LOR. Who comes so fast in silence of the night?
STEPH. A friend.

LOR. A friend? what friend? your name, I
pray you, friend.
STEPH. Stephano is my name; and I bring word,

LAUN. Sola! Did you see master Lorenzo, and mistress Lorenzo? sola, sola! LOR. Leave hollaing, man; here.

LAUN. Sola! Where? where?

LOR. Here.

LAUN. Tell him there 's a post come from my master, with his horn full of good

news; my master will be here ere morning.

[Erit.

LOR. Sweet soul, let 's in, and there expect their coming.
And yet no matter:-Why should we go in?
My friend Stephano, signify, I pray you,
Within the house, your mistress is at hand:
And bring your music forth into the air.

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank 33!
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness, and the night,
Become the touches of sweet harmony.

Sit, Jessica 34. Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines a of bright gold.
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins":
Such harmony is in immortal souls;

But whilst this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

Enter Musicians.

Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn;

With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear,
And draw her home with music.

JES. I am never merry when I hear sweet music.
LOR. The reason is your spirits are attentive:

For do but note a wild and wanton herd,
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,
Fetching mad bounds, bellowing, and neighing loud,
Which is the hot condition of their blood;

If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,

Or

any air of music touch their ears,

You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,

Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze,

By the sweet power of music: Therefore, the poet

Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;
Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature;
The man that hath no music in himself 35,

Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,

[Exit STEPHANO.

[Music.

▪ Patines. The word in the folio is spelt patens. A patine is the small flat dish or plate used in the service of the altar. Archbishop Laud bequeaths to the Duke of Buckingham his "chalice and patin of gold."

b

Cherubins. We follow the orthography of the old editions, though cherubim may be more correct. Spenser uses cherubins as the plural of cherubin; Milton, more learnedly, cherubim.

• Close it in. In one of the quartos, and the folio, this is printed close in it; the verb in this case being probably compound-close-in. Close us in has crept into some texts,-for which there is no authority.

Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;

The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:

Let no such man be trusted.-Mark the music.

Enter PORTIA and NERISSA at a distance.

POR. That light we see is burning in my hall.
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
NER. When the moon shone we did not see the candle.
POR. So doth the greater glory dim the less:
A substitute shines brightly as a king,
Until a king be by; and then his state
Empties itself, as doth an inland brook
Into the main of waters. Music! hark!
NER. It is your music, madam, of the house.
POR. Nothing is good, I see, without respect;

Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.
NER. Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam.
POR. The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark *,
When neither is attended; and, I think,
The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.

LOR.

How many things by season season'd are
To their right praise, and true perfection!-
Peace! How the moon a sleeps with Endymion,
And would not be awak'd!

That is the voice,

Or I am much deceiv'd, of Portia.

POR. He knows me, as the blind man knows the cuckoo,

POR. We have been praying for our husbands' welfare,
Which speed, we hope, the better for our words.

Are they return'd?

[Music ceases.

• Peace! How the moon, &c. So all the old copies. Malone substituted, Peace! Hoa! the moon, thinking that Portia uses the words as commanding the music to cease. This would be a singularly unladylike act of Portia, in reality as well as in expression. We apprehend that, having been talking somewhat loudly to Nerissa as she approached the house, she checks herself as she comes close to it with the interjection-Peace!-equivalent to hush! and then gives the poetical reason for being silent:

"How the moon sleeps with Endymion, And would not be awak'd!”

The stage-direction, Music ceases, is a coincidence with Portia's Peace! but not a consequence of it.

Madam, they are not yet;

s come a messenger before, their coming.

Go in, Nerissa;

to my servants, that they take

all of our being absent hence;

Lorenzo :—Jessica, nor you.

sband is at hand; I hear his trumpet:

tell-tales, madam; fear you not.

ht, methinks, is but the daylight sick 37.

little paler; 't is a day

e day is when the sun is hid.

[A tucket sounds.

ater BASSANIO, ANTONIO, GRATIANO, and their Followers.

ould hold day with the antipodes,

uld walk in absence of the sun. give light, but let me not be light; t wife doth make a heavy husband,

rbe Bassanio so for me;

sort all!-You are welcome home, my lord.

k you, madam: give welcome to my friend.—

ne man, this is Antonio,

I am so infinitely bound.

ould in all sense be much bound to him,

hear, he was much bound for you.

re than I am well acquitted of.
u are very welcome to our house:
appear in other ways than words,
e, I scant this breathing courtesy.

[GRATIANO and NERISSA seem to talk apart.

nder moon, I swear you do me wrong;
I gave it to the judge's clerk:

e were gelt that had it, for my part,
u do take it, love, so much at heart.
rrel, ho, already? what's the matter?
a hoop of gold, a paltry ring
did give me; whose posy was
he world, like cutler's poetry
knife, "Love me, and leave me not."
talk

you of the posy, or the value?

re to me, when I did give it you, u would wear it till the hour of death; at it should lie with you in your grave: not for me, yet for your vehement oaths,

You should have been respective, and have kept it.
Gave it a judge's clerk!-but well I know,

The clerk will ne'er wear hair on 's face that had it.

GRA. He will, an if he live to be a man.

NER. Ay, if a woman live to be a man.

GRA. Now, by this hand, I gave it to a youth,—
A kind of boy; a little scrubbed boy,
No higher than thyself, the judge's clerk;
A prating boy, that begg'd it as a fee;

I could not for my heart deny him.

POR. You were to blame, I must be plain with you,
To part so slightly with your wife's first gift;
A thing stuck on with oaths upon your finger,
And so riveted with faith unto your flesh.
I gave my love a ring, and made him swear
Never to part with it; and here he stands,-
I dare be sworn for him, he would not leave it,
Nor pluck it from his finger, for the wealth
That the world masters. Now, in faith, Gratiano,
You give your wife too unkind a cause of grief;
An 't were to me, I should be mad at it.
BASS. Why, I were best to cut my left hand off,
And swear, I lost the ring defending it.

GRA. My lord Bassanio gave his ring away
Unto the judge that begg'd it, and, indeed,
Deserv'd it too; and then the boy, his clerk,
That took some pains in writing, he begg'd mine:
And neither man, nor master, would take aught
But the two rings.

POR.

What ring gave you, my lord?
Not that, I hope, which you receiv'd of me.
BASS. If I could add a lie unto a fault,

I would deny it; but you see, my finger
Hath not the ring upon it, it is gone.

POR. Even so void is your false heart of truth.
By heaven, I will ne'er come in your bed
Until I see the ring.

NER.

Till I again see mine.

BASS.

Nor I in yours,

Sweet Portia,

If you did know to whom I gave the ring,
If you did know for whom I gave the ring,

And would conceive for what I gave the ring,

Respective-regardful.

Scrubbed. Warton would read stubbed, in the sense of stunted.

[Aside.