Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time: And other of such vinegar aspéct, That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile, Enter Bassanio, Lorenzo, and Gratiano. Salan. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman, Gratiano, and Lorenzo: Fare you well; If worthier friends had not prevented me. Bass. Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? 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 An tonio, We two will leave you: but, at dinner-time, Gra. You look not well, signior Antonio ; Believe me, you are marvellously chang'd. 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. Let me play the fool: With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come; Than my heart cool with mortifying groans. Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the jaundice For saying nothing; who, I am very sure, If they should speak, would almost damn those ears, Which, hearing them, would call their brothers, fools. But fish not with this melancholy bait, Come, good Lorenzo :-Fare ye well, a while; Lor. Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time: 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 commend. able 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 Obstinate silence. 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 Bass. "Tis not unknown to you, Antonio, 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, Bass. In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft, I shot his fellow of the self-same flight Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt, Or bring your latter hazard back again, And thankfully rest debtor for the first. Ant. You know me well; and herein spend but time, To wind about my love with circumstance; And, out of doubt, you do me now more wrong, In making question of my uttermost, Bass. In Belmont is a lady richly left, And she is fair, and, fairer than that word, Her name is Portia ; nothing undervalued Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth; O my Antonio, had I but the means 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 To raise a present sum: therefore go forth, [Exeunt. SCENE II. Belmont. A room in Portia's house. Enter Portia and Nerissa. Por. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is a-weary 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 conipetency 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 curb'd 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; there fore, the lottery, that he hath devised in these three chests, of gold, silver, and lead (whereof who chooses, |