Duke.

Get thee gone, but do it.

[Shylock totters out of court, feeling his way along the wall, Gratiano following him as far as the door. Gratiano. In christening thou shalt have two godfathers:

Had I been judge, thou shouldst have had ten more, To bring thee to the gallows, not the font.

395

Duke [to Portia]. Sir, I entreat you home with me to dinner.

Portia. I humbly do desire your grace of pardon : I must away this night toward Padua,

And it is meet I presently set forth.

Duke. I am sorry that your leisure serves you not. Antonio, gratify this gentleman;

For, in my mind, you are much bound to him.

401

[Exeunt the Duke, with the Magnificoes and his train. Bassanio. Most worthy gentleman, I and my friend Have by your wisdom been this day acquitted Of grievous penalties; in lieu whereof, Three thousand ducats, due unto the Jew, We freely cope your courteous pains withal.

Antonio. And stand indebted, over and above,

In love and service to you evermore.

Portia. He is well paid that is well satisfied;

And I, delivering you, am satisfied,

And therein do account myself well paid:
My mind was never yet more mercenary.

405

410

I pray you, [with a slight laugh, which she checks at once] know me when we meet again :

I wish you well, and so I take my leave.

415

Bassanio. Dear sir, of force I must attempt you farther:

Take some remembrance of us, as a tribute,

Not as a fee: grant me two things, I pray you,
Not to deny me, and to pardon me.

Portia. You press me far, and therefore I will yield. [To Antonio.] Give me your gloves, I'll wear them for your sake;

421

[To Bassanio.] And, for your love, I'll take this ring from

you :

Do not draw back your hand: I'll take no more;
And you in love shall not deny me this.

Bassanio. This ring, good sir-alas, it is a trifle !

I will not shame myself to give you this;

425

Portia. I will have nothing else but only this;

And now methinks I have a mind to it.

Bassanio. There's more depends on this than on the value.

The dearest ring in Venice will I give you,

And find it out by proclamatión :

Only for this, I pray you pardon me.

Portia. I see, sir, you are liberal in offers:

You taught me first to beg; and now methinks

430

You teach me how a beggar should be answered. 435 Bassanio. Good sir, this ring was given me by my

wife;

And, when she put it on, she made me vow
That I should never sell nor give nor lose it.

Portia. That 'scuse serves many men to save their gifts.

An if your wife be not a mad-woman,

And know how well I have deserved this ring,
She would not hold out enemy for ever,
For giving it to me. Well, peace be with you!

440

[Exeunt Portia and Nerissa. Antonio. My Lord Bassanio, let him have the ring: Let his deservings, and my love withal, Be valued 'gainst your wife's commandément.

445

Bassanio. Go, Gratiano, run and overtake him; Give him the ring; and bring him, if thou canst, Unto Antonio's house: away! make haste. [Exit Gratiano with the ring. Come, you and I will thither presently; And in the morning early will we both Fly toward Belmont: come, Antonio.

450

[Exeunt.

SCENE VII. THE COMEDY OF THE RINGS.

Portia and Nerissa, with their disguises laid aside, return to Belmont and find Lorenzo and Jessica in the garden and music playing to welcome them. It is a bright moonlight night, but passing clouds have just covered the moon.

Nerissa had succeeded in begging her husband's ring as he showed the supposed clerk the way to Shylock's house

after the trial when she went to deliver the deed for signature.

Enter Portia and Nerissa.

Portia. That light we see is burning in my hall.
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

Nerissa. When the moon shone, we did not see the candle.

Portia. So doth the greater glory dim the less: 5 A substitute shines 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. Music! hark!

Nerissa. It is your music, madam, of the house. 10 Portia. Nothing is good, I see, without respect: Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.

15

Nerissa. Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam.
Portia. The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark,
When neither is attended; and I think
The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.

Peace, ho! the moon sleeps with Endymion,
And would not be awaked.

[The music ceases. Lorenzo [advancing to meet them]. That is the voice, 20 Or I am much deceived, of Portia.

Portia. He knows me, as the blind man knows the cuckoo,

By the bad voice.

Lorenzo.

Dear lady, welcome home.

Portia. We have been praying for our husbands' welfare,

Which speed, we hope, the better for our words.
Are they returned ?

Lorenzo.

25

Madam, they are not yet;

Go in, Nerissa;

But there is come a messenger before,

To signify their coming.

Portia.

Give order to my servants that they take
No note at all of our being absent hence;

Nor you, Lorenzo; Jessica, nor you.

30

[A tucket sounds, and at this moment the moon shines

out again.

Lorenzo. Your husband is at hand; I hear his trumpet: We are no tell-tales, madam; fear you not.

Portia. This night methinks is but the daylight sick; It looks a little paler: 'tis a day,

Such as the day is when the sun is hid.

35

Enter Bassanio, Antonio, Gratiano, and their followers. Bassanio and Gratiano greet their wives.

Bassanio. We should hold day with the Antipodes, If you would walk in absence of the sun.

Portia. Let me give light, but let me not be light; For a light wife doth make a heavy husband, And never be Bassanio so for me :

40

But God sort all! You are welcome home, my lord. Bassanio. I thank you, madam: give welcome to my friend;

This is the man, this is Antonio,

To whom I am so infinitely bound.

45

Portia. You should in all sense be much bound to him,

For, as I hear, he was much bound for you.

Antonio. No more than I am well acquitted of.
Portia. Sir, you are very welcome to our house:

It must appear in other ways than words,
Therefore I scant this breathing courtesy.

50

Gratiano [excitedly to Nerissa]. By yonder moon I swear you do me wrong;

In faith, I gave it to the judge's clerk.

Portia. A quarrel, ho, already! what's the matter? Gratiano. About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring That she did give me; whose posy was

For all the world like cutler's poetry

Upon a knife, 'Love me, and leave me not.'

55

Nerissa. What talk you of the posy or the value?

бо

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;
Though not for me, yet for your vehement oaths,
You should have been respective, and have kept it.
Gave it a judge's clerk! no, God's my judge, 65
The clerk will ne'er wear hair on 's face that had it.
Gratiano. He will, an if he live to be a man.
Nerissa. Aye, if a woman live to be a man.

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

A kind of boy, a little scrubbed boy,
No higher than thyself, the judge's clerk,
A prating boy, that begged it as a fee:
I could not for my heart deny it him.

70

75

Portia. You were to blame-I must be plain with you— To part so slightly 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

80

[Bassanio walks aside in great confusion. Never to part with it; and here he stands ; I dare be sworn for him, he would not leave it Nor pluck it from his finger, for the wealth That the world masters. Now, in faith, Gratiano, You give your wife too unkind a cause for grief: An 'twere to me, I should be mad at it.

Bassanio [aside]. Why, I were best to cut my left hand off,

And swear I lost the ring defending it.

85

Gratiano. My Lord Bassanio gave his ring away Unto the judge that begged it, and indeed Deserved it too; and then the boy, his clerk, That took some pains in writing, he begged mine: 90 And neither man nor master would take aught But the two rings.

Portia.

What ring gave you, my lord?
Not that, I hope, which you received of me.
Bassanio [holding up his hand]. If I could add a lie
unto a fault,

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

95

100

Portia. Even so void is your false heart of truth. [She walks away as if in anger, Bassanio following her. Bassanio. 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 strength of your displeasure. Portia. If you had known the virtue of the ring, Or half her worthiness that gave the ring, Or your own honour to contain the ring, You would not then have parted with the ring.

105