I must away this night toward Padua, Duke. I'm sorry that your leisure serves you not. - 5 For, in my mind, you are much bound to him. [Exeunt DUKE, Magnificoes, and Train Portia. He is well paid that is well satisfied; I wish you well, and so I take my leave. Bass. Dear sir, of force I must attempt you further : 20 Take some remembrance of us, as a tribute, Not as a fee: grant me two things, I pray you, Portia. You press me far, and therefore I will yield. – [To ANTO.] Give me your, gloves, I'll wear them for your 55 In return for which, or in consideration of which. So the phrase is, I think, always used in Shakespeare. Now it means instead of. 56 The only instance I have met with of cope being used in the sense of requite. A like use of the word in composition, however, occurs in Ben Jonson's Fox, iii. 5:— He would have sold his part of Paradise For ready money, had he met a cope-man. [To BASS.] And, for your love, I'll take this ring from you. Bass. This ring, good sir, — alas, it is a trifle ! I will not shame myself to give you this. 5 Portia. I will have nothing else but only this; And now methinks I have a mind to it. Bass. There's more depends on this than on the value. The dearest ring in Venice will I give you, And find it out by proclamation: 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 You teach me how a beggar should be answer'd. Bass. Good sir, this ring was given me by my wife ; And, when she put it on, she made me vow Portia. That 'scuse serves many men to save their gifts. An if 58 your wife be not a mad-woman, And know how well I have deserved this ring, For giving it to me. Well, peace be with you! [Exeunt PORTIA and NERISSA. Anto. My Lord Bassanio, let him have the ring : Let his deservings, and my love withal, Be valued 'gainst your wife's commandment.59 57 Shall, again, where we should use will. See page 147, note 33. 58 An ij is an old reduplication, with the sense merely of if. So the old writers use an, or if, or an if, indifferently. 59 Commandment is properly four syllables here, as if written commandement. And so, in fact, it is spelt in the old copies. Perhaps the old spelling should in such cases be retained. ΙΟ 15 20 25 Bass. Go, Gratiano, run and overtake him; Give him the ring; and bring him, if thou canst, Unto Antonio's house. Away! make haste. Come, you and I will thither presently; 5 And in the morning early will we both Fly toward Belmont: come, Antonio. [Exit GRATIANO. SCENE II. The Same. A Street. [Exeunt. Enter PORTIA and NERISSA, disguised as before. Portia. Inquire the Jew's house out, give him this deed, And let him sign it: we'll away to-night, And be a day before our husbands home. 10 This deed will be well welcome to Lorenzo. Enter GRATIANO. Grati. Fair sir, you are well overta'en : My lord Bassanio, upon more advice,1 Hath sent you here this ring, and doth entreat Portia. That cannot be : 15 His ring I do accept most thankfully; And so, I pray you, tell him: furthermore, I pray you, show my youth old Shylock's house. Neris. Sir, I would speak with you. [To PORTIA.] I'll see if I can get my husband's ring, 20 Which I did make him swear to keep for ever. 1 Upon further consideration. See page 87, note 33. the Fifth, ii. 2: "It was excess of wine that set him on; advice, we pardon him." And so in Henry and, on our more Portia. Thou mayst, I warrant. We shall have old swearing That they did give away the rings to men ; But we'll outface them, and outswear them too. Away! make haste: thou know'st where I will tarry. Loren. The Moon shines bright. In such a night as this, When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees, And they did make no noise, - in such a night Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls, 2 Old was a frequent intensive in colloquial speech; very much as huge is used now. So in Much Ado about Nothing, v. 2: "Yonder's old coil at home." And in The Merry Wives of Windsor, i. 4: "Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English." 1 Toward, like many other words, is, with the poets, one or two syllables according to the occasions of their metre. Here it is two, with the accent on the second. At the end of iv. 1, it has the accent on the first: And in the morning early will we both 2 The story of Troilus and Cressida is dramatized in Shakespeare's play of that name. Troilus was a Trojan prince, one of King Priam's fifty sons. He fell deeply and most honourably in love with Cressida, who, after being mighty sweet upon him, forsook him for his enemy, Diomedes the Greek; which he took to heart prodigiously. 5 ΙΟ Jess. In such a night Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew, And ran dismay'd away. Loren. In such a night 5 Stood Dido with a willow4 in her hand Upon the wild sea-banks, and waved her love Jess. In such a night Medea gather'd the enchanted herbs That did renew old son.5 8 That is, ere she saw the lion himself. The story of "Pyramus and his love Thisbe" is burlesqued in the interlude of Bottom and company in A Midsummer-Night's Dream. 4 Spenser in like sort makes the willow a symbol of forsaken love. So in The Farie Queene, i. 1, 9: "The willow, worne of forlorne paramours." Dido was Queen of Carthage. After the destruction of Troy, Æneas, a great Trojan prince, in the course of his wanderings landed at Carthage, where he was received and treated with all possible kindness and honour by the Queen. He was a splendid fellow, and she got desperately smitten with him. After thus winning her heart entirely, he jilted her, and ran away, alleging that the gods peremptorily commanded him to go and found a new nation accordingly he became the founder of Rome. 5 Twice before in this play we have had allusions to the story of Jason and his voyage to Colchos in quest of the golden fleece. Medea, daughter to the King of Colchos, fell in love with him, helped him to win the fleece, then stole her father's treasure, and ran away with Jason to Greece. Now Jason's father was very old and decayed; and Medea was a potent en chantress, the most so of all the ancient girls: so, with "the hidden power of herbs and might of magic spell," she made a most plenipotent broth, wherewith she renewed the old man's youth. Ovid has it, that she did this by drawing the blood out of his veins, and filling them with the broth. Burke, in the following passage, seems to infer that she put him into the kettle, and boiled him into a young man: "We are taught to look with horror on the children of their country, who are rashly prompt to hack that aged parent in pieces, and put him into the kettle of magicians, in hopes that by their poisonous weeds and wild incantations they may regenerate the paternal constitution, and renovate their father's life." — Reflections, &c. |