[Exeunt OBERON, TITANIA, and Train. Puck. If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue, So, good night unto you all. 56 60 64 Give me your hands, if we be friends, 68 And Robin shall restore amends. [Exit. PORTIA, a rich Heiress. GRATIANO, SALANIO, Friends to Antonio and Bassanio. NERISSA, her Waiting-maid. SALARINO, LORENZO, in love with Jessica. SHYLOCK, a rich Jew. TUBAL, a Jew, his Friend. LAUNCELOT GOBBO, a Clown, Servant to Shylock. JESSICA, Daughter to Shylock. Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of SCENE.-Partly at Venice, and partly at Belmont, the seat of Portia, on the Continent. ACT I. SCENE I.-Venice. A Street. But how I caught it, found it, or came by it, And such a want-wit sadness makes of me, 4 8 32 And see the holy edifice of stone, To think on this, and shall I lack the thought Is sad to think upon his merchandise. 40 Ant. Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for it, 44 My ventures are not in one bottom trusted, Salar. Your mind is tossing on the ocean; There, where your argosies with portly sail,Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood, Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea,Do overpeer the petty traffickers, That curtsy 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. 16 64 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. Salar. 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, 69 We too will leave you; but, at dinner-time, Gra. You look not well, Signior Antonio; A stage where every man must play a part, 76 81 88 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. Wit should a man, whose blood is warm within, like his grandsire cut in alabaster? 84 Sleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice By being peevish? I tell thee what, AntonioI love thee, and it is my love that speaksThere 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; when, I am very sure, If they should speak, would almost damn those ears 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? 124 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 128 Is, to come fairly off from the great debts Wherein my time, something too prodigal, Hath left me gag'd. To you, Antonio, 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. 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, 92 Lie all unlock'd to your occasions. 96 132 136 140 Bass. In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft, I shot his fellow of the self-same flight I owe you much, and, like a wilful youth, 152 d And thankfully rest debtor for the first. To wind about my love with circumstance; Bass. In Belmont is a lady richly left, 172 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, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel the cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to choose me a husband. O me, the word 'choose!' I may neither choose whom I would nor refuse whom I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter I curbed by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one nor refuse none? 29 Ner. Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their death have good inspirations; therefore, 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 your affection towards any of these princely suitors that are already come? 38 Por. 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. First, there is the Neapolitan prince. 42 Por. Ay, that's a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of his horse; and he makes it a great appropriation to his own good parts that To raise a present sum: therefore go forth; 180 he can shoe him himself. I am much afeard my lady his mother played false with a smith. Ner. Then is there the County Palatine. 48 Por. He doth nothing but frown, as who should say, 'An 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, Por. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is Monsieur Le Bon? 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 58 Por. God made him, and therefore let him pass) for a man. In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker; but, he! why, he hath a horse better than the Neapolitan's, a better bad habit of frowning than the Count Palatine; he is every man in no man; if a throstle sing, he falls straight a-capering; 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. 69 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 pennyworth 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. 81 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? 90 Por. Very vilely in the morning, when he is sober, and most vilely in the afternoon, when he is drunk: when he is best, he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast. An the worst fall that ever fell, I hope I shall make shift to go without him. Ner. If he should offer to choose, and choose the right casket, you should refuse to perform your father's will, if you should refuse to accept bim. 100 Por. Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee, set a deep glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket, for, if the devil be within and that temptation without, I know he will choose it. I will do anything, Nerissa, ere I will be married to a sponge. 106 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. 113 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 pray God grant them a fair departure. 120 Ner. Do you not remember, lady, in your father's time, a Venetian, a scholar and a soldier, that came hither in the company of the Marquis of Montferrat? 124 Por. Yes, yes: it was Bassanio; as I think, he was so called. Ner. True, madam: he, of all the men that ever my foolish eyes looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady. Shy. Three thousand ducats, for three months, and Antonio bound. 129 12 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 saying he is a good man is to have you understand me that he is sufficient. Yet his means are in supposition: he hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another to the Indies; I understand moreover upon the Rialto, he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for England, and other ventures he hath, squandered abroad. But ships are but boards, sailors but men: there be land-rats and waterrats, land-thieves, and water-thieves,-I mean pirates,-and then there is the peril of waters, winds, and rocks. The man is, notwithstanding, sufficient. Three thousand ducats; I think, I may take his bond. Bass. Be assured you may. 28 Shy. I will be assured I may; and, that I may be assured, I will bethink me. May I speak with Antonio? 32 Bass. If it please you to dine with us. Shy. Yes, to smell pork; to eat of the habitation which your prophet the Nazarite conjured |