SCENE I.-Venice. A Street. Enter ANTONIO, SALARINO, and SALANIO. And such a want-wit sadness makes of me, Salar. Your mind is tossing on the ocean, 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. 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. Salar. Why, then you are in love. Ant. Fie, fie! Salar. 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, Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time: Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO. Salan. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman, Gratiano, and Lorenzo. Fare you well: merry, 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. Sleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice If they should speak, would almost damn those ears, fools. I'll tell thee more of this another time: But fish not, with this melancholy bait, Come, good Lorenzo.-Fare ye well, awhile: Lor. Well, we will leave you, then, till dinnertime. I must be one of these same dumb wise men, 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 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 the same To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage, That you to-day promis'd to tell me of? Bass. "Tis not unknown to you, Antonio, How much I have disabled mine estate, By something showing a more swelling port Than my faint means would grant continuance : Nor do I now make moan to be abridg'd 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; And from your love I have a warranty To unburthen all my plots and purposes, How to get clear of all the debts I owe. Ant. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it; And if it stand, as you yourself still do, Within the eye of honour, be assur'd, My purse, my person, my extremest means, Lie all unlock'd to your occasions. Bass. In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft, I shot his fellow of the self-same flight I owe you much, and, like a wilful youth, 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 did receive fair speechless messages. Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth, I have a mind presages me such thrift, SCENE II.-Belmont. An Apartment in PORTIA'S || chests of gold, silver, and lead, (whereof who chooses 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 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 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 his meaning, chooses you,) will, no doubt, never be chosen by any rightly, but one whom 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 hus bands. 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 penny-worth 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 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? Enter a Servant. Serv. The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take their leave; and there is a forerunner 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. |