associate himself with lower class people and pastimes while maintaining and even reaffirming his superior status.

To place too great a focus on a gamester's socioeconomic motivations for gambling, however, neglects the extent of the gendered stakes of gambling in Shakespeare’s plays.