The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare

As to rejoice at friends but newly found. Prin. I understand you not: my griefs are double.

Biron. Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief;

eye

And by these badges understand the king.
For your fair sakes have we neglected time,
Play'd foul play with our oaths; your beauty, ladies,
Hath much deform'd us, fashioning our humours
Even to the opposed end of our intents:
And what in us hath seem'd ridiculous,—
As love is full of unbefitting strains;
All wanton as a child, skipping, and vain;
Form'd by the eye, and, therefore, like the
Full of strange shapes, of habits, and of forms,
Varying in subjects as the eye doth roll
To every varied object in his glance:
Which party-coated presence of loose love
Put on by us, if, in your heavenly eyes,
Have misbecom'd our oaths and gravities,
Those heavenly eyes, that look into these faults,
Suggested us to make: Therefore, ladies,
Our love being yours, the error that love makes
Is likewise yours: we to ourselves prove false,
By being once false for ever to be true
To those that make us both :-fair ladies, you:
And even that falsehood, in itself a sin
Thus purifies itself, and turns to grace.

Biron. And what to me, my love? and what to me?

Ros. You must be purged too, your sins are rank; You are attaint with faults and perjury; Therefore, if you my favour mean to get, A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest, But seek the weary beds of people sick.

Dum. But what to me, my love? but what to me? Kath. A wife!-A beard, fair health, and honesty;

With three-fold love I wish you all these three.
Dum. O, shall I say, I thank you, gentle wife?
Kath. Not so, my lord;-a twelvemont and a
day

I'll mark no words that smooth-fac'd wooers say,
Come when the king doth to my lady come,
Then, if I have much love, I'll give you some.
Dum. I'll serve thee true and faithfully till then.
Kath. Yet swear not, lest you be forsworn again.
Long. What says Maria?

Mar.

At the twelvemonth's end,
I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend.
Long. I'll stay with patience; but the time is
long.

Mar. The liker you; few taller are so young.
Biron. Studies my lady? mistress, look on me,
Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,
What humble suit attends thy answer there;

Prin. We have receiv'd your letters full of love; Impose some service on me for thy love.

Your favours the embassadors of love;
And, in our maiden council, rated them
At courtship, pleasant jest, and courtesy,
As bombast, and as lining to the time:
But more devout than this, in our respects,

Have we not been; and therefore met your loves
In their own fashion, like a merriment.

Dum. Our letters, madam, show'd much more than jest.

Long. So did our looks. Ros. We did not quote? them so. King. Now, at the latest minute of the hour, Grant us your loves.

Prin. A time, methinks, too short To make a world-without-end bargain in : No, no, my lord, your grace is perjur'd much, Full of dear guiltiness; and, therefore this,If for my love (as there is no such cause) You will do aught, this shall you do for me: Your oath I will not trust; but go with speed To some forlorn and naked hermitage, Remote from all the pleasures of the world; There stay until the twelve celestial signs Have brought about their annual reckoning; If this austere insociable life

Change not your offer made in heat of blood;

Ros. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Birón, Before I saw you: and the world's large tongue Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks; Full of comparisons and wounding flouts; Which you on all estates will execute, That lie within the mercy of your wit: To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain; And, therewithal, to win me, if you please, (Without the which I am not to be won,) You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day Visit the speechless sick, and still converse With groaning wretches; and your task shall be, With all the fierce endeavour of your wit, To enforce the pained impotent to smile.

Biron. To move wild laughter in the throat of death?

It cannot be; it is impossible:
Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.

Ros. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit,
Whose influence is begot of that loose grace,
Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools:
A jest's prosperity lies in the ear

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it: then, if sickly ears,
Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear

groans,

If frosts, and fasts, hard lodging, and thin weeds,3|| Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,

Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,
But that it bear this trial, and last love:
Then, at the expiration of the year,

Come challenge, challenge me by these deserts,
And, by this virgin palm now kissing thine,
I will be thine; and till that instant, shut
My woful self up in a mourning house;
Raining the tears of lamentation,
For the remembrance of my father's death.
If this thou do deny, let our hands part;
Neither intitled in the other's heart."

King. If this, or more than this, I would deny, To flatter up these powers of mine with rest, The sudden hand of death close up mine eye! Hence ever then my heart is in thy breast.

And I will have you, and that fault withal;
But, if they will not, throw away that spirit,
And I shall find you empty of that fault,
Right joyful of your reformation.

Biron. A twelvemonth? well, befall what will befall,

I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital. Prin. Ay, sweet my lord; and so I take my leave. [To the King. King. No, madam: we will bring you on your

And then 'twill end.

Biron.

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.

That's too long for a play.
Enter Armado.

Arm. Sweet majesty, vouchsafe me,→→
Prin. Was not that Hector?

Dum. The worthy knight of Troy.

Arm. I will kiss thy royal finger, and take Winter.
leave: I am a votary; I have vowed to Jaquenetta
to hold the plough for her sweet love three years.
But, most esteemed greatness, will you hear the
dialogue that the two learned men have compiled,
in praise of the owl and the cuckoo? It should
have followed in the end of our show.

King. Call them forth quickly, we will do so.
Arm. Holla! approach.-

Enter Holofernes, Nathaniel, Moth, Costard, and
others.

This side is Hiems, winter; this Ver, the spring; the one maintain'd by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin.

SONG.

Spring. When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,

Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo;

Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!

II.

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen's
clocks,

When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer
smocks,

(1) Cool. (2) Wild apples.

Act V.

The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo;

Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!

III.

When icicles hang by the wall,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-who;

Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

IV.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,

And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,

And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs? hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-who;

Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

Arm. The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo.-You, that way; we, this way. [Exeunt.

In this play, which all the editors have concur. thy of our poet, it must be confessed that there are red to censure, and some have rejected as unworsome which ought not to have been exhibited, as many passages mean, childish, and vulgar: and we are told they were, to a maiden queen. But there are scattered through the whole many sparks of genius; nor is there any play that has more evident marks of the hand of Shakspeare.

JOHNSON.

ACT I.

That such a thing, bechanc'd, would make me sad?

SCENE I-Venice. A street. Enter Antonio, But, tell not me; I know, Antonio

Salarino, and Salanio.

Antonio.

IN sooth, I know not why I am so sad ;
It wearies me; you say, it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn;

And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself.

Salar. Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
There, where your argosies! with portly sail,-
Like signiors and rich burghers of the flood,
Or, as it were the pageants of the sea,→→→
Do overpeer the petty traffickers,
That curt'sy to them, do them reverence,
As they fly by them with their woven wings.
Salan. Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth,
The better part of my affections would
Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still
Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind;
Peering in maps, for ports, and piers, and roads;
And every object, that might make me fear
Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt,
Would make me sad.

Salar.
My wind, cooling my broth,
Would blow me to an ague, when I thought
What harm a wind too great might do at sea.
I should not see the sandy hour-glass run,
But I should think of shallows and of flats;
And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand,
Vailing2 her high-top lower than her ribs,
To kiss her burial. Should I go to church,
And see the holy edifice of stone,

And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks?
Which touching but my gentle vessel's side,
Would scatter all her spices on the stream;
Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks;
And, in a word, but even now worth this,
And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought
To think on this; and shall I lack the thought,

(1) Ships of large burthen. (2) Lowering.

Is sad to think upon his merchandise.

Ant. Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for it,
My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,
Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate
Upon the fortune of this present year:
Therefore, my merchandise makes me not sad.
Salan. Why then you are in love.
Ant.
Fie, fie!
Salan. Not in love neither? Then let's say, you
are sad,

Because you are not merry
For you to laugh, and leap,
Because you are not sad.
Janus,

and 'twere as easy and say, you are merry, Now, by two-headed

Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time:
Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,
And laugh, like parrots, at a bag-piper;
And other of such vinegar aspect,
That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile,
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.

Enter Bassanio, Lorenzo, and Gratiano. Salan. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman,

Gratiano, and Lorenzo: Fare you well;
We leave you now with better company.
Salar. I would have staid till I had made you

merry,

If worthier friends had not prevented me.
Ant. Your worth is very dear in my regard.
I take it, your own business calls on you,
And you embrace the occasion to depart.
Sular. Good morrow, my good lords.
Bass. Good signiors both, when shall we laugh?
Say, when?

You grow exceeding strange: Must it be so?
Salar. We'll make our leisures to attend on
yours. [Exeunt Salarino and Salanio.
Lor. My lord Bassanio, since you have found
Antonio,

We two will leave you: but, at dinner-time,
I pray you, have in mind where we must meet.
Bass. I will not fail you.

Gra. You look not well, signior Antonio; You have too much respect upon the world: They lose it, that do buy it with much care. Believe me, you are marvellously chang'd.

Ant. I hold the world but as the world, Gra-
tiano;

A stage, where every man must play a part,
And mine a sad one.

Gra.
Let me play the fool:
With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come;
And let my liver rather heat with wine,
Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
Why should a man, whose blood is warm within,
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?
Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the jaundice
By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio,-
I love thee, and it is my love that speaks;-
There are a sort of men, whose visages
Do cream and mantle, like a standing pond;
And do a wilful stillness! entertain,
With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion
Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit;
As who should say, I am sir Oracle,
And, when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!
O, my Antonio, I do know of these,
That therefore only are reputed wise,
For saying nothing; who, I am very sure,

If they should speak, would almost damn those ears,
Which, hearing them, would call their brothers,
fools.

I'll tell thee more of this another time:
But fish not with this melancholy bait,
For this fool's gudgeon, this opinion.—
Come, good Lorenzo:-Fare ye well, a while;
I'll end my exhortation after dinner.

Lor. Well, we will leave you then till dinner-
time:

I must be one of these same dumb wise men,
For Gratiano never lets me speak.

Gra. Well, keep me company but two years

more,

Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue.

Ant. Farewell: I'll grow a talker for this gear. Gra. Thanks, i'faith; for silence is only commendable

In a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not vendible. [Exeunt Gratiano and Lorenzo.

Ant. Is that any thing now?
Bass. Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing,
more than any man in all Venice His reasons are
as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff;
you shall seek all day ere you find them; and, when
you have them, they are not worth the search.

Ant. Well; tell me now, what lady is this same
To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,
That you to-day promis'd to tell me of?

Bass. 'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,
How much I have disabled mine estate,
By something showing a more swelling port
Than my faint means would grant continuance :
Nor do I now make moan to be abridg'd
From such a noble rate; but my chief care
Is, to come fairly off from the great debts,
Wherein my time, something too prodigal,
Hath left me gaged: To you, Antonio,
I owe the most, in money, and in love;
And from your love I have a warranty
To unburthen all my plots and purposes,
How to get clear of all the debts I owe.

Within the eye of honour, be assur'd,
My purse, my person, my extremest means,
Lie all unlock'd to your occasions.

Bass. In my school-days, when I had lost one
shaft,

I shot his fellow of the self-same flight
The self-same way, with more advised watch,
To find the other forth; and by advent'ring both,
I oft found both: I urge this childhood proof,
Because what follows is pure innocence.
I owe you much; and, like a wilful youth,
That which I owe is lost: but if you please
To shoot another arrow that self way
Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,
As I will watch the aim, or to find both,
Or bring your latter hazard back again,
And thankfully rest debtor for the first.

Ant. You know me well; and herein spend but
time,

To wind about my love with circumstance;
And, out of doubt, you do me now more wrong,
In making question of my uttermost,
Than if you had made waste of all I have:
Then do but say to me what I should do,
That in your knowledge may by me be done,
And I am prest? unto it: therefore, speak.

Bass. In Belmont is a lady richly left,
And she is fair, and, fairer than that word,
Of wondrous virtues : sometimes from her eyes
I did receive fair speechless messages:
Her name is Portia; nothing undervalued
To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia.
Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth;
For the four winds blow in from every coast
Renowned suitors: and her sunny locks
Hang on her temples like a golden fleece;
Which makes her seat of Belmont, Colchos' strand,
And many Jasons come in quest of her.
O my Antonio, had I but the means
To hold a rival place with one of them,
I have a mind presages me such thrift,
That I should questionless be fortunate.

Ant. Thou know'st, that all my fortunes are at

sea;

Nor have I money, nor commodity
To raise a present sum: therefore go forth,
Try what my credit can in Venice do;
That shall be rack'd, even to the uttermost,
To furnish thee to Belmont, to fair Portia.
Go, presently inquire, and so will I,
Where money is; and I no question make,
To have it of my trust, or for my sake. [Exeunt.
SCENE II-Belmont. A room in Portia's
house. Enter Portia and Nerissa.

Por. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world.

Ner. You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same abundance as your good fortunes are: And, yet, for aught I see, they are as sick, that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing: It is no mean happiness therefore, to be seated in the mean; superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.

Por. Good sentences, and well pronounced. Ner. They would be better, if well followed. Por. If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages, princes' palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach

Ant. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it; twenty what were good to be done, than be one of

And, if it stand, as you yourself still do,

(1) Obstinate silence.

(2) Ready.

the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain

(3) Formerly.

Scene III.

MERCHANT OF VENICE.

may devise laws for the blood; but a hot tempera beast: an the worst fall that ever fell, I hope, I
leaps over a cold decree: such a hare is madness shall make shift to go without him.
Ner. If he should offer to choose, and choose
the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel
the cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion the right casket, you should refuse to perform your
to choose me a husband:-O me, the word choose! father's will, if you should refuse to accept him.
Por. Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray
may neither choose whom I would, nor refuse
whom I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter thee, set a deep glass of Rhenish wine on the con-
curb'd by the will of a dead father :-Is it not hard,trary casket: for, if the devil be within, and that
Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refuse none? temptation without, I know he will choose it. I
Ner. Your father was ever virtuous; and holy will do any thing, Nerissa, ere I will be married to
men, at their death, have good inspirations; there-a spunge.
fore, the lottery, that he hath devised in these three
chests, of gold, silver, and lead, (whereof who
chooses his meaning, chooses you,) will, no doubt,
never be chosen by any rightly, but one who you
shall rightly love. But what warmth is there in
any of these princely suitors
your affection towards
that are already come?

Pur. I pray thee, over-name them; and as thou namest them, I will describe them; and, according to my description, level at my affection.

Ner. You need not fear, lady, the having any of these lords; they have acquainted me with their determinations: which is, indeed, to return to their home, and to trouble you with no more suit; unless you may be won by some other sort than your father's imposition, depending on the caskets.

Por. If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner of my father's will: I am glad this parcel of wooers are so reasonable; for there is not one among them but I dote on his very absence; and I no-pray God grant them a fair departure.

Ner. First, there is the Neapolitan prince. Por. Ay, that's a colt, indeed, for he doth thing but talk of his horse: and he makes it a great appropriation to his own good parts, that he can shoe him himself: I am much afraid, my lady, his mother played false with a smith.

Ner. Then is there the county2 Palatine. Por. He does nothing but frown; as who should say, An if you will not have me, choose: he hears merry tales, and smiles not: I fear, he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old, being so full of unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather be married to a death's head with a bone in his mouth, than to either of these. God defend me from these two!

Ner. How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon ?

Ner. Do you not remember, lady, in your father's time, a Venetian, a scholar, and a soldier, that came hither in company of the Marquis of Montferrat?

Por. Yes, yes, it was Bassanio; as I think, so was he called.

Ner. True, madam; he, of all the men that ever my foolish eyes looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady.

Por. I remember him well; and I remember him worthy of thy praise.-How now! what news? Enter a Servant.

Serv. The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take their leave: and there is a forerunner come from a fifth, the prince of Morocco; who brings word, the prince, his master, will be here to-night.

Por. God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. In truth, know it is a sin to be a Por. If I could bid the fifth welcome with so mocker: But, he! why, he hath a horse better than the Neapolitan's; a better bad habit of frowning good heart as I can bid the other four farewell, I than the count Palatine: he is every man in no should be glad of his approach: if he have the man: if a throstle sing, he falls straight a caper-condition of a saint, and the complexion of a devil, ing; he will fence with his own shadow: if I should marry him, I should marry twenty husbands: If he would despise me, I would forgive him; for if he love me to madness, I shall never requite him. Ner. What say you then to Falconbridge, the young baron of England?

Por. You know, I say nothing to him; for he understands not me, nor I him: he hath neither Latin, French, nor Italian; and you will come into the court and swear, that I have a poor penny-worth in the English. He is a proper man's picture; But, alas! who can converse with a dumb show? How oddly he is suited! I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour every where. Ner. What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour?

Por. That he hath a neighbourly charity in him; for he borrowed a box of the ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay him again, when he was able: I think the Frenchman became his surety, and sealed under for another.

Ner. How like you the young German, the duke of Saxony's nephew?

I had rather he should shrive me than wive me.
Come, Nerissa.-Sirrah, go before.-Whiles we
[Exeunt.
shut the gate upon one wooer, another knocks at
the door.
SCENE III-Venice. A public place. Enter
Bassanio and Shylock.

Shy. Three thousand ducats,-well.
Bass. Ay, sir, for three months.
Shy. For three months,--well.

Bass. For the which, as I told you, Antonio shall be bound.

Shy. Antonio shall become bound,-well. Bass. May you stead me? Will you pleasure me? Shall I know your answer?

Shy. Three thousand ducats, for three months, and Antonio bound.

Bass. Your answer to that.
Shy. Antonio is a good man.
Bass. Have you heard any imputation to the
contrary?

Shy. Ho, no, no, no, no ;-my meaning, in say. ing he is a good man, is to have you understand me, that he is sufficient: yet his means are in supPor. Very vilely in the morning, when he is so-position: he hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, ber; and most vilely in the afternoon, when he is another to the Indies; I understand moreover upon drunk when he is best, he is a little worse than a the Rialto, he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for man; and when he is worst, he is little better than England,and other ventures he hath, squan(3) Temper, qualities. (2) Count. 2 A

(1) A heady, gay youngster.

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The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare: Accurately Printed from ..., Volume 1