Enter ANTONIO, SALARINO, and SALANIO. And such a want-wit sadness makes of me, ΙΟ 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. 20 OLD GOBBO, father to Launcelot. } servants to Portia. PORTIA, a rich heiress. NERISSA, her waiting-maid. JESSICA, daughter to Shylock. Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of Justice, Gaoler, Servants to Portia, and other Attendants. SCENE: Partly at Venice, and partly at Belmont, the seat of Portia, on the Continent. 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 merchandise makes me not sad. Salar. Why, then you are in love. Ant. Fie, fie! Salar. Not in love neither? Then let us 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, 50 Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time: Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO. Salan. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman, Gratiano and Lorenzo. Fare ye well: If worthier friends had not prevented me. 60 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, We two will leave you: but at dinner-time, Gra. You look not well, Signior Antonio; 70 They lose it that do buy it with much care: A stage where every man must play a part, 81 Gra. 90 If they should speak, would almost damn those ears I'll tell thee more of this another time: Fare ye well awhile: 100 I'll end my exhortation after dinner. I must be one of these same dumb wise men, Gra. Well, keep me company but two years moe, 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. 120 Ant. Well, tell me now what lady is the same Bass. 'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio, I shot his fellow of the self-same flight To wind about my love with circumstance; 150 160 Bass. In Belmont is a lady richly left; 170 Ant. Thou know'st that all my fortunes are at sea; 180 Neither have I money nor commodity 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 130 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. Ant. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it; And if it stand, as you yourself still do, 10 Por. Good sentences and well pronounced. 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? 91 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, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel the cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to choose me a Por. Very vilely in the morning, when he is husband. O me, the word 'choose!' I may nei- sober, and most vilely in the afternoon, when he ther choose whom I would nor refuse whom I is drunk: when he is best, he is a little worse dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed than a man, and when he is worst, he is little by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard, better than a beast: an the worst fall that ever Nerissa, that I cannot choose one nor refuse fell, I hope I shall make shift to go without 29 him. 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 shall rightly love. But what warmth is there in your affection towards any of these princely suitors that are already come? none? 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 afeard my lady his mother played false with a smith. Ner. Then there is the County Palatine. Por. He doth nothing but frown, as who should say If you will not have me, choose:' he hears merry tales and smiles not: Í 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'shead 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. 70 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 dumbshow? 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. 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 wine 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'll be married to a sponge. 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, 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. 131 Por. I remember him well, and I remember him worthy of thy praise. For the which, as I told you, Antonio shall 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. Bass. Have you heard any imputation to the contrary? Shy. Oh, 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, water-thieves and land-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. Shy. I will be assured I may; and, that I may 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. 40 Directly interest: mark what Jacob did. A thing not in his power to bring to pass, Mark you this, Bassanio, Shy. [Aside] How like a fawning publican he The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. looks! I hate him for he is a Christian, But more for that in low simplicity He lends out money gratis and brings down Bass. Shylock, do you hear? Shy. I am debating of my present store, Of full three thousand ducats. What of that? But soft! how many months Do you desire? [To Ant.] Rest you fair, good signior; Your worship was the last man in our mouths. 60 100 An evil soul producing holy witness Three months from twelve; then, let me see; the rate Ant. Well, Shylock, shall we be beholding to you? 110 Shy. Signior Antonio, many a time and oft In the Rialto you have rated me About my moneys and my usances: Still have I borne it with a patient shrug, For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe. You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog, And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine, And all for use of that which is mine own. Well then, it now appears you need my help: Go to, then; you come to me, and you say Shylock, we would have moneys:' you say so; You, that did void your rheum upon my beard A cur can lend three thousand ducats?' Or Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last; 130 Ant. I am as like to call thee so again, Shy. Bass. This were kindness. Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken ACT II. SCENE I. Belmont. A room in PORTIA's house. 10 Mor. Mislike me not for my complexion, Mor. Bass. You shall not seal to such a bond for me: 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 160 Of thrice three times the value of this bond. tians are, Whose own hard dealings teaches them suspect I say, 170 A pound of man's flesh taken from a man Ant. Hie thee, gentle Jew. [Exit Shylock. [Exeunt. Por. 41 In way of marriage: therefore be advised. Por. First, forward to the temple: after dinner Good fortune then! SCENE II. Venice. A street. Enter LAUNCELOT. Laun. Certainly my conscience will serve me to run from this Jew my master. The fiend is at mine elbow and tempts me saying to me 'Gobbo, Launcelot Gobbo, good Launcelot,' or ' 'good Gobbo,' or 'good Launcelot Gobbo, use your legs, take the start, run away.' My conscience says 'No; take heed, honest Launcelot; |