THE JEW'S COMMANDS TO HIS daughter. Lock up my doors; and when you hear the drum, And the vile squeaking of the wry-neck'd fife, Clamber not you up to the casements then, Nor thrust your head into the public street, To gaze on Christian fools with varnish'd faces: But stop my house's ears, I mean my casements; Let not the sound of shallow foppery enter My sober house. POSSESSION MORE LANGUID THAN EXPECTATION. O, ten times faster Venus' pigeons fly To seal love's bonds new made, than they are wont, To keep obliged faith unforfeited! Who riseth from a feast, With that keen appetite that he sits down? The scarfed bark puts from her native bay, PORTIA'S SUITORS. From the four corners of the earth they come, To kiss this shrine, this mortal breathing saint. The Hyrcanian deserts, and the vasty wilds Of wide Arabia, are as through-fares now, For princes to come view fair Portia : * Decorated with flags. The watery kingdom, whose ambitious head THE PARTING OF FRIENDS. I saw Bassanio and Antonio part: He wrung Bassanio's hand, and so they parted. HONOUR TO BE CONFERRED ON MERIT ONLY. For who shall go about To cozen fortune, and be honourable Without the stamp of merit! Let none presume To wear an undeserved dignity. O, that estates, degrees, and offices, Were not deriv'd corruptly! and that clear honour To be new varnish'd? * To slubber, is to do a thing carelessly. Shows, tokens. LOVE'S MESSENGER COMPARED TO AN APRIL DAY. I have not seen So likely an embassador of love: A day in April never came so sweet, ACT III. THE JEW'S Revenge. If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered me of half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? if you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? revenge: if a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? why, revenge. The villany, you teach me, I will execute: and it shall go hard, but I will better the instruction. if MUSIC. Let music sound, while he doth make his choice; Then, if he lose, he makes a swanlike end, May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream, THE DECEIT OF ORNAMENT OR APPEARANCES. * Dignity of mien Look on beauty, + Winning favour, And you shall see 'tis purchas'd by the weights; To be the dowry of a second head, The skull that bred them, in the sepulchre. The seeming truth which cunning times put on PORTIA'S PICTURE. What find I here? [Opening the leaden casket. Fair Portia's counterfeit? What demigod Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes! Or whether, riding on the balls of mine, Seem they in motion? Here are sever'd lips, Parted with sugar breath; so sweet a bar Should sunder such sweet friends: Here in her hairs The painter plays the spider; and hath woven A golden mesh to entrap the hearts of men, Faster than gnats in cobwebs: But her eyes,How could he see to do them? having made one, Methinks, it should have power to steal both his, And leave itself unfurnish'd. SUCCESSFUL LOVER COMPARED TO A CONQUEROR. Like one of two contending in a prize, That thinks he hath done well in people's eyes, Hearing applause, and universal shout, Giddy in spirit, still gazing, in a doubt * Curled. + Treacherous. Likeness, portrait. |