Por. He knows me as the blind man knows the cuckoo, By the bad voice.

Lor.

Dear lady, welcome home.

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

Give order to my servants that they take
No note at all of our being absent hence;
Nor you, Lorenzo; Jessica, nor you.

120

[A tucket sounds. Lor. Your husband is at hand; I hear his trumpet:

We are no tell-tales, madam; fear you not.

Por. This night methinks is but the daylight sick; It looks a little paler: 't is a day,

Such as the day is when the sun is hid.

Enter BASSANIO, ANTONIO, GRATIANO, and their followers.

Bass. We should hold day with the Antipodes,

If you would walk in absence of the sun.

Por. Let me give light, but let me not be light; For a light wife doth make a heavy husband,

130

But God sort all! You are welcome home, my lord.

And never be Bassanio so for me:

Bass. I thank you, madam. Give welcome to my friend.

This is the man, this is Antonio,

To whom I am so infinitely bound.

Por. You should in all sense be much bound to him,

For, as I hear, he was much bound for you.

Ant. No more than I am well acquitted of.

Por. Sir, you are very welcome to our house:

It must appear in other ways than words,

Therefore I scant this breathing courtesy.

I 40

Gra. [To Ner.] By yonder moon I swear you do me wrong;

In faith, I gave it to the judge's clerk.

Por. A quarrel, ho, already! what's the matter?
Gra. About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring

That she did give me, whose posy was

For all the world like cutler's poetry

Upon a knife, ‘Love me, and leave me not'.

Ner. What talk you of the posy or the value?

150

You swore to me, when I did give it you,

That you would wear it till your hour of death
And that it should lie with you in your grave:
Though not for me, yet for your vehement oaths,
You should have been respective and have kept it.
Gave it a judge's clerk! no, God's my judge,
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 it 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 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. [Aside] 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
Deserved 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 received 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.
Bass.
Sweet Portia,

the ring

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
And how unwillingly I left the ring,
When nought would be accepted but the ring,
You would abate the strength of your displeasure.

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170

180

190

Por. If you had known the virtue of the ring,
Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,
Or your own honour to contain the ring,
You would not then have parted with the ring.
What man is there so much unreasonable,
If you had pleased to have defended it
With any terms of zeal, wanted the modesty
To urge the thing held as a ceremony?
Nerissa teaches me what to believe:
I'll die for 't but some woman had the ring.

Bass. No, by my honour, madam, by my soul,

No woman had it, but a civil doctor,

Which did refuse three thousand ducats of me

200

And begg'd the ring; the which I did deny him

And suffer'd him to go displeased away;

Even he that did uphold the very life

Of my dear friend. What should I say, sweet lady?

I was enforced to send it after him;

I was beset with shame and courtesy;

My honour would not let ingratitude

So much besmear it. Pardon me, good lady;

For, by these blessed candles of the night,

Had you been there, I think you would have begg'd
The ring of me to give the worthy doctor.

210

Por. Let not that doctor e'er come near my house:

Since he hath got the jewel that I loved,

And that which you did swear to keep for me,

I will become as liberal as you;

I'll not deny him anything I have.

Ant. I am the unhappy subject of these quarrels.

220

Por. Sir, grieve not you; you are welcome notwithstanding. Bass. Portia, forgive me this enforced wrong:

And, in the hearing of these many friends,

I swear to thee, even by thine own fair eyes,
Wherein I see myself—

Por.

Mark you but that!

In both my eyes he doubly sees himself;
In each eye, one: swear by your double self,
And there's an oath of credit.

Bass.
Nay, but hear me:
Pardon this fault, and by my soul I swear
I never more will break an oath with thee.
Ant. I once did lend my body for his wealth;
Which, but for him that had your husband's ring,
Had quite miscarried: I dare be bound again,

(M 330)

G

230

My soul upon the torfeit, that your lord
Will never more break faith advisedly.

Por. Then you shall be his surety. Give him this
And bid him keep it better than the other.

Ant. Here, Lord Bassanio; swear to keep this ring.
Bass. By heaven, it is the same I gave the doctor!
Por. I had it of him. You are all amaz'd:
Here is a letter; read it at your leisure;

It comes from Padua, from Bellario:

There you shall find that Portia was the doctor,

Nerissa there her clerk: Lorenzo here
Shall witness I set forth as soon as you
And even but now return'd; I have not yet

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250

Enter'd my house. Antonio, you are welcome;
And I have better news in store for you

Than you expect: unseal this letter soon;
There you shall find three of your argosies
Are richly come to harbour suddenly:
You shall not know by what strange accident
I chanced on this letter.

Bass. Were you the doctor and I knew you not? Ant. Sweet lady, you have given me life and living; For here I read for certain that my ships

Are safely come to road.

Por.

How now,

Lorenzo!

My clerk hath some good comforts too for you.
Ner. Ay, and I'll give them him without a fee.
There do I give to you and Jessica,

From the rich Jew, a special deed of gift,
After his death, of all he dies possess'd of.
Lor. Fair ladies, you drop manna in the way
Of starved people.

Por.

It is almost morning,
And yet I am sure you are not satisfied

Of these events at full. Let us go in ;
And charge us there upon inter'gatories,
And we will answer all things faithfully.

Gra. Well, while I live I'll fear no other thing

So sore as keeping safe Nerissa's ring.

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270

[Exeunt.

NOTES.

Act I.-Scene I.

How Bassanio, a scholar and a soldier, tells the merchant, Antonio, of his purpose to win Portia, the heiress of Belmont; and how Antonio undertakes to find the money to fit out a ship for him.

The early scenes of Shakespeare's plays serve both to introduce the foremost persons of the action, and to give a foretaste of the kind of tale that is to follow. Fine instances of his art in overture' are the beginnings of Hamlet and Macbeth.

Here, we begin by making the acquaintance of the Merchant of Venice himself and of two of his friends, who appear to be courtiers or soldiers. Antonio is out of spirits, and his melancholy is ominous— "By a divine instinct men's minds mistrust

Ensuing dangers" (Richard III., ii. 3. 42).

His anxious words, together with the description by the others of a merchant's risks, suggest the coming trouble. At the same time their solicitude and kindness are prompted by a touch of the same loyal friendship by which that trouble is to be remedied.

Later, we are also introduced to Bassanio and certain of his companions. Immediately upon this the threefold action of the plot begins with Bassanio's story of his hopes of Portia, with Lorenzo's agreement to meet Bassanio after dinner', and with Antonio's promise to raise money.

8. Scan this line, and note the word which has a different pronunciation from the modern. Compare 'óbscure', ii. 7. 51, 'aspéct', ii. 1. 8.

13. The little ships feel the motion of the waves, and seem to bob and curtsy to the big, steady galleys of Antonio.

15. had I such venture forth. Put this expression along with i. I. 143, "to find the other forth", and ii. 5. 11, "I am bid forth to supper", and explain the meaning of the adverb.

16. affections in Shakespeare's time had a wider sense than in modern English, and included all feelings or emotions; so also in iv. I. 49.