SCENE II.*

Belmont. A Room in Portia's House.

Enter Bassanio, Portia, Gratiano, Nerissa, and attendants.

The Caskets are set out.

Por. I pray you, tarry; pause a day or

two.

Before you hazard; for, in choosing wrong, I lose your company; therefore, forbear a while :

There's something tells me, (but it is not love) I would not lose you; and you know yourself, Hate counsels not in such a quality :

But lest you should not understand me well, (And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought)

I would detain you here some month or two, Before you venture for me. I could teach

you,

How

* SCENE II.-The two Scenes wherein Morochius and the Prince of Arragon proceed to try their success with the caskets, ought not to be left out, as is usually the case, in the representation upon the stage By the omission, the pleasing effect of the contrast in the present Scene is entirely destroyed. For remarks upon the period when it may probably be supposed to take place, see Appendix.

E.

How to choose right, but then I am for

sworn ;

So will I never be: so may you miss me;

But if you do, you'll make me wish a sin, That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your

eyes,

They have o'er-looked me, and divided me;
One half of me is yours, the other yours,
Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then
yours,

And so all yours:2 O! these naughty times
Put bars between the owners and their rights;

I

And

-the other yours,] The natural beauty of this line has, till now, been deformed by the intrusion of a word entirely impertinent, viz. half in the conclusion of it, which I have omitted.

CAPELL. Mr. Rowe, Mr. Pope, and the Oxford Editor read thus

“One half of me is your's, the other half "Mine own, I would

say;" &c.

which, according to Dr. Grey, is nearly the reading of the folio of 1632, and affords a very natural and proper sense.

E.

2 And so all your's, &c.] The latter word is here used as a dissyllable. In the next line but one below, where the same word occurs twice, our author, with his usual licence, employs one as a word of two syllables, and the other as a monosyllable.

MALONE.

And so, though yours, not yours.3-Prove

it so,4

Let fortune go to hell for it,-not I.

I speak

It may be

JOHNSON.

"If

3 And so though yours, not yours.] more grammatically read: And so though yours, I'm not yours. 4 Prove it so, &c.] The meaning is, "the worst I fear should happen, and it should prove * in the event, that I, who am justly yours by the "free donation I have made you of myself, should yet not be yours in consequence of an unlucky choice, let fortune go to hell for robbing you of your just due, not I for violating my oath." The pronoun I in the nominative case, supposes a different construction to have preceded ;- "Go fortune "to hell for it." Nothing is more common in all languages, and with the best writers, than such a sudden variation of the construction, which creates little difficulty to the reader, and is frequently scarce even perceived by him. HEATH.

The words "prove it so" are by old editions of all sorts put in parenthesis, which indicates a disjunction or sentence apart, and they are manifestly a wish : a consistent wish they cannot be, without a negative which exactly perfects the measure of the

verse:

"Prove it not so!"

Her last words" not yours" are looked upon by the speaker as words of ill omen; and this wish, or this petition, is put up to avert it: A pause then ensues, and what follows after is expressive of a renewal of former struggles between her love and her oath, in which the latter has the victory: It is the result of her fears that, in this affair of the choice " fortune" might prove perverse; in which case, she bids her "go to hell" for her perverseness; for herself

she

I speak too long; but 'tis to piece the time ;5 To eke it, and to draw it out in length,

To stay you from election.

Bass.

Let me choose;

For, as I am, I live upon the rack.
Por. Upon the rack, Bassanio? then con-

fess

What

she meant not to hazard it, by infringing her oath: "it" relates to the choice with respect to which she had inwardly been debating how it should be decided, whether by fortune's act or her own. This irresolution and these pauses, being the natural workings of a mind much agitated, are highly dra

matic. CAPell.

Conformably to Mr. Heath's explanation, the sense is rendered clearer, as well as the measure improved, by the Oxford Editor's insertion:

--but prove it so,

"Let fortune go to hell for it, not me." E. 5 -to peize the time;] Thus the old copies. To peize is from peser, Fr. So, in K. Richard III: "Lest leaden slumber peize me down to-morrow." To peize the time, therefore, is to retard it by hanging weights upon it. All the modern editors read, without authority,-piece. STEEVENS.

Surely "piece the time" is more likely to have been the true reading ;-the words which follow seem to prove that it is, " to piece the time," in order to eke it out, and draw it out in length. Portia wished, by delay, to prolong the time, but not to make it pass heavily. J. M. MASON.

To peize, is to weigh, or balance; and figuratively, to keep in suspence, to delay. So, in Sir P. Sydney's Apology for Poetry :- "not speaking words as "they chanceably fall from the mouth, but peyzing

"each sillable." HENLEY.

What treason there is mingled with yo Bass. None, but that ugly treason

trust ;6

Which makes me fear the enjoying love : 7

There may as well be amity and life 8 'Tween snow and fire, as treason and n Por. Ay, but, I fear, you speak u

rack,

Where men enforced do speak any thi Bass. Promise me life, and I'll con truth.

5that ugly treason of mistrust, &c. trust, that is, suspicion, has often been r as the concomitant of guilt, of which trea species; but that cannot be an excuse for co ing treason itself with that which can only sidered as sometimes an indication of it; he designs, to convey an intimation that extreme diffidence, or anxiety respecting the his choice, has, in his present situation, a like that of treason, that is, as fatally destructiv peace, as actual treason is to the tranquility of

7 Which makes me fear the enjoying of my This is oddly enough expressed to signify, ""me fear the danger of not enjoying," &c "the enjoying," is for-"fear as to," or, "veying the enjoyment," &c. E.

8

-as well be amity and life

Tween snow and fire, as treason and my love. is, the latter, no more than the former, can in friendly union together, and so as to retal native energy and vigour. E.