With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear,
And draw her home with mufick.

Jef. I am never merry, when I hear fweet mufick.

Lor. The reason is, your spirits are attentive:
For do but note a wild and wanton herd,
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,

[Mufick.

Fetching mad bounds, bellowing, and neighing loud,
Which is the hot condition of their blood;

If they perchance but hear a trumpet found,
air of mufick touch their ears,

Or

any

You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their favage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze,

By the sweet power of mufick: Therefore, the poet
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, ftones, and floods;
Since nought fo ftockish, hard, and full of rage,
But mufick for the time doth change his nature;
The man that hath no musick in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with concord of fweet founds,
Is fit for treasons, ftratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his fpirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus :

Let no fuch man be trusted.-Mark the mufick.

Enter Portia, and Neriffa, at a distance,

Por. That light we fee, is burning in my hall. How far that little candle throws his beams!

So fhines a good deed in a naughty world.

Ner. When the moon fhone, we did not see the candle,
Por. So doth the greater glory dim the lefs :
A substitute shrines brightly as a king,
Until a king be by; and then his state
Empties itself, as doth an inland brook

Into the main of waters, Mufick! hark!
Ner. It is your mufick, madam, of the house.

[Mufick.

Por.

Por. Nothing is good, I fee, without respect;
Methinks, it founds much sweeter than by day.
Ner. Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam.
Por. The crow doth fing as fweetly as the lark,
When neither is attended; and, I think,
The nightingale, if she should fing by day,
When every goofe is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.
How many things by feafon feafon'd are

To their right praise, and true perfection !—
Peace! how the moon fleeps with Endymion,
And would not be awak'd!

Lor. That is the voice,

Or I am much deceiv'd, of Portia.

[Mufick ceafes.

Por. He knows me, as the blind man knows the cuckow, By the bad voice.

Lor. Dear lady, welcome home.

Por. We have been praying for our husbands' welfare, Which speed, we hope, the better for our words.

Are they return'd?

Lor. Madam, they are not yet;

But there is come a meffenger before,
To fignify their coming.

Por. Go in, Neriffa,

Give order to my fervants, that they take

No note at all of our being abfent hence ;

Nor you, Lorenzo; Jeffica, nor you. [A tucket founds. Lor. Your husband is at hand, I hear his trumpet:

We are no tell-tales, madam; fear you not.

Por. This night, methinks, is but the day-light fick, It looks a little paler; 'tis a day,

Such as the day is when the fun is hid.

i without respect;]-not abfolutely, but relatively, or as it is circumftanced.

Enter Baffanio, Anthonio, Gratiano, and their followers.

k

Bass. We should hold day with the Antipodes, If you would walk in abfence of the fun.

Por. Let me give light, but let me not be light; For a light wife doth make a heavy husband,

And never be Baffanio fo for me;

But, God fort all !-You are welcome home, my lord. Baff. I thank you, madam: give welcome to my friend.— This is the man, this is Anthonio,

To whom I am so infinitely bound.

Por. You should in all fense be much bound to him, For, as I hear, he was much bound for

you.

Anth. No more than I am well acquitted of. Por. Sir, you are very welcome to our house: It must appear in other ways than words,

1

Therefore I fcant this breathing courtesy.

[Gratiano and Neriffa feem to talk apart. Gra. By yonder moon, I fwear, you do me wrong; In faith, I gave it the judge's clerk :

Would he were gelt that had it, for my part,

Since you do take it, love, fo much at heart.
Por. A quarrel, ho, already? what's the matter?
Gra. About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring
That she did give me; whofe poefy was
'For all the world, like cutler's poetry
Upon a knife, Love me, and leave me not.

Ner. What talk you of the poefy, or the value?
You swore to me, when I did give it you,
That you would wear it till your hour of death;
And that it should lie with you in your grave:

k with the Antipodes,]-as they do now.
1 this breathing-verbal, thefe profeffions of.

Though

m

Though not for me, yet for your vehement oaths,
You should have been " refpective, and have kept it.
Gave it a judge's clerk !-but well I know,

The clerk will ne'er wear hair on his face that had it.
Gra. He will, an if he live to be a man.

Ner. Ay, if a woman live to be a man.

Gra. Now, by this hand, I gave it to a youth,—

A kind of boy; a little " fcrubbed boy,
No higher than thyfelf, the judge's clerk;
A prating boy, that begg'd it as a fee;
I could not for my heart deny it him.

Por. You were to blame, I must be plain with you,
To part fo flightly with your wife's first gift;
A thing stuck on with oaths upon your finger,
And riveted with faith unto your flesh.
I gave my love a ring, and made him swear
Never to part with it; and here he stands :

I dare be fworn for him, he would not leave it,
Nor pluck it from his finger, for the wealth
That the world mafters. Now, in faith, Gratiano,
You give your wife too unkind a cause of grief;
An 'twere to me, I fhould be mad at it.

Bass. Why, I were best to cut my left hand off,
And fwear, I loft the ring defending it.

Gra. My lord Baffanio gave his ring away
Unto the judge that begg'd it, and, indeed,
Deferv'd it too; and then the boy, his clerk,
That took fome pains in writing, he begg'd mine:
And neither man, nor mafter, would take aught
But the two rings.

Por. What ring gave you, my lord?
Not that, I hope, which you receiv'd of me.

refpective,]-regardful, careful.

A fcrubbed]-forry, worthlefs; ftubbed, ftunted.

[Afide.

Baff.

Baff. If I could add a lye unto a fault,

I would deny it; but you fee, my finger
Hath not the ring upon it, it is gone.

Por. Even fo void is your false heart of truth.
By heaven, I will ne'er come in your bed
Until I see the ring.

Ner. Nor I in yours, 'Till I again fee mine. Baff. Sweet Portia,

If you did know to whom I gave the ring,
If you did know for whom I gave the ring,
And would conceive for what I gave the ring,
And how unwillingly I left the ring,
When nought would be accepted but the ring,
You would abate the ftrength of your displeasure.
Por. If you had known the virtue of the ring,
Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,
Or your own honour to retain the ring,
You would not then have parted with the ring.
What man is there fo much unreasonable,

If

you

had pleas'd to have defended it
With any terms of zeal, wanted the modesty
To urge the thing held as a ceremony?
Neriffa teaches me what to believe;

I'll die for't, but fome woman had the ring.

Bass. No, by mine honour, madam, by my foul, No woman had it, but a civil doctor,

Who did refuse three thousand ducats of me,

And begg'd the ring; the which I did deny him,
And fuffer'd him to go difpleas'd away;

Even he that had held up the very life

0 contain.

P wanted the modefty &c.]-wanted modesty so much, as to press you for a thing, kept on fo folemn an account.

Of