Enter MERCADE

Mer. God save you, madam!

Prin. Welcome, Mercade ;

But that thou interrupt'st our merriment.

Mer. I am sorry, madam; for the news I bring, Is heavy in my tongue. The king your father— Prin. Dead for my life.

Mer. Even so; my tale is told.
Biron. Worthies, away; the scene begins to cloud.
Arm. For mine own part, I breathe free breath:
I have seen the day of wrong through the little hole
of discretion, and I will right myself like a soldier.
[Exeunt Worthies.

King. How fares your majesty?
Prin. Boyet, prepare; I will away to-night.
King. Madam, not so; I do beseech you, stay.
Prin. Prepare, I say.—I thank you, gracious lords,
For all your fair endeavours; and entreat,
Out of a new-sad soul, that you vouchsafe
In your rich wisdom, to excuse, or hide,
The liberal opposition of our spirits:
If over-boldly we have borne ourselves
In the converse of breath, your gentleness
Was guilty of it.-Farewell, worthy lord!
A heavy heart bears not an humble tongue
Excuse me so, coming so short of thanks
For my great suit so easily obtain'd.

King. The extreme parts of time extremely form
All causes to the purpose of his speed;
And often, at his very loose, decides

That which long process could not arbitrate :
And though the mourning brow of progeny
Forbid the smiling courtesy of love,
The holy suit which fain it would convince;
Yet, since love's argument was first on foot,
Let not the cloud of sorrow justle it
From what it purpos'd; since to wail friends lost,
Is not by much so wholesome, profitable,
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
And by these badges understand the king. [grief;-
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 eye
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.

In their own fashion, like a merriment.
Dum. Our letters, madam, shew'd much more than
Long. So did our looks.
[jest.
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;
If frosts, and fasts, hard lodging, and thin weeds,
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 woeful 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.
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 twelvemonth 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;
Impose some service on me for thy love.

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,

Prin. We have receiv'd your letters, full of love; That lie within the mercy of your wit:

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

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 feres 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.

Hos. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spint,
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,
Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,
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 fauli,
Right joyful of your reformation.

Biron. A twelvemonth? well, befal what will befal,
I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital.

Prin. Ay, sweet my lord; and so I take my leave.
King. No, madam: we will bring you on your way.
[To the KING.
Biron. Our wooing doth not end like an old play;
Jack hath not Jill: these ladies' courtesy
Might well have made our sport a comedy.
King. Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth and a day,
And then 'twill end.

Biron.

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 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

In this play, which all the editors have concurred to censure, and some have rejected as unworthy of our poet, it must be confooped that there are many passages mean, childish, and vulgar; and some which ought not to have been exhibited, as we are

Spring. I. When daisies pred, 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 dares,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
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!

Winter. III. When isicles 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 sam,
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.

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. JoxNSON.

THIS Pay was entered at Stationers' Hall on the 22d of July,
1599, but must have been exhibited before that time, as it
was mentioned by Meres, in the Wit's Treasury, which was
published early in the same year. The first known edition of
this comedy is the quarto," printed by J. R. for Thomas
Heyes, 1600." It was most probably written in 1597. Mr.
Malone places it three years earlier, but he has no authority
to support his hypothesis, but a simile of Portia's
"Thy music is

"Even as the flourish when true subjects bow
To a new crowned monarch."

This passage he supposes to refer to the recent coronation of
Henry the Fourth of France, of which a description was pub-
lished in this country immediately after the event.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

DUKE OF VENICE

PRINCE OF Morocco,

PRINCE OF ARRAGON,

suitors to Portia.

BASSANIO, his friend.

ANTONIO, the Merchant of Venice.

The principal incidents of the plot are taken from a story in
the Pecerone of Ser Giovanni Fiorentino, a novelist who wrote
in 1378. [The first novel of the fourth day.) The story has
been published in English. The circumstance of the caskets
is from an old translation of the Gesta Romanorum, first
printed by Wynkyn de Worde.

It has been supposed that there was a play on the subject pre-
vious to this of our author, and on which he might have
grounded his work. This notion has been suggested by a
passage in Stephen Gosson's School of Abuse, which speaks of
the Jew shewn at the Bull, representing the greediness of
"but
worldly choosers, and the bloody minds of asurers
these words apply with equal propriety to the Jew of Marlow,
and to the Shylock of Shakspeare.

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,
Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs,
To kiss her burial. Should I go to church,

SALANIO, SALARINO, GRATIANO, friends to Antonio And see the holy edifice of stone,

and Bassanio.

LORENZO, in love with Jessica.

SHYLOCK, a Jew.

TUBAL, a Jew, his friend.

LAUNCELOT GOBBO, a clown, servant to Shylock.
Old GOBBO, father to Launcelot.

SALERIO, a messenger from Venice.
LEONARDO, Tvant to Bassanio.

BALTHAZAR, STEPHANO, servants to Portia.
PORTIA, a rich heiress.

NERISSA, her waiting-maid.
JESSICA, daughter to Shylock.

Magnificous of Venice, Officers of the Court of Justies,
Gaoler, Servants, and other Attendants.

SCENE, partly at VENICE, and partly at BELMONT,
the Seat of PORTIA, on the Continent.

ACT I.

SCENE I-Venice. A Street.
Enter ANTONIO, SALARINO, and SALANIO.
Ant. 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.

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,
That such a thing, bechanc'd, would make me sad?
But tell not me; I know Antonio

Is sad to think upon his merchandize,

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 merchandize makes me not sad.
Salan. Why then you are in love.

Ant.
Fye, fye:
Salan. Not in love neither? Then let's say, you
are sad,

Because you are not merry: and 'twere as easy
For you to laugh, and leap, and say, you are merry,
Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus,
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 shew 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 kins.
Gratiano, and Lorenzo: Fare you well;

[man,

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.
Aut. Your worth is very dear in my regard.

I take it, your own business calls on you,
And you embrace the occasion to depart.

Salar. Good morrow, my good lords. [Say, when?
Bass. Good signiors both, when shall we laugh?
You grow exceeding strange: Must it be so?
Salar. We'll make our leisures to attend on yours.
[Exeunt SALARINO and SALANIQ
Lor. My lord Bassanio, since you have found
Antonio,

We two will leave you: but, at dinner time,
My wind, cooling my broth, 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, Gratiano;
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 com-
mendable

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 name,
whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,

you to-day promis'd to tell me of?
Bass. 'Tis not unknown to you, Antonic,
How much I have disabled mine estate,
By something shewing a more swelling port
Than my faint means would grant continuanos:
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.

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 childish 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.

[time,

Ant. You know me well; and herein spend but
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 wond'rous 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.

[Exeuns.

SCENE II.-Belmont. A Room in Portia's House.
Enter PORTIA and NERISSA.
Por. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is a-
weary of this great world.

Ner. You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same abundance as your good for tunes 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.

For. 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 twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may

Ant. I prav you, good Bassanio, let me know it; devise laws for the blood; but a hot temper leaps

And, if it stand, as you yourself still do,
Within the eye of honour, be assur'd,
My purse, my person, my extremest means,
Le all unlock'd to your occasions,

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

over a cold decree: such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel the cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to choose me a husband :-( me, the word choose! I may neither choose whom I would, nor refuse whom I dislike: