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.

Salanio. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman, Gratiano, and Lorenzo. Fare you well:

We leave you now with better company.

Salarino. I would have stay'd till I had made you merry,

If worthier friends had not prevented me.

Antonio. 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.

Bassanio. Good signiors both, when shall we laugh?
Say, when?

You grow exceeding strange: 1 must it be so?

Salar. We'll make our leisures to attend on yours.

[Exeunt SALARINO and SALANIO. Lorenzo. 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.

2

Gratiano. 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. 3

4

Grat.
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? 5

Sleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice

1. i. e. reserved, retiring.
2. i. e. respect for the world.

3. And my part is a sad one.

6

4. Let the wrinkles of age come with mirth and laughter.

5 Meaning the monumental bust. 6. And give oneself the jaundice by-ill temper, or spleen.

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, 2
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; when, I am very sure,

If they should speak, would almost damn those ears,
Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools. 4
I'll tell thee more of this another time;

But fish not, with this melancholy bait,
For this fool-gudgeon this opinion.

--

5

Come, good Lorenzo. Fare ye well, awhile:
I'll end my exhortation after dinner.

Lorenzo. 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.

Gratiano. Well, keep me company but two years more, Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue.

Antonio. 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.

8

Antonio. Is that any thing now?

Bassanio. 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 the same
To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,
That you to-day promis'd to tell me of?

1

Bass. T is not unknown to you, Antonio,
How much I have disabled mine estate, 1
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; 3 but
chief care
my
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.

4

6

5

Ant. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it;
And if it stand, as you yourself still do,
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 shafts

I shot his fellow of the self-same flight"

The self-same way with more advised 10 watch,

1. i. e. impaired, or diminished, 4. In which the time, during which my estate. It was formerly the prac-I have too much played the proditice to use my before a consonant, gal, has left me engaged, or involved. and mine before a vowel, euphony still requires to be observed in poetry.

which

2. By showing a somewhat more ostentatious state. Port in the present instance comprehends the idea of expensive equipage, and external pomp of appearance.

3. Nor do I now lament at being deprived of the means of living in

such a noble manner.

5. And your love justifies me in exposing to you all my plans.

6. Still, always, ever, constantly. 7. Are all open to your requirements; are all at your service. 8. Shaft, arrow.

9. I shot a similar one of the same

power of flying.

10. Advised, deliberate.

3

To find the other forth; and by adventuring 2 both,
I oft found both. I urge this childhood proof,
Because what follows is pure innocence. 41
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

5

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.

Antonio. You know me well, and herein spend but time, To wind about my love with circumstance; 7

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.

8

9

Bassanio. In Belmont is a lady richly left,
And she is fair, and, fairer than that word,
Of wondrous virtues: sometimes 10 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' 11 strand,
And many Jasons come in quest of her.

1. i. e. to find the other out, to discover the other.

2. To adventure, to venture, to risk. 3. I bring forward this example taken from the amusements of childhood.

4. In reply to Antonio's: If it stand within the eye of honour.

5. And as usually happens with a young man who follows his own will.

6. i. e. the sum last ventured.
7. To use so much circumlocution,

so many words, and not to address yourself direct to my love.

8. Prest, ready; the old French word now written prêt.

9. i. e. endowed. 10. Sometimes, formerly, in other times.

11. The ship Argo sailed to Colchis to fetch the golden fleece; this was effected by Jason, the commander, by means of Medea, the King's daughter, whom he afterwards married.

O, my Antonio! had I but the means
To hold a rival place with one of them,1
I have a mind presages me such thrift,
That I should questionless be fortunate.

2

Antonio. Thou knows't that all my fortunes are at sea; Neither 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, 3 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, "

SCENE II.

Belmont. An Apartment in PORTIA'S House.
Enter PORTIA and NERISSA.

[Exeunt.

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

Nerissa. 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.

7

6

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 devise laws for the blood; but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree: such a hare is madness, the youth,

1. To maintain myself as rival | security, or out of good will or reagainst one of her suitors. gard to me.

2. My mind foretells me such prosperity.

3. To rack, to stretch, to extend. 4. Presently, at present, now, immediately. Obsolete in this sense. 5. To procure it either on my

6. To be situated in the middle, to enjoy all in moderation.

7. To come by, to obtain, to gain, to acquire.

8. i. e. a decree, or law, made in cold blood, deliberately.