SCENE,-partly at VENICE, and partly at BELMONT, the Seat of PORTIA, on the Continent. ACT I. SCENE I. - Venice. A Street. And such a want-wit sadness makes of me, 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. My wind, cooling my broth, 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, And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks? 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 Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time: That they'll not show 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 kinsman, Gratiano, and Lorenzo: Fare you well; If worthier friends had not prevented me. 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 We two will leave you, but, at dinner time, Gra. You look not well, signior Antonio; 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. Do cream and mantle, like a standing pond; 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: Come, good Lorenzo : - Fare ye well, a while; 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 same Bass. 'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio, Ant. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it; My purse, my person, my extremest means, Bass. In my school-days, when I had lost one I shot his fellow of the self-same flight Ant. You know me well; and herein spend but time, To wind about my love with circumstance; Bass. In Belmont is a lady richly left, Lor. Well, we will leave you then till dinner- Hang on her temples like a golden fleece; 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 commendable Ia a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not vendible. [Exeunt GRATIANO and LORENZO. Which makes her seat of Belmont, Colchos' strand, O my Antonio, had I but the means I have a mind presages me such thrift, Ant. Thou know'st, that all my fortunes are at se Enter PORTIA and NERISSA. Por. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is 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 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 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: - 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 curb'd by the will of a dead father: - Is it not hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refuse none? 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? 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. 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 he can shoe him himself: I am much afraid, my lady his mother played false with a smith. Ner. Then, is there the county Palatine. Por. He doth nothing but frown; as who should say, And if 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, Monsieur Le Bon? 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. Ner. What say you then to Faulconbridge, 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. 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? 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 him. Por. Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee, set a deep glass of Rhenish wise on the contrary casket: for, if the devil be within, and that temptation without, I know he will choose it. I will do any thing, Nerissa, ere I will be married to a spunge. 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. 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. Ner. Do you not remember, lady, in your father's time, a Venetian, a scholar, and a soldier, that came hither in company of the Marquis of Montferrat? Por. Yes, yes, it was Bassanio; as I think, so was he called. Ner. True, madam; he, of all the men that ever my foolish eyes looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady. Por. I remember him well; and I remember him worthy of thy praise. - How now! what news? Shy. I had forgot, three months, you told me so. Well then, your bond; and, let me see hear you: Bass. For the which, as I told you, Antonio shall Methought, you said, you neither lend, nor borrow, Upon advantage. be bound. Shy. Antonio shall become bound, well. Bass. May you stead me? Will you pleasure me? Shall I know your answer? Shy. Three thousand ducats, for three months, and Antonio bound. 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, squander'd abroad; But ships are but boards, sailors but men: there be land-rats, and water-rats, water-thieves, and landthieves; 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. e vorb tak Bass. Be assured you may. A Shy. I will be assured, I may; and, that I mày be assured, I will bethink me: May I speak with Antonio? 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 the devil into; I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you. What news on the Rialto? Who is he comes here? Enter ANTONIO. Bass. This is signior Antonio. Shy.[Aside.] How like a fawning publican he looks! I hate him for he is a Christian : But more, for that, in low simplicity, He lends out money gratis, and brings down The rate of usance here with us in Venice. If I can catch him once upon the hip, I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him. He hates our sacred nation; and he rails, Even there where merchants most do congregate, On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift, Which he calls interest: Cursed be my tribe, If I forgive him! Ant. I do never use it. Shy. When Jacob graz'd his uncle Laban's sheep, This Jacob from our holy Abraham was (As his wise mother wrought in his behalf,) The third possessor; ay, he was the third. Ant. And what of him? did he take interest? Shy. No, not take interest; not, as you would say, Directly interest: mark what Jacob did. When Laban and himself were compromis'd, That all the canlings which were streak'd, and pied, Should fall, as Jacob's hire; the ewes, being rank, In the end of autumn turned to the rams: And when the work of generation was Between these woolly breeders in the act, The skilful shepherd peel'd me certain wands, And, in the doing of the deed of kind, He stuck them up before the fulsome ewes ; Who, then conceiving, did in eaning time Fall party-colour'd lambs, and those were Jacob s. This was a way to thrive, and he was blest; And thrift is blessing, if men steal it not. Ant. This was a venture, sir, that Jacob serv'd for; A thing not in his power to bring to pass, But sway'd, and fashion'd, by the hand of heaven. Was this inserted to make interest good? Or is your gold and silver, ewes and rams? Shy. I cannot tell; I make it breed as fast: But note me, signior. Ant. Mark you this, Bassanio, The devil can cite scripture for his purpose. An evil soul, producing holy witness, Is like a villain with a smiling cheek; A goodly apple rotten at the heart; O, what a goodly outside falshood hath! Shy. Three thousand ducats, sum. 'tis a good round Three months from twelve, then let me see the rate. A cur can lend three thousand ducats? or Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last : Ant. I am as like to call thee so again, As to thy friends; (for when did friendship take Who, if he break, thou may'st with better face Shy. Ant. This were kindness. In such a place, such sum, or sums, as are Ant. Content, in faith; I'll seal to such a bond, And say, there is much kindness in the Jew. Bass. You shall not seal to such a bond for ine, I'll rather dwell in my necessity. Ant. Why, fear not, man; I will not forfeit it; Within these two months, that's a month before This bond expires, I do expect return Of thrice three times the value of this bond. Shy. O father Abraham, what these Christians are; A pound of man's flesh, taken from a man, [Exit Ant. Hie thee, gentle Jew. This Hebrew will turn Christian; he grows kind. Bass. I like not fair terms, and a villain's mind. Ant. Come on; in this there can be no dismay, My ships come home a month before the day. [Exeunt ACT II. SCENE 1.-Belmont. A Room in Portia's House. Flourish of Cornets. Enter the PRINCE OF MOROCCO, and his Train; PORTIA, NERISSA, and other of her Attendants. Mor. Mislike me not for my complexion, His wife, who wins me by that means I told you, For my affection. Even for that I thank you; Therefore, I pray you, lead me to the caskets, To try my fortune. By this scimitar, That slew the Sophy, and a Persian prince, That won three fields of Sultan Solyman, I would out-stare the sternest eyes that look, Out-brave the heart most daring on the earth, |