Because you are not merry: and 't were as easy Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time: Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO. kinsman, If worthier friends had not prevented me. You grow exceeding strange: must it be so? Salar. We'll make our leisures to attend on yours. [Exeunt SALARINO and SOLANIO. 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; With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come; fools. I'll tell thee more of this another time: Lor. Well, we will leave you, then, till dinnertime: 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 In a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not vendible. [Exeunt GRATIANO and LORENZO. Ant. Is that anything, 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 To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage, That you to-day promised to tell me of? Bass. "T is not unknown to you, Antonio, How much I have disabled mine estate, By something shewing a more swelling port Than my faint means would grant continuance : Nor do I now make moan to be abridged From such a noble rate; but my chief care Is to come fairly off from the great debts Wherein my time, something too prodigal, Hath left me gaged. To you, Antonio, I owe the most, in money and in love: Ant. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it; And if it stand, as you yourself still do, My purse, my person, my extremest means, Lie all unlocked to your occasions. Bass. In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft, I shot his fellow of the self-same flight The self-same way, with more advised watch, 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, I have a mind presages me such thrift, That I should questionless be fortunate. Ant. Thou know'st that all my fortunes are at sea; Nor have I money, nor commodity Where money is; and I no question make SCENE II.-Belmont. A Room in PORTIA'S House. 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 curbed 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, "An 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 everywhere. 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 wine on the contrary casket: for if the devil be within, and that temptation without, I know he will choose it. I will do anything, Nerissa, ere I will 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, 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? Enter a Servant. Serv. The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take their leave: and there is a fore-runner come from a fifth, the Prince of Morocco; who brings word the Prince, his master, will be here to-night. Por. If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good heart as I can bid the other four farewell, I should be glad of his approach: if he have the condition of a saint, and the complexion of a devil, I had rather he should shrive me than wive me. Come, Nerissa.—Sirrah, go before.—Whiles we shut the gate upon one wooer, another knocks at the door. [Exeunt. 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. 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 water-rats, 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. I hate him for he is a Christian : I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him. Even there where merchants most do congregate, On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift, Which he calls interest. Curséd be my tribe If I forgive him! Bass. Shylock, do you hear? Shy. I am debating of my present store; Of full three thousand ducats. What of that? Yet, to supply the ripe wants of my friend, Shy. Ay, ay, three thousand ducats. Ant. And for three months. Shy. I had forgot;-three months; you told Shy. When Jacob grazed his uncle Laban's sheep, This Jacob from our holy Abraham was Ant. And what of him? did he take in- Shy. No, not take interest; not, as you would say, Directly interest: mark what Jacob did. Should fall as Jacob's hire; the ewes, being rank, In the end of autumn turnéd to the rams: He stuck them up before the fulsome ewes ; Ant. This was a venture, sir, that Jacob served for; A thing not in his power to bring to pass, But swayed and fashioned by the hand of heaven. Ant. Mark you this, Bassanio, Is like a villain with a smiling cheek; A goodly apple rotten at the heart: Shy. Three thousand ducats;—'t is a good round sum. Three months from twelve, then let me see the rate. Ant. Well, Shylock, shall we be beholden to you? Shy. Signior Antonio, many a time and oft, 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; You spurned me such a day; another time You called me dog: and for these courtesies I'll lend you thus much moneys?" Ant. I am as like to call thee so again, To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too. If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not As to thy friends (for when did friendship take A breed for barren metal of his friend?), Shy. Why, look you, how you storm! I would be friends with you, and have your love; Forget the shames that you have stained me with; Supply your present wants, and take no doit |