The Merchant of Venice

DRAMATIS PERSONAE


 * THE DUKE OF VENICE
 * THE PRINCE OF MOROCCO, suitor to Portia
 * THE PRINCE OF ARRAGON, suitor to Portia
 * ANTONIO, a merchant of Venice
 * BASSANIO, his friend
 * SALANIO, friend to Antonio and Bassanio
 * SALARINO, friend to Antonio and Bassanio
 * GRATIANO, friend to Antonio and Bassanio
 * LORENZO, in love with Jessica
 * SHYLOCK, a rich Jew
 * TUBAL, a Jew, his friend
 * LAUNCELOT GOBBO, a clown, servant to Shylock
 * OLD GOBBO, father to Launcelot
 * LEONARDO, servant to Bassanio
 * BALTHASAR, servant to Portia
 * STEPHANO, servant to Portia


 * PORTIA, a rich heiress
 * NERISSA, her waiting-maid
 * JESSICA, daughter to Shylock


 * Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of Justice, Gaoler, Servants to Portia, and other Attendants

SCENE: Partly at Venice, and partly at Belmont, the seat of Portia, on the Continent.

SCENE I. Venice. A street
[Enter ANTONIO, SALARINO, and SALANIO]

ANTONIO.
 * In sooth, I know not why I am so sad;
 * It wearies me; you say it wearies you;
 * But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
 * What stuff ’tis made of, whereof it is born,
 * I am to learn;
 * And such a want-wit sadness makes of me
 * That I have much ado to know myself.

SALARINO.
 * Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
 * There where your argosies, with portly sail—
 * Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood,
 * Or as it were the pageants of the sea—
 * Do overpeer the petty traffickers,
 * That curtsy to them, do them reverence,
 * As they fly by them with their woven wings.

SALANIO.
 * Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth,
 * The better part of my affections would
 * Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still
 * Plucking the grass to know where sits the wind,
 * Peering in maps for ports, and piers, and roads;
 * And every object that might make me fear
 * Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt
 * Would make me sad.

SALARINO.
 * My wind, cooling my broth
 * Would blow me to an ague, when I thought
 * What harm a wind too great might do at sea.
 * I should not see the sandy hour-glass run
 * But I should think of shallows and of flats,
 * And see my wealthy Andrew dock’d in sand,
 * Vailing her high top lower than her ribs
 * To kiss her burial. Should I go to church
 * And see the holy edifice of stone,
 * And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks,
 * Which, touching but my gentle vessel’s side,
 * Would scatter all her spices on the stream,
 * Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks,
 * And, in a word, but even now worth this,
 * And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought
 * To think on this, and shall I lack the thought
 * That such a thing bechanc’d would make me sad?
 * But tell not me; I know Antonio
 * Is sad to think upon his merchandise.

ANTONIO.
 * 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 merchandise makes me not sad.

SALARINO.
 * Why, then you are in love.

ANTONIO.
 * Fie, fie!

SALARINO.
 * Not in love neither? Then let us say you are sad
 * Because you are not merry; and ’twere as easy
 * For you to laugh and leap and say you are merry,
 * Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus,
 * Nature hath fram’d strange fellows in her time:
 * Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,
 * And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper;
 * And other of such vinegar aspect
 * That they’ll not show their teeth in way of smile
 * Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.

[Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO.]

SALANIO.
 * Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman,
 * Gratiano, and Lorenzo. Fare ye well;
 * We leave you now with better company.

SALARINO.
 * I would have stay’d till I had made you merry,
 * If worthier friends had not prevented me.

ANTONIO.
 * Your worth is very dear in my regard.
 * I take it your own business calls on you,
 * And you embrace th’ occasion to depart.

SALARINO.
 * Good morrow, my good lords.

BASSANIO.
 * Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? Say when.
 * You grow exceeding strange; must it be so?

SALARINO.
 * We’ll make our leisures to attend on yours.

[Exeunt SALARINO and SALANIO.]

LORENZO.
 * My Lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio,
 * We two will leave you; but at dinner-time,
 * I pray you, have in mind where we must meet.

BASSANIO.
 * I will not fail you.

GRATIANO.
 * You look not well, Signior Antonio;
 * You have too much respect upon the world;
 * They lose it that do buy it with much care.
 * Believe me, you are marvellously chang’d.

ANTONIO.
 * I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;
 * A stage, where every man must play a part,
 * And mine a sad one.

GRATIANO.
 * Let me play the fool;
 * With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come;
 * And let my liver rather heat with wine
 * Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
 * Why should a man whose blood is warm within
 * Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster,
 * Sleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice
 * By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio—
 * I love thee, and ’tis my love that speaks—
 * There are a sort of men whose visages
 * Do cream and mantle like a standing pond,
 * And do a wilful stillness entertain,
 * With purpose to be dress’d in an opinion
 * Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit;
 * As who should say ‘I am Sir Oracle,
 * And when I ope my lips let no dog bark.’
 * O my Antonio, I do know of these
 * That therefore only are reputed wise
 * For saying nothing; when, I am very sure,
 * If they should speak, would almost damn those ears
 * Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools.
 * I’ll tell thee more of this another time.
 * But fish not with this melancholy bait,
 * For this fool gudgeon, this opinion.
 * Come, good Lorenzo. Fare ye well awhile;
 * I’ll end my exhortation after dinner.

LORENZO.
 * Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time.
 * I must be one of these same dumb wise men,
 * For Gratiano never lets me speak.

GRATIANO.
 * Well, keep me company but two years moe,
 * Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue.

ANTONIO.
 * Fare you well; I’ll grow a talker for this gear.

GRATIANO.
 * Thanks, i’ faith, for silence is only commendable
 * In a neat’s tongue dried, and a maid not vendible.

[Exeunt GRATIANO and LORENZO.]

ANTONIO.
 * Is that anything now?

BASSANIO.
 * 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.

ANTONIO.
 * 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?

BASSANIO.
 * ’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 gag’d. To you, Antonio,
 * I owe the most, in money and in love;
 * And from your love I have a warranty
 * To unburden all my plots and purposes
 * How to get clear of all the debts I owe.

ANTONIO.
 * 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.

BASSANIO.
 * In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft,
 * I shot his fellow of the self-same flight
 * The self-same way, with more advised watch,
 * To find the other forth; and by adventuring both
 * I oft found both. I urge this childhood proof,
 * Because what follows is pure innocence.
 * I owe you much; and, like a wilful youth,
 * That which I owe is lost; but if you please
 * To shoot another arrow that self way
 * Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,
 * As I will watch the aim, or to find both,
 * Or bring your latter hazard back again
 * And thankfully rest debtor for the first.

ANTONIO.
 * 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
 * Than if you had made waste of all I have.
 * Then do but say to me what I should do
 * That in your knowledge may by me be done,
 * And I am prest unto it; therefore, speak.

BASSANIO.
 * In Belmont is a lady richly left,
 * And she is fair and, fairer than that word,
 * Of wondrous virtues. Sometimes from her eyes
 * I did receive fair speechless messages:
 * Her name is Portia—nothing undervalu’d
 * To Cato’s daughter, Brutus’ Portia:
 * Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth,
 * For the four winds blow in from every coast
 * Renowned suitors, and her sunny locks
 * Hang on her temples like a golden fleece;
 * Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos’ strond,
 * And many Jasons come in quest of her.
 * O my Antonio! had I but the means
 * To hold a rival place with one of them,
 * I have a mind presages me such thrift
 * That I should questionless be fortunate.

ANTONIO.
 * Thou know’st that all my fortunes are at sea;
 * Neither have I money nor commodity
 * To raise a present sum; therefore go forth,
 * Try what my credit can in Venice do;
 * That shall be rack’d, even to the uttermost,
 * To furnish thee to Belmont to fair Portia.
 * Go presently inquire, and so will I,
 * Where money is; and I no question make
 * To have it of my trust or for my sake.

[Exeunt]

SCENE 2. Belmont. A room in PORTIA’S house
[Enter PORTIA and NERISSA.]

PORTIA.
 * By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this
 * great world.

NERISSA.
 * 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 come sooner by white hairs, but
 * competency lives longer.

PORTIA.
 * Good sentences, and well pronounced.

NERISSA.
 * They would be better, if well followed.

PORTIA.
 * 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 to 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 who I would nor refuse who 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?

NERISSA.
 * Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their death
 * have good inspirations; therefore the lott’ry that he hath
 * devised in these three chests, of gold, silver, and lead, whereof
 * who chooses his meaning chooses you, will no doubt never be
 * chosen by any rightly but one who you shall rightly love. But
 * what warmth is there in your affection towards any of these
 * princely suitors that are already come?

PORTIA.
 * I pray thee over-name them; and as thou namest them, I will
 * describe them; and according to my description, level at my
 * affection.

NERISSA.
 * First, there is the Neapolitan prince.

PORTIA.
 * 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 afeard my lady his
 * mother play’d false with a smith.

NERISSA.
 * Then is there the County Palatine.

PORTIA.
 * 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!

NERISSA.
 * How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon?

PORTIA.
 * 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
 * husbands. If he would despise me, I would forgive him; for if he
 * love me to madness, I shall never requite him.

NERISSA.
 * What say you, then, to Falconbridge, the young baron of
 * England?

PORTIA.
 * 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 pennyworth
 * 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.

NERISSA.
 * What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour?

PORTIA.
 * 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.

NERISSA.
 * How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony’s nephew?

PORTIA.
 * 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.

NERISSA.
 * 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.

PORTIA.
 * 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 anything, Nerissa, ere I will be married to a sponge.

NERISSA.
 * 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.

PORTIA.
 * 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.

NERISSA.
 * 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?

PORTIA.
 * Yes, yes, it was Bassanio; as I think, so was he called.

NERISSA.
 * True, madam; he, of all the men that ever my foolish eyes
 * looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady.

PORTIA.
 * I remember him well, and I remember him worthy of thy praise.

[Enter a SERVANT.]


 * How now! what news?

SERVANT.
 * 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.

PORTIA.
 * 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]

SCENE 3. Venice. A public place
[Enter BASSANIO and SHYLOCK.]

SHYLOCK.
 * Three thousand ducats; well?

BASSANIO.
 * Ay, sir, for three months.

SHYLOCK.
 * For three months; well?

BASSANIO.
 * For the which, as I told you, Antonio shall be bound.

SHYLOCK.
 * Antonio shall become bound; well?

BASSANIO.
 * May you stead me? Will you pleasure me?  Shall I know your
 * answer?

SHYLOCK.
 * Three thousand ducats, for three months, and Antonio bound.

BASSANIO.
 * Your answer to that.

SHYLOCK.
 * Antonio is a good man.

BASSANIO.
 * Have you heard any imputation to the contrary?

SHYLOCK.
 * Ho, no, no, no, no: my meaning in saying he is a good man
 * is to have you understand me that he is sufficient; yet his means
 * are in supposition: he hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another
 * to the Indies; I understand, moreover, upon the Rialto, he hath a
 * third at Mexico, a fourth for England, and other ventures he
 * hath, squandered abroad. But ships are but boards, sailors but
 * men; there be land-rats and water-rats, land-thieves and
 * water-thieves,—I mean pirates,—and then there is the peril of
 * waters, winds, and rocks. The man is, notwithstanding,
 * sufficient. Three thousand ducats- I think I may take his bond.

BASSANIO.
 * Be assured you may.

SHYLOCK.
 * I will be assured I may; and, that I may be assured, I
 * will bethink me. May I speak with Antonio?

BASSANIO.
 * If it please you to dine with us.

SHYLOCK.
 * Yes, to smell pork; to eat of the habitation which your
 * prophet, the Nazarite, conjured the devil into. I will buy with
 * you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so
 * following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray
 * with you. What news on the Rialto? Who is he comes here?

[Enter ANTONIO]

BASSANIO.
 * This is Signior Antonio.

SHYLOCK.
 * [Aside] How like a fawning publican he looks!
 * I hate him for he is a Christian;
 * But more for that in low simplicity
 * He lends out money gratis, and brings down
 * The rate of usance here with us in Venice.
 * If I can catch him once upon the hip,
 * I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.
 * He hates our sacred nation; and he rails,
 * Even there where merchants most do congregate,
 * On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift,
 * Which he calls interest. Cursed be my tribe
 * If I forgive him!

BASSANIO.
 * Shylock, do you hear?

SHYLOCK.
 * I am debating of my present store,
 * And, by the near guess of my memory,
 * I cannot instantly raise up the gross
 * Of full three thousand ducats. What of that?
 * Tubal, a wealthy Hebrew of my tribe,
 * Will furnish me. But soft! how many months
 * Do you desire? [To ANTONIO] Rest you fair, good signior;
 * Your worship was the last man in our mouths.

ANTONIO.
 * Shylock, albeit I neither lend nor borrow
 * By taking nor by giving of excess,
 * Yet, to supply the ripe wants of my friend,
 * I’ll break a custom. [To BASSANIO] Is he yet possess’d
 * How much ye would?

SHYLOCK.
 * Ay, ay, three thousand ducats.

ANTONIO.
 * And for three months.

SHYLOCK.
 * I had forgot; three months; you told me so.
 * Well then, your bond; and, let me see. But hear you,
 * Methought you said you neither lend nor borrow
 * Upon advantage.

ANTONIO.
 * I do never use it.

SHYLOCK.
 * When Jacob graz’d his uncle Laban’s sheep,—
 * This Jacob from our holy Abram was,
 * As his wise mother wrought in his behalf,
 * The third possessor; ay, he was the third,—

ANTONIO.
 * And what of him? Did he take interest?

SHYLOCK.
 * No, not take interest; not, as you would say,
 * Directly interest; mark what Jacob did.
 * When Laban and himself were compromis’d
 * That all the eanlings which were streak’d and pied
 * Should fall as Jacob’s hire, the ewes, being rank,
 * In end of autumn turned to the rams;
 * And when the work of generation was
 * Between these woolly breeders in the act,
 * The skilful shepherd peel’d me certain wands,
 * And, in the doing of the deed of kind,
 * He stuck them up before the fulsome ewes,
 * Who, then conceiving, did in eaning time
 * Fall parti-colour’d lambs, and those were Jacob’s.
 * This was a way to thrive, and he was blest;
 * And thrift is blessing, if men steal it not.

ANTONIO.
 * This was a venture, sir, that Jacob serv’d for;
 * A thing not in his power to bring to pass,
 * But sway’d and fashion’d by the hand of heaven.
 * Was this inserted to make interest good?
 * Or is your gold and silver ewes and rams?

SHYLOCK.
 * I cannot tell; I make it breed as fast.
 * But note me, signior.

ANTONIO.
 * Mark you this, Bassanio,
 * The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
 * An evil soul producing holy witness
 * Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
 * A goodly apple rotten at the heart.
 * O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

SHYLOCK.
 * Three thousand ducats; ’tis a good round sum.
 * Three months from twelve; then let me see the rate.

ANTONIO.
 * Well, Shylock, shall we be beholding to you?

SHYLOCK.
 * Signior Antonio, many a time and oft
 * In the Rialto you have rated me
 * About my moneys and my usances;
 * Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,
 * For suff’rance is the badge of all our tribe;
 * You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,
 * And spet upon my Jewish gaberdine,
 * And all for use of that which is mine own.
 * Well then, it now appears you need my help;
 * Go to, then; you come to me, and you say
 * ‘Shylock, we would have moneys.’ You say so:
 * You that did void your rheum upon my beard,
 * And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur
 * Over your threshold; moneys is your suit.
 * What should I say to you? Should I not say
 * ‘Hath a dog money? Is it possible
 * A cur can lend three thousand ducats?’ Or
 * Shall I bend low and, in a bondman’s key,
 * With bated breath and whisp’ring humbleness,
 * Say this:—
 * ‘Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last;
 * You spurn’d me such a day; another time
 * You call’d me dog; and for these courtesies
 * I’ll lend you thus much moneys?’

ANTONIO.
 * I am as like to call thee so again,
 * To spet on thee again, to spurn thee too.
 * If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not
 * As to thy friends,—for when did friendship take
 * A breed for barren metal of his friend?—
 * But lend it rather to thine enemy;
 * Who if he break thou mayst with better face
 * Exact the penalty.

SHYLOCK.
 * Why, look you, how you storm!
 * I would be friends with you, and have your love,
 * Forget the shames that you have stain’d me with,
 * Supply your present wants, and take no doit
 * Of usance for my moneys, and you’ll not hear me:
 * This is kind I offer.

BASSANIO.
 * This were kindness.

SHYLOCK.
 * This kindness will I show.
 * Go with me to a notary, seal me there
 * Your single bond; and, in a merry sport,
 * If you repay me not on such a day,
 * In such a place, such sum or sums as are
 * Express’d in the condition, let the forfeit
 * Be nominated for an equal pound
 * Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken
 * In what part of your body pleaseth me.

ANTONIO.
 * Content, in faith; I’ll seal to such a bond,
 * And say there is much kindness in the Jew.

BASSANIO.
 * You shall not seal to such a bond for me;
 * I’ll rather dwell in my necessity.

ANTONIO.
 * Why, fear not, man; I will not forfeit it;
 * Within these two months, that’s a month before
 * This bond expires, I do expect return
 * Of thrice three times the value of this bond.

SHYLOCK.
 * O father Abram, what these Christians are,
 * Whose own hard dealings teaches them suspect
 * The thoughts of others. Pray you, tell me this;
 * If he should break his day, what should I gain
 * By the exaction of the forfeiture?
 * A pound of man’s flesh, taken from a man,
 * Is not so estimable, profitable neither,
 * As flesh of muttons, beefs, or goats. I say,
 * To buy his favour, I extend this friendship;
 * If he will take it, so; if not, adieu;
 * And, for my love, I pray you wrong me not.

ANTONIO.
 * Yes, Shylock, I will seal unto this bond.

SHYLOCK.
 * Then meet me forthwith at the notary’s;
 * Give him direction for this merry bond,
 * And I will go and purse the ducats straight,
 * See to my house, left in the fearful guard
 * Of an unthrifty knave, and presently
 * I’ll be with you.

ANTONIO.
 * Hie thee, gentle Jew.

[Exit SHYLOCK]


 * This Hebrew will turn Christian: he grows kind.

BASSANIO.
 * I like not fair terms and a villain’s mind.

ANTONIO.
 * Come on; in this there can be no dismay;
 * My ships come home a month before the day.

[Exeunt]

SCENE I. Belmont. A room in PORTIA’s house.
[Flourish of cornets. Enter the PRINCE of MOROCCO, and his Followers; PORTIA, NERISSA, and Others of her train.]

PRINCE OF Morocco.
 * Mislike me not for my complexion,
 * The shadow’d livery of the burnish’d sun,
 * To whom I am a neighbour, and near bred.
 * Bring me the fairest creature northward born,
 * Where Phoebus’ fire scarce thaws the icicles,
 * And let us make incision for your love
 * To prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine.
 * I tell thee, lady, this aspect of mine
 * Hath fear’d the valiant; by my love, I swear
 * The best-regarded virgins of our clime
 * Have lov’d it too. I would not change this hue,
 * Except to steal your thoughts, my gentle queen.

PORTIA.
 * In terms of choice I am not solely led
 * By nice direction of a maiden’s eyes;
 * Besides, the lottery of my destiny
 * Bars me the right of voluntary choosing;
 * But, if my father had not scanted me
 * And hedg’d me by his wit, to yield myself
 * His wife who wins me by that means I told you,
 * Yourself, renowned Prince, then stood as fair
 * As any comer I have look’d on yet
 * For my affection.

PRINCE OF MOROCCO.
 * Even for that I thank you:
 * Therefore, I pray you, lead me to the caskets
 * To try my fortune. By this scimitar,—
 * That slew the Sophy and a Persian prince,
 * That won three fields of Sultan Solyman,—
 * I would o’erstare the sternest eyes that look,
 * Outbrave the heart most daring on the earth,
 * Pluck the young sucking cubs from the she-bear,
 * Yea, mock the lion when he roars for prey,
 * To win thee, lady. But, alas the while!
 * If Hercules and Lichas play at dice
 * Which is the better man, the greater throw
 * May turn by fortune from the weaker hand:
 * So is Alcides beaten by his page;
 * And so may I, blind Fortune leading me,
 * Miss that which one unworthier may attain,
 * And die with grieving.

PORTIA.
 * You must take your chance,
 * And either not attempt to choose at all,
 * Or swear before you choose, if you choose wrong,
 * Never to speak to lady afterward
 * In way of marriage; therefore be advis’d.

PRINCE OF MOROCCO.
 * Nor will not; come, bring me unto my chance.

PORTIA.
 * First, forward to the temple: after dinner
 * Your hazard shall be made.

PRINCE OF MOROCCO.
 * Good fortune then!
 * To make me blest or cursed’st among men!

[Cornets, and exeunt.]

SCENE 2. Venice. A street
[Enter LAUNCELOT GOBBO.]

LAUNCELOT.
 * Certainly my conscience will serve me to run from this
 * Jew my master. The fiend is at mine elbow and tempts me, saying
 * to me ‘Gobbo, Launcelot Gobbo, good Launcelot’ or ‘good Gobbo’ or
 * ‘good Launcelot Gobbo, use your legs, take the start, run away.’
 * My conscience says ‘No; take heed, honest Launcelot, take heed,
 * honest Gobbo’ or, as aforesaid, ‘honest Launcelot Gobbo, do not
 * run; scorn running with thy heels.’ Well, the most courageous
 * fiend bids me pack. ‘Via!’ says the fiend; ‘away!’ says the
 * fiend. ‘For the heavens, rouse up a brave mind,’ says the fiend
 * ‘and run.’ Well, my conscience, hanging about the neck of my
 * heart, says very wisely to me ‘My honest friend Launcelot, being
 * an honest man’s son’—or rather ‘an honest woman’s son’;—for
 * indeed my father did something smack, something grow to, he had a
 * kind of taste;—well, my conscience says ‘Launcelot, budge not.’
 * ‘Budge,’ says the fiend. ‘Budge not,’ says my conscience.
 * ‘Conscience,’ say I, ‘you counsel well.’ ‘Fiend,’ say I, ‘you
 * counsel well.’ To be ruled by my conscience, I should stay with
 * the Jew my master, who, God bless the mark! is a kind of devil;
 * and, to run away from the Jew, I should be ruled by the fiend,
 * who, saving your reverence! is the devil himself. Certainly the
 * Jew is the very devil incarnal; and, in my conscience, my
 * conscience is but a kind of hard conscience, to offer to counsel
 * me to stay with the Jew. The fiend gives the more friendly
 * counsel: I will run, fiend; my heels are at your commandment; I
 * will run.

[Enter OLD GOBBO, with a basket]

GOBBO.
 * Master young man, you, I pray you; which is the way to Master
 * Jew’s?

LAUNCELOT.
 * [Aside] O heavens! This is my true-begotten father, who, being
 * more
 * than sand-blind, high-gravel blind, knows me not: I will try
 * confusions with him.

GOBBO.
 * Master young gentleman, I pray you, which is the way to Master
 * Jew’s?

LAUNCELOT.
 * Turn up on your right hand at the next turning, but, at
 * the next turning of all, on your left; marry, at the very next
 * turning, turn of no hand, but turn down indirectly to the Jew’s
 * house.

GOBBO.
 * Be God’s sonties, ’twill be a hard way to hit. Can you tell
 * me whether one Launcelot, that dwells with him, dwell with him or
 * no?

LAUNCELOT.
 * Talk you of young Master Launcelot? [Aside] Mark me
 * now; now will I raise the waters. Talk you of young Master
 * Launcelot?

GOBBO.
 * No master, sir, but a poor man’s son; his father, though I
 * say’t, is an honest exceeding poor man, and, God be thanked, well
 * to live.

LAUNCELOT.
 * Well, let his father be what ’a will, we talk of young
 * Master Launcelot.

GOBBO.
 * Your worship’s friend, and Launcelot, sir.

LAUNCELOT.
 * But I pray you, ergo, old man, ergo, I beseech you, talk
 * you of young Master Launcelot?

GOBBO.
 * Of Launcelot, an’t please your mastership.

LAUNCELOT.
 * Ergo, Master Launcelot. Talk not of Master Launcelot,
 * father; for the young gentleman,—according to Fates and
 * Destinies
 * and such odd sayings, the Sisters Three and such branches of
 * learning,—is indeed deceased; or, as you would say in plain
 * terms, gone to heaven.

GOBBO.
 * Marry, God forbid! The boy was the very staff of my age, my
 * very prop.

LAUNCELOT.
 * Do I look like a cudgel or a hovel-post, a staff or a prop? Do
 * you know me, father?

GOBBO.
 * Alack the day! I know you not, young gentleman; but I pray
 * you tell me, is my boy—God rest his soul!—alive or dead?

LAUNCELOT.
 * Do you not know me, father?

GOBBO.
 * Alack, sir, I am sand-blind; I know you not.

LAUNCELOT.
 * Nay, indeed, if you had your eyes, you might fail of the
 * knowing me: it is a wise father that knows his own child. Well,
 * old man, I will tell you news of your son. Give me your blessing;
 * truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long; a man’s son
 * may, but in the end truth will out.

GOBBO.
 * Pray you, sir, stand up; I am sure you are not Launcelot, my boy.

LAUNCELOT.
 * Pray you, let’s have no more fooling about it, but give
 * me your blessing; I am Launcelot, your boy that was, your son
 * that is, your child that shall be.

GOBBO.
 * I cannot think you are my son.

LAUNCELOT.
 * I know not what I shall think of that; but I am Launcelot, the
 * Jew’s man, and I am sure Margery your wife is my mother.

GOBBO.
 * Her name is Margery, indeed: I’ll be sworn, if thou be
 * Launcelot, thou art mine own flesh and blood. Lord worshipped
 * might he be, what a beard hast thou got! Thou hast got more hair
 * on thy chin than Dobbin my thill-horse has on his tail.

LAUNCELOT.
 * It should seem, then, that Dobbin’s tail grows backward;
 * I am sure he had more hair on his tail than I have on my face
 * when I last saw him.

GOBBO.
 * Lord! how art thou changed! How dost thou and thy master
 * agree? I have brought him a present. How ’gree you now?

LAUNCELOT.
 * Well, well; but, for mine own part, as I have set up my
 * rest to run away, so I will not rest till I have run some ground.
 * My master’s a very Jew. Give him a present! Give him a halter. I
 * am famished in his service; you may tell every finger I have with
 * my ribs. Father, I am glad you are come; give me your present to
 * one Master Bassanio, who indeed gives rare new liveries. If I
 * serve not him, I will run as far as God has any ground. O rare
 * fortune! Here comes the man: to him, father; for I am a Jew, if I
 * serve the Jew any longer.

[Enter BASSANIO, with LEONARDO, with and other Followers.]

BASSANIO.
 * You may do so; but let it be so hasted that supper be
 * ready at the farthest by five of the clock. See these letters
 * delivered, put the liveries to making, and desire Gratiano to
 * come anon to my lodging.

[Exit a SERVANT]

LAUNCELOT.
 * To him, father.

GOBBO.
 * God bless your worship!

BASSANIO.
 * Gramercy; wouldst thou aught with me?

GOBBO.
 * Here’s my son, sir, a poor boy—

LAUNCELOT.
 * Not a poor boy, sir, but the rich Jew’s man, that would,
 * sir,—as my father shall specify—

GOBBO.
 * He hath a great infection, sir, as one would say, to serve—

LAUNCELOT.
 * Indeed the short and the long is, I serve the Jew, and
 * have a desire, as my father shall specify—

GOBBO.
 * His master and he, saving your worship’s reverence, are
 * scarce cater-cousins—

LAUNCELOT.
 * To be brief, the very truth is that the Jew, having done
 * me wrong, doth cause me,—as my father, being I hope an old man,
 * shall frutify unto you—

GOBBO.
 * I have here a dish of doves that I would bestow upon your
 * worship; and my suit is—

LAUNCELOT.
 * In very brief, the suit is impertinent to myself, as
 * your worship shall know by this honest old man; and, though I say
 * it, though old man, yet poor man, my father.

BASSANIO.
 * One speak for both. What would you?

LAUNCELOT.
 * Serve you, sir.

GOBBO.
 * That is the very defect of the matter, sir.

BASSANIO.
 * I know thee well; thou hast obtain’d thy suit.
 * Shylock thy master spoke with me this day,
 * And hath preferr’d thee, if it be preferment
 * To leave a rich Jew’s service to become
 * The follower of so poor a gentleman.

LAUNCELOT.
 * The old proverb is very well parted between my master
 * Shylock and you, sir: you have the grace of God, sir, and he hath
 * enough.

BASSANIO.
 * Thou speak’st it well. Go, father, with thy son.
 * Take leave of thy old master, and inquire
 * My lodging out. [To a SERVANT] Give him a livery
 * More guarded than his fellows’; see it done.

LAUNCELOT.
 * Father, in. I cannot get a service, no! I have ne’er a
 * tongue in my head! [Looking on his palm] Well; if any man in
 * Italy have a fairer table which doth offer to swear upon a book,
 * I
 * shall have good fortune. Go to; here’s a simple line of life:
 * here’s a small trifle of wives; alas, fifteen wives is nothing;
 * a’leven widows and nine maids is a simple coming-in for one man.
 * And then to scape drowning thrice, and to be in peril of my life
 * with the edge of a feather-bed; here are simple ’scapes. Well, if
 * Fortune be a woman, she’s a good wench for this gear. Father,
 * come; I’ll take my leave of the Jew in the twinkling of an eye.

[Exeunt LAUNCELOT and OLD GOBBO.]

BASSANIO.
 * I pray thee, good Leonardo, think on this:
 * These things being bought and orderly bestow’d,
 * Return in haste, for I do feast to-night
 * My best esteem’d acquaintance; hie thee, go.

LEONARDO.
 * My best endeavours shall be done herein.

[Enter GRATIANO.]

GRATIANO.
 * Where’s your master?

LEONARDO.
 * Yonder, sir, he walks.

[Exit.]

GRATIANO.
 * Signior Bassanio!—

BASSANIO.
 * Gratiano!

GRATIANO.
 * I have suit to you.

BASSANIO.
 * You have obtain’d it.

GRATIANO.
 * You must not deny me: I must go with you to Belmont.

BASSANIO.
 * Why, then you must. But hear thee, Gratiano;
 * Thou art too wild, too rude, and bold of voice;
 * Parts that become thee happily enough,
 * And in such eyes as ours appear not faults;
 * But where thou art not known, why there they show
 * Something too liberal. Pray thee, take pain
 * To allay with some cold drops of modesty
 * Thy skipping spirit, lest through thy wild behaviour
 * I be misconstrued in the place I go to,
 * And lose my hopes.

GRATIANO.
 * Signior Bassanio, hear me:
 * If I do not put on a sober habit,
 * Talk with respect, and swear but now and then,
 * Wear prayer-books in my pocket, look demurely,
 * Nay more, while grace is saying, hood mine eyes
 * Thus with my hat, and sigh, and say ‘amen’;
 * Use all the observance of civility,
 * Like one well studied in a sad ostent
 * To please his grandam, never trust me more.

BASSANIO.
 * Well, we shall see your bearing.

GRATIANO.
 * Nay, but I bar to-night; you shall not gauge me
 * By what we do to-night.

BASSANIO.
 * No, that were pity;
 * I would entreat you rather to put on
 * Your boldest suit of mirth, for we have friends
 * That purpose merriment. But fare you well;
 * I have some business.

GRATIANO.
 * And I must to Lorenzo and the rest;
 * But we will visit you at supper-time.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE 3. The same. A room in SHYLOCK’s house.
[Enter JESSICA and LAUNCELOT.]

JESSICA.
 * I am sorry thou wilt leave my father so:
 * Our house is hell, and thou, a merry devil,
 * Didst rob it of some taste of tediousness.
 * But fare thee well; there is a ducat for thee;
 * And, Launcelot, soon at supper shalt thou see
 * Lorenzo, who is thy new master’s guest:
 * Give him this letter; do it secretly.
 * And so farewell. I would not have my father
 * See me in talk with thee.

LAUNCELOT.
 * Adieu! tears exhibit my tongue. Most beautiful pagan,
 * most sweet Jew! If a Christian do not play the knave and get
 * thee, I am much deceived. But, adieu! these foolish drops do
 * something drown my manly spirit; adieu!

JESSICA.
 * Farewell, good Launcelot.

[Exit LAUNCELOT]


 * Alack, what heinous sin is it in me
 * To be asham’d to be my father’s child!
 * But though I am a daughter to his blood,
 * I am not to his manners. O Lorenzo!
 * If thou keep promise, I shall end this strife,
 * Become a Christian and thy loving wife.

[Exit]

SCENE 4. The same. A street
[Enter GRATIANO, LORENZO, SALARINO, and SALANIO.]

LORENZO.
 * Nay, we will slink away in supper-time,
 * Disguise us at my lodging, and return
 * All in an hour.

GRATIANO.
 * We have not made good preparation.

SALARINO.
 * We have not spoke us yet of torch-bearers.

SALANIO.
 * ’Tis vile, unless it may be quaintly order’d,
 * And better in my mind not undertook.

LORENZO.
 * ’Tis now but four o’clock; we have two hours
 * To furnish us.

[Enter LAUNCELOT, With a letter.]


 * Friend Launcelot, what’s the news?

LAUNCELOT.
 * An it shall please you to break up this, it shall seem
 * to signify.

LORENZO.
 * I know the hand; in faith, ’tis a fair hand,
 * And whiter than the paper it writ on
 * Is the fair hand that writ.

GRATIANO.
 * Love news, in faith.

LAUNCELOT.
 * By your leave, sir.

LORENZO.
 * Whither goest thou?

LAUNCELOT.
 * Marry, sir, to bid my old master, the Jew, to sup
 * to-night with my new master, the Christian.

LORENZO.
 * Hold, here, take this. Tell gentle Jessica
 * I will not fail her; speak it privately.
 * Go, gentlemen,

[Exit LAUNCELOT]


 * Will you prepare you for this masque to-night?
 * I am provided of a torch-bearer.

SALARINO.
 * Ay, marry, I’ll be gone about it straight.

SALANIO.
 * And so will I.

LORENZO.
 * Meet me and Gratiano
 * At Gratiano’s lodging some hour hence.

SALARINO.
 * ’Tis good we do so.

[Exeunt SALARINO and SALANIO.]

GRATIANO.
 * Was not that letter from fair Jessica?

LORENZO.
 * I must needs tell thee all. She hath directed
 * How I shall take her from her father’s house;
 * What gold and jewels she is furnish’d with;
 * What page’s suit she hath in readiness.
 * If e’er the Jew her father come to heaven,
 * It will be for his gentle daughter’s sake;
 * And never dare misfortune cross her foot,
 * Unless she do it under this excuse,
 * That she is issue to a faithless Jew.
 * Come, go with me, peruse this as thou goest;
 * Fair Jessica shall be my torch-bearer.

[Exeunt]

SCENE 5. The same. Before SHYLOCK’S house
[Enter SHYLOCK and LAUNCELOT.]

SHYLOCK.
 * Well, thou shalt see; thy eyes shall be thy judge,
 * The difference of old Shylock and Bassanio:—
 * What, Jessica!—Thou shalt not gormandize,
 * As thou hast done with me;—What, Jessica!—
 * And sleep and snore, and rend apparel out—
 * Why, Jessica, I say!

LAUNCELOT.
 * Why, Jessica!

SHYLOCK.
 * Who bids thee call? I do not bid thee call.

LAUNCELOT.
 * Your worship was wont to tell me I could do nothing
 * without bidding.

[Enter JESSICA.]

JESSICA.
 * Call you? What is your will?

SHYLOCK.
 * I am bid forth to supper, Jessica:
 * There are my keys. But wherefore should I go?
 * I am not bid for love; they flatter me;
 * But yet I’ll go in hate, to feed upon
 * The prodigal Christian. Jessica, my girl,
 * Look to my house. I am right loath to go;
 * There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest,
 * For I did dream of money-bags to-night.

LAUNCELOT.
 * I beseech you, sir, go: my young master doth expect your
 * reproach.

SHYLOCK.
 * So do I his.

LAUNCELOT.
 * And they have conspired together; I will not say you
 * shall see a masque, but if you do, then it was not for nothing
 * that my nose fell a-bleeding on Black Monday last at six o’clock
 * i’ the morning, falling out that year on Ash-Wednesday was four
 * year in the afternoon.

SHYLOCK.
 * What! are there masques? Hear you me, Jessica:
 * Lock up my doors, and when you hear the drum,
 * And the vile squealing of the wry-neck’d fife,
 * Clamber not you up to the casements then,
 * Nor thrust your head into the public street
 * To gaze on Christian fools with varnish’d faces;
 * But stop my house’s ears- I mean my casements;
 * Let not the sound of shallow fopp’ry enter
 * My sober house. By Jacob’s staff, I swear
 * I have no mind of feasting forth to-night;
 * But I will go. Go you before me, sirrah;
 * Say I will come.

LAUNCELOT.
 * I will go before, sir. Mistress, look out at window for all this;
 * There will come a Christian by
 * Will be worth a Jewess’ eye.

[Exit LAUNCELOT.]

SHYLOCK.
 * What says that fool of Hagar’s offspring, ha?

JESSICA.
 * His words were ‘Farewell, mistress’; nothing else.

SHYLOCK.
 * The patch is kind enough, but a huge feeder;
 * Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by day
 * More than the wild-cat; drones hive not with me,
 * Therefore I part with him; and part with him
 * To one that I would have him help to waste
 * His borrow’d purse. Well, Jessica, go in;
 * Perhaps I will return immediately:
 * Do as I bid you, shut doors after you:
 * ‘Fast bind, fast find,’
 * A proverb never stale in thrifty mind.

[Exit.]

JESSICA.
 * Farewell; and if my fortune be not crost,
 * I have a father, you a daughter, lost.

[Exit.]

SCENE 6. The same.
[Enter GRATIANO and SALARINO, masqued.]

GRATIANO.
 * This is the pent-house under which Lorenzo
 * Desir’d us to make stand.

SALARINO.
 * His hour is almost past.

GRATIANO.
 * And it is marvel he out-dwells his hour,
 * For lovers ever run before the clock.

SALARINO.
 * O! ten times faster Venus’ pigeons fly
 * To seal love’s bonds new made than they are wont
 * To keep obliged faith unforfeited!

GRATIANO.
 * That ever holds: who riseth from a feast
 * With that keen appetite that he sits down?
 * Where is the horse that doth untread again
 * His tedious measures with the unbated fire
 * That he did pace them first? All things that are
 * Are with more spirit chased than enjoy’d.
 * How like a younker or a prodigal
 * The scarfed bark puts from her native bay,
 * Hugg’d and embraced by the strumpet wind!
 * How like the prodigal doth she return,
 * With over-weather’d ribs and ragged sails,
 * Lean, rent, and beggar’d by the strumpet wind!

SALARINO.
 * Here comes Lorenzo; more of this hereafter.

[Enter LORENZO.]

LORENZO.
 * Sweet friends, your patience for my long abode;
 * Not I, but my affairs, have made you wait:
 * When you shall please to play the thieves for wives,
 * I’ll watch as long for you then. Approach;
 * Here dwells my father Jew. Ho! who’s within?

[Enter JESSICA, above, in boy’s clothes.]

JESSICA.
 * Who are you? Tell me, for more certainty,
 * Albeit I’ll swear that I do know your tongue.

LORENZO.
 * Lorenzo, and thy love.

JESSICA.
 * Lorenzo, certain; and my love indeed,
 * For who love I so much? And now who knows
 * But you, Lorenzo, whether I am yours?

LORENZO.
 * Heaven and thy thoughts are witness that thou art.

JESSICA.
 * Here, catch this casket; it is worth the pains.
 * I am glad ’tis night, you do not look on me,
 * For I am much asham’d of my exchange;
 * But love is blind, and lovers cannot see
 * The pretty follies that themselves commit,
 * For, if they could, Cupid himself would blush
 * To see me thus transformed to a boy.

LORENZO.
 * Descend, for you must be my torch-bearer.

JESSICA.
 * What! must I hold a candle to my shames?
 * They in themselves, good sooth, are too-too light.
 * Why, ’tis an office of discovery, love,
 * And I should be obscur’d.

LORENZO.
 * So are you, sweet,
 * Even in the lovely garnish of a boy.
 * But come at once;
 * For the close night doth play the runaway,
 * And we are stay’d for at Bassanio’s feast.

JESSICA.
 * I will make fast the doors, and gild myself
 * With some moe ducats, and be with you straight.

[Exit above.]

GRATIANO.
 * Now, by my hood, a Gentile, and no Jew.

LORENZO.
 * Beshrew me, but I love her heartily;
 * For she is wise, if I can judge of her,
 * And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true,
 * And true she is, as she hath prov’d herself;
 * And therefore, like herself, wise, fair, and true,
 * Shall she be placed in my constant soul.

[Enter JESSICA.]

What, art thou come? On, gentlemen, away!
 * Our masquing mates by this time for us stay.

[Exit with JESSICA and SALARINO.]

[Enter ANTONIO]

ANTONIO.
 * Who’s there?

GRATIANO.
 * Signior Antonio!

ANTONIO.
 * Fie, fie, Gratiano! where are all the rest?
 * ’Tis nine o’clock; our friends all stay for you.
 * No masque to-night: the wind is come about;
 * Bassanio presently will go aboard:
 * I have sent twenty out to seek for you.

GRATIANO.
 * I am glad on’t: I desire no more delight
 * Than to be under sail and gone to-night.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE 7. Belmont. A room in PORTIA’s house.
[Flourish of cornets. Enter PORTIA, with the PRINCE OF MOROCCO, and their trains.]

PORTIA.
 * Go draw aside the curtains and discover
 * The several caskets to this noble prince.
 * Now make your choice.

PRINCE OF MOROCCO.
 * The first, of gold, who this inscription bears:
 * ‘Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.’
 * The second, silver, which this promise carries:
 * ‘Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.’
 * This third, dull lead, with warning all as blunt:
 * ‘Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.’
 * How shall I know if I do choose the right?

PORTIA.
 * The one of them contains my picture, prince;
 * If you choose that, then I am yours withal.

PRINCE OF MOROCCO.
 * Some god direct my judgment! Let me see;
 * I will survey the inscriptions back again.
 * What says this leaden casket?
 * ‘Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.’
 * Must give: for what? For lead? Hazard for lead!
 * This casket threatens; men that hazard all
 * Do it in hope of fair advantages:
 * A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross;
 * I’ll then nor give nor hazard aught for lead.
 * What says the silver with her virgin hue?
 * ‘Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.’
 * As much as he deserves! Pause there, Morocco,
 * And weigh thy value with an even hand.
 * If thou be’st rated by thy estimation,
 * Thou dost deserve enough, and yet enough
 * May not extend so far as to the lady;
 * And yet to be afeard of my deserving
 * Were but a weak disabling of myself.
 * As much as I deserve! Why, that’s the lady:
 * I do in birth deserve her, and in fortunes,
 * In graces, and in qualities of breeding;
 * But more than these, in love I do deserve.
 * What if I stray’d no farther, but chose here?
 * Let’s see once more this saying grav’d in gold:
 * ‘Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.’
 * Why, that’s the lady: all the world desires her;
 * From the four corners of the earth they come,
 * To kiss this shrine, this mortal-breathing saint:
 * The Hyrcanian deserts and the vasty wilds
 * Of wide Arabia are as throughfares now
 * For princes to come view fair Portia:
 * The watery kingdom, whose ambitious head
 * Spits in the face of heaven, is no bar
 * To stop the foreign spirits, but they come
 * As o’er a brook to see fair Portia.
 * One of these three contains her heavenly picture.
 * Is’t like that lead contains her? ’Twere damnation
 * To think so base a thought; it were too gross
 * To rib her cerecloth in the obscure grave.
 * Or shall I think in silver she’s immur’d,
 * Being ten times undervalu’d to tried gold?
 * O sinful thought! Never so rich a gem
 * Was set in worse than gold. They have in England
 * A coin that bears the figure of an angel
 * Stamped in gold; but that’s insculp’d upon;
 * But here an angel in a golden bed
 * Lies all within. Deliver me the key;
 * Here do I choose, and thrive I as I may!

PORTIA.
 * There, take it, prince, and if my form lie there,
 * Then I am yours.

[He unlocks the golden casket.]

PRINCE OF MOROCCO.
 * O hell! what have we here?
 * A carrion Death, within whose empty eye
 * There is a written scroll! I’ll read the writing.
 * ‘All that glisters is not gold,
 * Often have you heard that told;
 * Many a man his life hath sold
 * But my outside to behold:
 * Gilded tombs do worms infold.
 * Had you been as wise as bold,
 * Young in limbs, in judgment old,
 * Your answer had not been inscroll’d:
 * Fare you well, your suit is cold.’
 * Fare you well, your suit is cold.’


 * Cold indeed; and labour lost:
 * Then, farewell, heat, and welcome, frost!
 * Portia, adieu! I have too griev’d a heart
 * To take a tedious leave; thus losers part.

[Exit with his train. Flourish of cornets.]

PORTIA.
 * A gentle riddance. Draw the curtains: go.
 * Let all of his complexion choose me so.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE 8. Venice. A street
[Enter SALARINO and SALANIO.]

SALARINO.
 * Why, man, I saw Bassanio under sail;
 * With him is Gratiano gone along;
 * And in their ship I am sure Lorenzo is not.

SALANIO.
 * The villain Jew with outcries rais’d the Duke,
 * Who went with him to search Bassanio’s ship.

SALARINO.
 * He came too late, the ship was under sail;
 * But there the duke was given to understand
 * That in a gondola were seen together
 * Lorenzo and his amorous Jessica.
 * Besides, Antonio certified the duke
 * They were not with Bassanio in his ship.

SALANIO.
 * I never heard a passion so confus’d,
 * So strange, outrageous, and so variable,
 * As the dog Jew did utter in the streets.
 * ‘My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter!
 * Fled with a Christian! O my Christian ducats!
 * Justice! the law! my ducats and my daughter!
 * A sealed bag, two sealed bags of ducats,
 * Of double ducats, stol’n from me by my daughter!
 * And jewels! two stones, two rich and precious stones,
 * Stol’n by my daughter! Justice! find the girl!
 * She hath the stones upon her and the ducats.’

SALARINO.
 * Why, all the boys in Venice follow him,
 * Crying, his stones, his daughter, and his ducats.

SALANIO.
 * Let good Antonio look he keep his day,
 * Or he shall pay for this.

SALARINO.
 * Marry, well remember’d.
 * I reason’d with a Frenchman yesterday,
 * Who told me,—in the narrow seas that part
 * The French and English,—there miscarried
 * A vessel of our country richly fraught.
 * I thought upon Antonio when he told me,
 * And wish’d in silence that it were not his.

SALANIO.
 * You were best to tell Antonio what you hear;
 * Yet do not suddenly, for it may grieve him.

SALARINO.
 * A kinder gentleman treads not the earth.
 * I saw Bassanio and Antonio part:
 * Bassanio told him he would make some speed
 * Of his return. He answer’d ‘Do not so;
 * Slubber not business for my sake, Bassanio,
 * But stay the very riping of the time;
 * And for the Jew’s bond which he hath of me,
 * Let it not enter in your mind of love:
 * Be merry, and employ your chiefest thoughts
 * To courtship, and such fair ostents of love
 * As shall conveniently become you there.’
 * And even there, his eye being big with tears,
 * Turning his face, he put his hand behind him,
 * And with affection wondrous sensible
 * He wrung Bassanio’s hand; and so they parted.

SALANIO.
 * I think he only loves the world for him.
 * I pray thee, let us go and find him out,
 * And quicken his embraced heaviness
 * With some delight or other.

SALARINO.
 * Do we so.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE 9. Belmont. A room in PORTIA’s house.
[Enter NERISSA, with a SERVITOR.]

NERISSA.
 * Quick, quick, I pray thee, draw the curtain straight;
 * The Prince of Arragon hath ta’en his oath,
 * And comes to his election presently.

[Flourish of cornets. Enter the PRINCE OF ARRAGON, PORTIA, and their Trains.]

PORTIA.
 * Behold, there stand the caskets, noble Prince:
 * If you choose that wherein I am contain’d,
 * Straight shall our nuptial rites be solemniz’d;
 * But if you fail, without more speech, my lord,
 * You must be gone from hence immediately.

ARRAGON.
 * I am enjoin’d by oath to observe three things:
 * First, never to unfold to any one
 * Which casket ’twas I chose; next, if I fail
 * Of the right casket, never in my life
 * To woo a maid in way of marriage;
 * Lastly,
 * If I do fail in fortune of my choice,
 * Immediately to leave you and be gone.

PORTIA.
 * To these injunctions every one doth swear
 * That comes to hazard for my worthless self.

ARRAGON.
 * And so have I address’d me. Fortune now
 * To my heart’s hope! Gold, silver, and base lead.
 * ‘Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.’
 * You shall look fairer ere I give or hazard.
 * What says the golden chest? Ha! let me see:
 * ‘Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.’
 * What many men desire! that ‘many’ may be meant
 * By the fool multitude, that choose by show,
 * Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach;
 * Which pries not to th’ interior, but, like the martlet,
 * Builds in the weather on the outward wall,
 * Even in the force and road of casualty.
 * I will not choose what many men desire,
 * Because I will not jump with common spirits
 * And rank me with the barbarous multitudes.
 * Why, then to thee, thou silver treasure-house;
 * Tell me once more what title thou dost bear:
 * ‘Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.’
 * And well said too; for who shall go about
 * To cozen fortune, and be honourable
 * Without the stamp of merit? Let none presume
 * To wear an undeserved dignity.
 * O! that estates, degrees, and offices
 * Were not deriv’d corruptly, and that clear honour
 * Were purchas’d by the merit of the wearer!
 * How many then should cover that stand bare;
 * How many be commanded that command;
 * How much low peasantry would then be glean’d
 * From the true seed of honour; and how much honour
 * Pick’d from the chaff and ruin of the times
 * To be new varnish’d! Well, but to my choice:
 * ‘Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.’
 * I will assume desert. Give me a key for this,
 * And instantly unlock my fortunes here.

[He opens the silver casket.]

PORTIA.
 * Too long a pause for that which you find there.

ARRAGON.
 * What’s here? The portrait of a blinking idiot,
 * Presenting me a schedule! I will read it.
 * How much unlike art thou to Portia!
 * How much unlike my hopes and my deservings!
 * ‘Who chooseth me shall have as much as he deserves.’
 * Did I deserve no more than a fool’s head?
 * Is that my prize? Are my deserts no better?

PORTIA.
 * To offend, and judge, are distinct offices,
 * And of opposed natures.

ARRAGON.
 * What is here?


 * ‘The fire seven times tried this;
 * Seven times tried that judgment is
 * That did never choose amiss.
 * Some there be that shadows kiss;
 * Such have but a shadow’s bliss;
 * There be fools alive, I wis,
 * Silver’d o’er, and so was this.
 * Take what wife you will to bed,
 * I will ever be your head:
 * So be gone; you are sped.’

Still more fool I shall appear
 * By the time I linger here;
 * With one fool’s head I came to woo,
 * But I go away with two.
 * Sweet, adieu! I’ll keep my oath,
 * Patiently to bear my wroth.

[Exit ARAGON with his train.]

PORTIA.
 * Thus hath the candle sing’d the moth.
 * O, these deliberate fools! When they do choose,
 * They have the wisdom by their wit to lose.

NERISSA.
 * The ancient saying is no heresy:
 * ‘Hanging and wiving goes by destiny.’

PORTIA.
 * Come, draw the curtain, Nerissa.

[Enter a SERVANT.]

SERVANT.
 * Where is my lady?

PORTIA.
 * Here; what would my lord?

SERVANT.
 * Madam, there is alighted at your gate
 * A young Venetian, one that comes before
 * To signify th’ approaching of his lord;
 * From whom he bringeth sensible regreets;
 * To wit,—besides commends and courteous breath,—
 * Gifts of rich value. Yet I have not seen
 * So likely an ambassador of love.
 * A day in April never came so sweet,
 * To show how costly summer was at hand,
 * As this fore-spurrer comes before his lord.

PORTIA.
 * No more, I pray thee; I am half afeard
 * Thou wilt say anon he is some kin to thee,
 * Thou spend’st such high-day wit in praising him.
 * Come, come, Nerissa, for I long to see
 * Quick Cupid’s post that comes so mannerly.

NERISSA.
 * Bassanio, lord Love, if thy will it be!

[Exeunt.]

SCENE I. Venice. A street
[Enter SALANIO and SALARINO.]

SALANIO.
 * Now, what news on the Rialto?

SALARINO.
 * Why, yet it lives there unchecked that Antonio hath a ship
 * of rich lading wrack’d on the narrow seas; the Goodwins, I think
 * they call the place, a very dangerous flat and fatal, where the
 * carcasses of many a tall ship lie buried, as they say, if my
 * gossip Report be an honest woman of her word.

SALANIO.
 * I would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever knapped
 * ginger or made her neighbours believe she wept for the death of a
 * third husband. But it is true,—without any slips of prolixity or
 * crossing the plain highway of talk,—that the good Antonio, the
 * honest Antonio,—O that I had a title good enough to keep his
 * name
 * company!—

SALARINO.
 * Come, the full stop.

SALANIO.
 * Ha! What sayest thou? Why, the end is, he hath lost a
 * ship.

SALARINO.
 * I would it might prove the end of his losses.

SALANIO.
 * Let me say ‘amen’ betimes, lest the devil cross my prayer,
 * for here he comes in the likeness of a Jew.

[Enter SHYLOCK.]


 * How now, Shylock! What news among the merchants?

SHYLOCK.
 * You knew, none so well, none so well as you, of my
 * daughter’s flight.

SALARINO.
 * That’s certain; I, for my part, knew the tailor that made
 * the wings she flew withal.

SALANIO.
 * And Shylock, for his own part, knew the bird was fledged;
 * and then it is the complexion of them all to leave the dam.

SHYLOCK.
 * She is damned for it.

SALARINO.
 * That’s certain, if the devil may be her judge.

SHYLOCK.
 * My own flesh and blood to rebel!

SALANIO.
 * Out upon it, old carrion! Rebels it at these years?

SHYLOCK.
 * I say my daughter is my flesh and my blood.

SALARINO.
 * There is more difference between thy flesh and hers than
 * between jet and ivory; more between your bloods than there is
 * between red wine and Rhenish. But tell us, do you hear whether
 * Antonio have had any loss at sea or no?

SHYLOCK.
 * There I have another bad match: a bankrupt, a prodigal,
 * who dare scarce show his head on the Rialto; a beggar, that used
 * to come so smug upon the mart; let him look to his bond: he
 * was wont to call me usurer; let him look to his bond: he was wont
 * to lend money for a Christian courtesy; let him look to his bond.

SALARINO.
 * Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his
 * flesh: what’s that good for?

SHYLOCK.
 * To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will
 * feed my revenge. He hath disgrac’d me and hind’red me half a
 * million; laugh’d at my losses, mock’d at my gains, scorned my
 * nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine
 * enemies. And what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes?
 * Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections,
 * passions, fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons,
 * subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed
 * and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If
 * you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
 * If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we
 * not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you
 * in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility?
 * Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance
 * be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me
 * I will execute; and it shall go hard but I will better the
 * instruction.

[Enter a Servant.]

SERVANT.
 * Gentlemen, my master Antonio is at his house, and desires to
 * speak with you both.

SALARINO.
 * We have been up and down to seek him.

[Enter TUBAL.]

SALANIO.
 * Here comes another of the tribe: a third cannot be
 * match’d, unless the devil himself turn Jew.

[Exeunt SALANIO, SALARINO, and Servant.]

SHYLOCK.
 * How now, Tubal! what news from Genoa? Hast thou found my
 * daughter?

TUBAL.
 * I often came where I did hear of her, but cannot find her.

SHYLOCK.
 * Why there, there, there, there! A diamond gone, cost me
 * two thousand ducats in Frankfort! The curse never fell upon our
 * nation till now; I never felt it till now. Two thousand ducats in
 * that, and other precious, precious jewels. I would my daughter
 * were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear; would she were
 * hearsed at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin! No news of
 * them? Why, so: and I know not what’s spent in the search. Why,
 * thou—loss upon loss! The thief gone with so much, and so much to
 * find the thief; and no satisfaction, no revenge; nor no ill luck
 * stirring but what lights on my shoulders; no sighs but of my
 * breathing; no tears but of my shedding.

TUBAL.
 * Yes, other men have ill luck too. Antonio, as I heard in
 * Genoa,—

SHYLOCK.
 * What, what, what? Ill luck, ill luck?

TUBAL.
 * —hath an argosy cast away, coming from Tripolis.

SHYLOCK.
 * I thank God! I thank God! Is it true, is it true?

TUBAL.
 * I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wrack.

SHYLOCK.
 * I thank thee, good Tubal. Good news, good news! ha, ha!
 * Where? in Genoa?

TUBAL.
 * Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, one night,
 * fourscore ducats.

SHYLOCK.
 * Thou stick’st a dagger in me: I shall never see my gold
 * again: fourscore ducats at a sitting! Fourscore ducats!

TUBAL.
 * There came divers of Antonio’s creditors in my company to
 * Venice that swear he cannot choose but break.

SHYLOCK.
 * I am very glad of it; I’ll plague him, I’ll torture him; I
 * am glad of it.

TUBAL.
 * One of them showed me a ring that he had of your daughter
 * for a monkey.

SHYLOCK.
 * Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal: It was my
 * turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor; I would not
 * have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.

TUBAL.
 * But Antonio is certainly undone.

SHYLOCK.
 * Nay, that’s true; that’s very true. Go, Tubal, fee me an
 * officer; bespeak him a fortnight before. I will have the heart of
 * him, if he forfeit; for, were he out of Venice, I can make what
 * merchandise I will. Go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue; go,
 * good Tubal; at our synagogue, Tubal.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE 2. Belmont. A room in PORTIA’s house.
[Enter BASSANIO, PORTIA, GRATIANO, NERISSA, and Attendants.]

PORTIA.
 * 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 to choose right, but then I am forsworn;
 * 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’erlook’d me and divided me:
 * One half of me is yours, the other half yours,
 * Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours,
 * And so all yours. O! these naughty times
 * Puts bars between the owners and their rights;
 * And so, though yours, not yours. Prove it so,
 * Let fortune go to hell for it, not I.
 * I speak too long, but ’tis to peise the time,
 * To eke it, and to draw it out in length,
 * To stay you from election.

BASSANIO.
 * Let me choose;
 * For as I am, I live upon the rack.

PORTIA.
 * Upon the rack, Bassanio! Then confess
 * What treason there is mingled with your love.

BASSANIO.
 * None but that ugly treason of mistrust,
 * Which makes me fear th’ enjoying of my love:
 * There may as well be amity and life
 * ’Tween snow and fire as treason and my love.

PORTIA.
 * Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack,
 * Where men enforced do speak anything.

BASSANIO.
 * Promise me life, and I’ll confess the truth.

PORTIA.
 * Well then, confess and live.

BASSANIO.
 * ‘Confess’ and ‘love’
 * Had been the very sum of my confession:
 * O happy torment, when my torturer
 * Doth teach me answers for deliverance!
 * But let me to my fortune and the caskets.

PORTIA.
 * Away, then! I am lock’d in one of them:
 * If you do love me, you will find me out.
 * Nerissa and the rest, stand all aloof;
 * Let music sound while he doth make his choice;
 * Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,
 * Fading in music: that the comparison
 * May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream
 * And watery death-bed for him. He may win;
 * And what is music then? Then music is
 * Even as the flourish when true subjects bow
 * To a new-crowned monarch; such it is
 * As are those dulcet sounds in break of day
 * That creep into the dreaming bridegroom’s ear
 * And summon him to marriage. Now he goes,
 * With no less presence, but with much more love,
 * Than young Alcides when he did redeem
 * The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy
 * To the sea-monster: I stand for sacrifice;
 * The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives,
 * With bleared visages come forth to view
 * The issue of th’ exploit. Go, Hercules!
 * Live thou, I live. With much much more dismay
 * I view the fight than thou that mak’st the fray.

[A Song, whilst BASSANIO comments on the caskets to himself.]


 * Tell me where is fancy bred,
 * Or in the heart or in the head,
 * How begot, how nourished?
 * Reply, reply.


 * It is engend’red in the eyes,
 * With gazing fed; and fancy dies
 * In the cradle where it lies.
 * Let us all ring fancy’s knell:
 * I’ll begin it.—Ding, dong, bell.


 * [ALL.] Ding, dong, bell.

BASSANIO.
 * So may the outward shows be least themselves:
 * The world is still deceiv’d with ornament.
 * In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt
 * But, being season’d with a gracious voice,
 * Obscures the show of evil? In religion,
 * What damned error but some sober brow
 * Will bless it, and approve it with a text,
 * Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?
 * There is no vice so simple but assumes
 * Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.
 * How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false
 * As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins
 * The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars;
 * Who, inward search’d, have livers white as milk;
 * And these assume but valour’s excrement
 * To render them redoubted! Look on beauty
 * And you shall see ’tis purchas’d by the weight:
 * Which therein works a miracle in nature,
 * Making them lightest that wear most of it:
 * So are those crisped snaky golden locks
 * Which make such wanton gambols with the wind,
 * Upon supposed fairness, often known
 * To be the dowry of a second head,
 * The skull that bred them, in the sepulchre.
 * Thus ornament is but the guiled shore
 * To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf
 * Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,
 * The seeming truth which cunning times put on
 * To entrap the wisest. Therefore, thou gaudy gold,
 * Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee;
 * Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge
 * ’Tween man and man: but thou, thou meagre lead,
 * Which rather threaten’st than dost promise aught,
 * Thy plainness moves me more than eloquence,
 * And here choose I: joy be the consequence!

PORTIA.
 * [Aside] How all the other passions fleet to air,
 * As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embrac’d despair,
 * And shuddering fear, and green-ey’d jealousy!
 * O love! be moderate; allay thy ecstasy;
 * In measure rain thy joy; scant this excess;
 * I feel too much thy blessing; make it less,
 * For fear I surfeit!

BASSANIO.
 * What find I here? [Opening the leaden casket.]
 * Fair Portia’s counterfeit! What demi-god
 * Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes?
 * Or whether riding on the balls of mine,
 * Seem they in motion? Here are sever’d lips,
 * Parted with sugar breath; so sweet a bar
 * Should sunder such sweet friends. Here in her hairs
 * The painter plays the spider, and hath woven
 * A golden mesh t’ entrap the hearts of men
 * Faster than gnats in cobwebs: but her eyes!—
 * How could he see to do them? Having made one,
 * Methinks it should have power to steal both his,
 * And leave itself unfurnish’d: yet look, how far
 * The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow
 * In underprizing it, so far this shadow
 * Doth limp behind the substance. Here’s the scroll,
 * The continent and summary of my fortune.


 * ‘You that choose not by the view,
 * Chance as fair and choose as true!
 * Since this fortune falls to you,
 * Be content and seek no new.
 * If you be well pleas’d with this,
 * And hold your fortune for your bliss,
 * Turn to where your lady is
 * And claim her with a loving kiss.’

A gentle scroll. Fair lady, by your leave; [Kissing her.]
 * I come by note, to give and to receive.
 * Like one of two contending in a prize,
 * That thinks he hath done well in people’s eyes,
 * Hearing applause and universal shout,
 * Giddy in spirit, still gazing in a doubt
 * Whether those peals of praise be his or no;
 * So, thrice-fair lady, stand I, even so,
 * As doubtful whether what I see be true,
 * Until confirm’d, sign’d, ratified by you.

PORTIA.
 * You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,
 * Such as I am: though for myself alone
 * I would not be ambitious in my wish
 * To wish myself much better, yet for you
 * I would be trebled twenty times myself,
 * A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times
 * More rich;
 * That only to stand high in your account,
 * I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends,
 * Exceed account. But the full sum of me
 * Is sum of something which, to term in gross,
 * Is an unlesson’d girl, unschool’d, unpractis’d;
 * Happy in this, she is not yet so old
 * But she may learn; happier than this,
 * She is not bred so dull but she can learn;
 * Happiest of all is that her gentle spirit
 * Commits itself to yours to be directed,
 * As from her lord, her governor, her king.
 * Myself and what is mine to you and yours
 * Is now converted. But now I was the lord
 * Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,
 * Queen o’er myself; and even now, but now,
 * This house, these servants, and this same myself,
 * Are yours- my lord’s. I give them with this ring,
 * Which when you part from, lose, or give away,
 * Let it presage the ruin of your love,
 * And be my vantage to exclaim on you.

BASSANIO.
 * Madam, you have bereft me of all words,
 * Only my blood speaks to you in my veins;
 * And there is such confusion in my powers
 * As, after some oration fairly spoke
 * By a beloved prince, there doth appear
 * Among the buzzing pleased multitude;
 * Where every something, being blent together,
 * Turns to a wild of nothing, save of joy,
 * Express’d and not express’d. But when this ring
 * Parts from this finger, then parts life from hence:
 * O! then be bold to say Bassanio’s dead.

NERISSA.
 * My lord and lady, it is now our time,
 * That have stood by and seen our wishes prosper,
 * To cry, good joy. Good joy, my lord and lady!

GRATIANO.
 * My Lord Bassanio, and my gentle lady,
 * I wish you all the joy that you can wish;
 * For I am sure you can wish none from me;
 * And when your honours mean to solemnize
 * The bargain of your faith, I do beseech you
 * Even at that time I may be married too.

BASSANIO.
 * With all my heart, so thou canst get a wife.

GRATIANO.
 * I thank your lordship, you have got me one.
 * My eyes, my lord, can look as swift as yours:
 * You saw the mistress, I beheld the maid;
 * You lov’d, I lov’d; for intermission
 * No more pertains to me, my lord, than you.
 * Your fortune stood upon the caskets there,
 * And so did mine too, as the matter falls;
 * For wooing here until I sweat again,
 * And swearing till my very roof was dry
 * With oaths of love, at last, if promise last,
 * I got a promise of this fair one here
 * To have her love, provided that your fortune
 * Achiev’d her mistress.

PORTIA.
 * Is this true, Nerissa?

NERISSA.
 * Madam, it is, so you stand pleas’d withal.

BASSANIO.
 * And do you, Gratiano, mean good faith?

GRATIANO.
 * Yes, faith, my lord.

BASSANIO.
 * Our feast shall be much honour’d in your marriage.

GRATIANO.
 * We’ll play with them the first boy for a thousand
 * ducats.

NERISSA.
 * What! and stake down?

GRATIANO.
 * No; we shall ne’er win at that sport, and stake down.
 * But who comes here? Lorenzo and his infidel?
 * What, and my old Venetian friend, Salanio!

[Enter LORENZO, JESSICA, and SALANIO.]

BASSANIO.
 * Lorenzo and Salanio, welcome hither,
 * If that the youth of my new interest here
 * Have power to bid you welcome. By your leave,
 * I bid my very friends and countrymen,
 * Sweet Portia, welcome.

PORTIA.
 * So do I, my lord;
 * They are entirely welcome.

LORENZO.
 * I thank your honour. For my part, my lord,
 * My purpose was not to have seen you here;
 * But meeting with Salanio by the way,
 * He did entreat me, past all saying nay,
 * To come with him along.

SALANIO.
 * I did, my lord,
 * And I have reason for it. Signior Antonio
 * Commends him to you.

[Gives BASSANIO a letter]

BASSANIO.
 * Ere I ope his letter,
 * I pray you tell me how my good friend doth.

SALANIO.
 * Not sick, my lord, unless it be in mind;
 * Nor well, unless in mind; his letter there
 * Will show you his estate.

GRATIANO.
 * Nerissa, cheer yon stranger; bid her welcome.
 * Your hand, Salanio. What’s the news from Venice?
 * How doth that royal merchant, good Antonio?
 * I know he will be glad of our success:
 * We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece.

SALANIO.
 * I would you had won the fleece that he hath lost.

PORTIA.
 * There are some shrewd contents in yon same paper.
 * That steal the colour from Bassanio’s cheek:
 * Some dear friend dead, else nothing in the world
 * Could turn so much the constitution
 * Of any constant man. What, worse and worse!
 * With leave, Bassanio: I am half yourself,
 * And I must freely have the half of anything
 * That this same paper brings you.

BASSANIO.
 * O sweet Portia!
 * Here are a few of the unpleasant’st words
 * That ever blotted paper. Gentle lady,
 * When I did first impart my love to you,
 * I freely told you all the wealth I had
 * Ran in my veins, I was a gentleman;
 * And then I told you true. And yet, dear lady,
 * Rating myself at nothing, you shall see
 * How much I was a braggart. When I told you
 * My state was nothing, I should then have told you
 * That I was worse than nothing; for indeed
 * I have engag’d myself to a dear friend,
 * Engag’d my friend to his mere enemy,
 * To feed my means. Here is a letter, lady,
 * The paper as the body of my friend,
 * And every word in it a gaping wound
 * Issuing life-blood. But is it true, Salanio?
 * Hath all his ventures fail’d? What, not one hit?
 * From Tripolis, from Mexico, and England,
 * From Lisbon, Barbary, and India?
 * And not one vessel scape the dreadful touch
 * Of merchant-marring rocks?

SALANIO.
 * Not one, my lord.
 * Besides, it should appear that, if he had
 * The present money to discharge the Jew,
 * He would not take it. Never did I know
 * A creature that did bear the shape of man,
 * So keen and greedy to confound a man.
 * He plies the duke at morning and at night,
 * And doth impeach the freedom of the state,
 * If they deny him justice. Twenty merchants,
 * The duke himself, and the magnificoes
 * Of greatest port, have all persuaded with him;
 * But none can drive him from the envious plea
 * Of forfeiture, of justice, and his bond.

JESSICA.
 * When I was with him, I have heard him swear
 * To Tubal and to Chus, his countrymen,
 * That he would rather have Antonio’s flesh
 * Than twenty times the value of the sum
 * That he did owe him; and I know, my lord,
 * If law, authority, and power, deny not,
 * It will go hard with poor Antonio.

PORTIA.
 * Is it your dear friend that is thus in trouble?

BASSANIO.
 * The dearest friend to me, the kindest man,
 * The best condition’d and unwearied spirit
 * In doing courtesies; and one in whom
 * The ancient Roman honour more appears
 * Than any that draws breath in Italy.

PORTIA.
 * What sum owes he the Jew?

BASSANIO.
 * For me, three thousand ducats.

PORTIA.
 * What! no more?
 * Pay him six thousand, and deface the bond;
 * Double six thousand, and then treble that,
 * Before a friend of this description
 * Shall lose a hair through Bassanio’s fault.
 * First go with me to church and call me wife,
 * And then away to Venice to your friend;
 * For never shall you lie by Portia’s side
 * With an unquiet soul. You shall have gold
 * To pay the petty debt twenty times over:
 * When it is paid, bring your true friend along.
 * My maid Nerissa and myself meantime,
 * Will live as maids and widows. Come, away!
 * For you shall hence upon your wedding day.
 * Bid your friends welcome, show a merry cheer;
 * Since you are dear bought, I will love you dear.
 * But let me hear the letter of your friend.

BASSANIO.
 * ‘Sweet Bassanio, my ships have all miscarried,
 * my creditors grow cruel, my estate is very low, my bond to the
 * Jew is forfeit; and since, in paying it, it is impossible I
 * should live, all debts are clear’d between you and I, if I might
 * but see you at my death. Notwithstanding, use your pleasure; if
 * your love do not persuade you to come, let not my letter.’

PORTIA.
 * O love, dispatch all business and be gone!

BASSANIO.
 * Since I have your good leave to go away,
 * I will make haste; but, till I come again,
 * No bed shall e’er be guilty of my stay,
 * Nor rest be interposer ’twixt us twain.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE 3. Venice. A street
[Enter SHYLOCK, SALARINO, ANTONIO, and Gaoler.]

SHYLOCK.
 * Gaoler, look to him. Tell not me of mercy;
 * This is the fool that lent out money gratis:
 * Gaoler, look to him.

ANTONIO.
 * Hear me yet, good Shylock.

SHYLOCK.
 * I’ll have my bond; speak not against my bond.
 * I have sworn an oath that I will have my bond.
 * Thou call’dst me dog before thou hadst a cause,
 * But, since I am a dog, beware my fangs;
 * The Duke shall grant me justice. I do wonder,
 * Thou naughty gaoler, that thou art so fond
 * To come abroad with him at his request.

ANTONIO.
 * I pray thee hear me speak.

SHYLOCK.
 * I’ll have my bond. I will not hear thee speak;
 * I’ll have my bond; and therefore speak no more.
 * I’ll not be made a soft and dull-eyed fool,
 * To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield
 * To Christian intercessors. Follow not;
 * I’ll have no speaking; I will have my bond.

[Exit.]

SALARINO.
 * It is the most impenetrable cur
 * That ever kept with men.

ANTONIO.
 * Let him alone;
 * I’ll follow him no more with bootless prayers.
 * He seeks my life; his reason well I know:
 * I oft deliver’d from his forfeitures
 * Many that have at times made moan to me;
 * Therefore he hates me.

SALARINO.
 * I am sure the Duke
 * Will never grant this forfeiture to hold.

ANTONIO.
 * The Duke cannot deny the course of law;
 * For the commodity that strangers have
 * With us in Venice, if it be denied,
 * ’Twill much impeach the justice of the state,
 * Since that the trade and profit of the city
 * Consisteth of all nations. Therefore, go;
 * These griefs and losses have so bated me
 * That I shall hardly spare a pound of flesh
 * To-morrow to my bloody creditor.
 * Well, gaoler, on; pray God Bassanio come
 * To see me pay his debt, and then I care not.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE 4. Belmont. A room in PORTIA’s house.
[Enter PORTIA, NERISSA, LORENZO, JESSICA, and BALTHASAR.]

LORENZO.
 * Madam, although I speak it in your presence,
 * You have a noble and a true conceit
 * Of godlike amity, which appears most strongly
 * In bearing thus the absence of your lord.
 * But if you knew to whom you show this honour,
 * How true a gentleman you send relief,
 * How dear a lover of my lord your husband,
 * I know you would be prouder of the work
 * Than customary bounty can enforce you.

PORTIA.
 * I never did repent for doing good,
 * Nor shall not now; for in companions
 * That do converse and waste the time together,
 * Whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love,
 * There must be needs a like proportion
 * Of lineaments, of manners, and of spirit,
 * Which makes me think that this Antonio,
 * Being the bosom lover of my lord,
 * Must needs be like my lord. If it be so,
 * How little is the cost I have bestowed
 * In purchasing the semblance of my soul
 * From out the state of hellish cruelty!
 * This comes too near the praising of myself;
 * Therefore, no more of it; hear other things.
 * Lorenzo, I commit into your hands
 * The husbandry and manage of my house
 * Until my lord’s return; for mine own part,
 * I have toward heaven breath’d a secret vow
 * To live in prayer and contemplation,
 * Only attended by Nerissa here,
 * Until her husband and my lord’s return.
 * There is a monastery two miles off,
 * And there we will abide. I do desire you
 * Not to deny this imposition,
 * The which my love and some necessity
 * Now lays upon you.

LORENZO.
 * Madam, with all my heart
 * I shall obey you in an fair commands.

PORTIA.
 * My people do already know my mind,
 * And will acknowledge you and Jessica
 * In place of Lord Bassanio and myself.
 * So fare you well till we shall meet again.

LORENZO.
 * Fair thoughts and happy hours attend on you!

JESSICA.
 * I wish your ladyship all heart’s content.

PORTIA.
 * I thank you for your wish, and am well pleas’d
 * To wish it back on you. Fare you well, Jessica.

[Exeunt JESSICA and LORENZO.]


 * Now, Balthasar,
 * As I have ever found thee honest-true,
 * So let me find thee still. Take this same letter,
 * And use thou all th’ endeavour of a man
 * In speed to Padua; see thou render this
 * Into my cousin’s hands, Doctor Bellario;
 * And look what notes and garments he doth give thee,
 * Bring them, I pray thee, with imagin’d speed
 * Unto the traject, to the common ferry
 * Which trades to Venice. Waste no time in words,
 * But get thee gone; I shall be there before thee.

BALTHASAR.
 * Madam, I go with all convenient speed.

[Exit.]

PORTIA.
 * Come on, Nerissa, I have work in hand
 * That you yet know not of; we’ll see our husbands
 * Before they think of us.

NERISSA.
 * Shall they see us?

PORTIA.
 * They shall, Nerissa; but in such a habit
 * That they shall think we are accomplished
 * With that we lack. I’ll hold thee any wager,
 * When we are both accoutred like young men,
 * I’ll prove the prettier fellow of the two,
 * And wear my dagger with the braver grace,
 * And speak between the change of man and boy
 * With a reed voice; and turn two mincing steps
 * Into a manly stride; and speak of frays
 * Like a fine bragging youth; and tell quaint lies,
 * How honourable ladies sought my love,
 * Which I denying, they fell sick and died;
 * I could not do withal. Then I’ll repent,
 * And wish for all that, that I had not kill’d them.
 * And twenty of these puny lies I’ll tell,
 * That men shall swear I have discontinu’d school
 * About a twelvemonth. I have within my mind
 * A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks,
 * Which I will practise.

NERISSA.
 * Why, shall we turn to men?

PORTIA.
 * Fie, what a question’s that,
 * If thou wert near a lewd interpreter!
 * But come, I’ll tell thee all my whole device
 * When I am in my coach, which stays for us
 * At the park gate; and therefore haste away,
 * For we must measure twenty miles to-day.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE 5. The same. A garden.
[Enter LAUNCELOT and JESSICA.]

LAUNCELOT.
 * Yes, truly; for, look you, the sins of the father are to
 * be laid upon the children; therefore, I promise you, I fear you.
 * I was always plain with you, and so now I speak my agitation of
 * the matter; therefore be of good cheer, for truly I think you are
 * damn’d. There is but one hope in it that can do you any good, and
 * that is but a kind of bastard hope neither.

JESSICA.
 * And what hope is that, I pray thee?

LAUNCELOT.
 * Marry, you may partly hope that your father got you not,
 * that you are not the Jew’s daughter.

JESSICA.
 * That were a kind of bastard hope indeed; so the sins of my
 * mother should be visited upon me.

LAUNCELOT.
 * Truly then I fear you are damn’d both by father and
 * mother; thus when I shun Scylla, your father, I fall into
 * Charybdis, your mother; well, you are gone both ways.

JESSICA.
 * I shall be saved by my husband; he hath made me a Christian.

LAUNCELOT.
 * Truly, the more to blame he; we were Christians enow
 * before, e’en as many as could well live one by another. This
 * making of Christians will raise the price of hogs; if we grow all
 * to be pork-eaters, we shall not shortly have a rasher on the
 * coals for money.

JESSICA.
 * I’ll tell my husband, Launcelot, what you say; here he comes.

[Enter LORENZO.]

LORENZO.
 * I shall grow jealous of you shortly, Launcelot, if you
 * thus get my wife into corners.

JESSICA.
 * Nay, you need nor fear us, Lorenzo; Launcelot and I are
 * out; he tells me flatly there’s no mercy for me in heaven,
 * because I am a Jew’s daughter; and he says you are no good member
 * of the commonwealth, for in converting Jews to Christians you
 * raise the price of pork.

LORENZO.
 * I shall answer that better to the commonwealth than you
 * can the getting up of the negro’s belly; the Moor is with child
 * by you, Launcelot.

LAUNCELOT.
 * It is much that the Moor should be more than reason; but
 * if she be less than an honest woman, she is indeed more than I
 * took her for.

LORENZO.
 * How every fool can play upon the word! I think the best
 * grace of wit will shortly turn into silence, and discourse grow
 * commendable in none only but parrots. Go in, sirrah; bid them
 * prepare for dinner.

LAUNCELOT.
 * That is done, sir; they have all stomachs.

LORENZO.
 * Goodly Lord, what a wit-snapper are you! Then bid them
 * prepare dinner.

LAUNCELOT.
 * That is done too, sir, only ‘cover’ is the word.

LORENZO.
 * Will you cover, then, sir?

LAUNCELOT.
 * Not so, sir, neither; I know my duty.

LORENZO.
 * Yet more quarrelling with occasion! Wilt thou show the
 * whole wealth of thy wit in an instant? I pray thee understand a
 * plain man in his plain meaning: go to thy fellows, bid them cover
 * the table, serve in the meat, and we will come in to dinner.

LAUNCELOT.
 * For the table, sir, it shall be served in; for the meat,
 * sir, it shall be covered; for your coming in to dinner, sir, why,
 * let it be as humours and conceits shall govern.

[Exit.]

LORENZO.
 * O dear discretion, how his words are suited!
 * The fool hath planted in his memory
 * An army of good words; and I do know
 * A many fools that stand in better place,
 * Garnish’d like him, that for a tricksy word
 * Defy the matter. How cheer’st thou, Jessica?
 * And now, good sweet, say thy opinion,
 * How dost thou like the Lord Bassanio’s wife?

JESSICA.
 * Past all expressing. It is very meet
 * The Lord Bassanio live an upright life,
 * For, having such a blessing in his lady,
 * He finds the joys of heaven here on earth;
 * And if on earth he do not merit it,
 * In reason he should never come to heaven.
 * Why, if two gods should play some heavenly match,
 * And on the wager lay two earthly women,
 * And Portia one, there must be something else
 * Pawn’d with the other; for the poor rude world
 * Hath not her fellow.

LORENZO.
 * Even such a husband
 * Hast thou of me as she is for a wife.

JESSICA.
 * Nay, but ask my opinion too of that.

LORENZO.
 * I will anon; first let us go to dinner.

JESSICA.
 * Nay, let me praise you while I have a stomach.

LORENZO.
 * No, pray thee, let it serve for table-talk;
 * Then howsoe’er thou speak’st, ’mong other things
 * I shall digest it.

JESSICA.
 * Well, I’ll set you forth.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE I. Venice. A court of justice
[Enter the DUKE: the Magnificoes; ANTONIO, BASSANIO, GRATIANO, SALARINO, SALANIO, and Others.]

DUKE.
 * What, is Antonio here?

ANTONIO.
 * Ready, so please your Grace.

DUKE.
 * I am sorry for thee; thou art come to answer
 * A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch,
 * Uncapable of pity, void and empty
 * From any dram of mercy.

ANTONIO.
 * I have heard
 * Your Grace hath ta’en great pains to qualify
 * His rigorous course; but since he stands obdurate,
 * And that no lawful means can carry me
 * Out of his envy’s reach, I do oppose
 * My patience to his fury, and am arm’d
 * To suffer with a quietness of spirit
 * The very tyranny and rage of his.

DUKE.
 * Go one, and call the Jew into the court.

SALARINO.
 * He is ready at the door; he comes, my lord.

[Enter SHYLOCK.]

DUKE.
 * Make room, and let him stand before our face.
 * Shylock, the world thinks, and I think so too,
 * That thou but leadest this fashion of thy malice
 * To the last hour of act; and then, ’tis thought,
 * Thou’lt show thy mercy and remorse, more strange
 * Than is thy strange apparent cruelty;
 * And where thou now exacts the penalty,—
 * Which is a pound of this poor merchant’s flesh,—
 * Thou wilt not only loose the forfeiture,
 * But, touch’d with human gentleness and love,
 * Forgive a moiety of the principal,
 * Glancing an eye of pity on his losses,
 * That have of late so huddled on his back,
 * Enow to press a royal merchant down,
 * And pluck commiseration of his state
 * From brassy bosoms and rough hearts of flint,
 * From stubborn Turks and Tartars, never train’d
 * To offices of tender courtesy.
 * We all expect a gentle answer, Jew.

SHYLOCK.
 * I have possess’d your Grace of what I purpose,
 * And by our holy Sabbath have I sworn
 * To have the due and forfeit of my bond.
 * If you deny it, let the danger light
 * Upon your charter and your city’s freedom.
 * You’ll ask me why I rather choose to have
 * A weight of carrion flesh than to receive
 * Three thousand ducats. I’ll not answer that,
 * But say it is my humour: is it answer’d?
 * What if my house be troubled with a rat,
 * And I be pleas’d to give ten thousand ducats
 * To have it ban’d? What, are you answer’d yet?
 * Some men there are love not a gaping pig;
 * Some that are mad if they behold a cat;
 * And others, when the bagpipe sings i’ the nose,
 * Cannot contain their urine; for affection,
 * Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood
 * Of what it likes or loathes. Now, for your answer:
 * As there is no firm reason to be render’d,
 * Why he cannot abide a gaping pig;
 * Why he, a harmless necessary cat;
 * Why he, a wauling bagpipe; but of force
 * Must yield to such inevitable shame
 * As to offend, himself being offended;
 * So can I give no reason, nor I will not,
 * More than a lodg’d hate and a certain loathing
 * I bear Antonio, that I follow thus
 * A losing suit against him. Are you answered?

BASSANIO.
 * This is no answer, thou unfeeling man,
 * To excuse the current of thy cruelty.

SHYLOCK.
 * I am not bound to please thee with my answer.

BASSANIO.
 * Do all men kill the things they do not love?

SHYLOCK.
 * Hates any man the thing he would not kill?

BASSANIO.
 * Every offence is not a hate at first.

SHYLOCK.
 * What! wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice?

ANTONIO.
 * I pray you, think you question with the Jew:
 * You may as well go stand upon the beach,
 * And bid the main flood bate his usual height;
 * You may as well use question with the wolf,
 * Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb;
 * You may as well forbid the mountain pines
 * To wag their high tops and to make no noise
 * When they are fretten with the gusts of heaven;
 * You may as well do anything most hard
 * As seek to soften that—than which what’s harder?—
 * His Jewish heart: therefore, I do beseech you,
 * Make no moe offers, use no farther means,
 * But with all brief and plain conveniency.
 * Let me have judgment, and the Jew his will.

BASSANIO.
 * For thy three thousand ducats here is six.

SHYLOCK.
 * If every ducat in six thousand ducats
 * Were in six parts, and every part a ducat,
 * I would not draw them; I would have my bond.

DUKE.
 * How shalt thou hope for mercy, rendering none?

SHYLOCK.
 * What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong?
 * You have among you many a purchas’d slave,
 * Which, fike your asses and your dogs and mules,
 * You use in abject and in slavish parts,
 * Because you bought them; shall I say to you
 * ‘Let them be free, marry them to your heirs?
 * Why sweat they under burdens? let their beds
 * Be made as soft as yours, and let their palates
 * Be season’d with such viands? You will answer
 * ‘The slaves are ours.’ So do I answer you:
 * The pound of flesh which I demand of him
 * Is dearly bought; ’tis mine, and I will have it.
 * If you deny me, fie upon your law!
 * There is no force in the decrees of Venice.
 * I stand for judgment: answer; shall I have it?

DUKE.
 * Upon my power I may dismiss this court,
 * Unless Bellario, a learned doctor,
 * Whom I have sent for to determine this,
 * Come here to-day.

SALARINO.
 * My lord, here stays without
 * A messenger with letters from the doctor,
 * New come from Padua.

DUKE.
 * Bring us the letters; call the messenger.

BASSANIO.
 * Good cheer, Antonio! What, man, courage yet!
 * The Jew shall have my flesh, blood, bones, and all,
 * Ere thou shalt lose for me one drop of blood.

ANTONIO.
 * I am a tainted wether of the flock,
 * Meetest for death; the weakest kind of fruit
 * Drops earliest to the ground, and so let me.
 * You cannot better be employ’d, Bassanio,
 * Than to live still, and write mine epitaph.

[Enter NERISSA dressed like a lawyer’s clerk.]

DUKE.
 * Came you from Padua, from Bellario?

NERISSA.
 * From both, my lord. Bellario greets your Grace.

[Presents a letter.]

BASSANIO.
 * Why dost thou whet thy knife so earnestly?

SHYLOCK.
 * To cut the forfeiture from that bankrupt there.

GRATIANO.
 * Not on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew,
 * Thou mak’st thy knife keen; but no metal can,
 * No, not the hangman’s axe, bear half the keenness
 * Of thy sharp envy. Can no prayers pierce thee?

SHYLOCK.
 * No, none that thou hast wit enough to make.

GRATIANO.
 * O, be thou damn’d, inexecrable dog!
 * And for thy life let justice be accus’d.
 * Thou almost mak’st me waver in my faith,
 * To hold opinion with Pythagoras
 * That souls of animals infuse themselves
 * Into the trunks of men. Thy currish spirit
 * Govern’d a wolf who, hang’d for human slaughter,
 * Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,
 * And, whilst thou lay’st in thy unhallow’d dam,
 * Infus’d itself in thee; for thy desires
 * Are wolfish, bloody, starv’d and ravenous.

SHYLOCK.
 * Till thou canst rail the seal from off my bond,
 * Thou but offend’st thy lungs to speak so loud;
 * Repair thy wit, good youth, or it will fall
 * To cureless ruin. I stand here for law.

DUKE.
 * This letter from Bellario doth commend
 * A young and learned doctor to our court.
 * Where is he?

NERISSA.
 * He attendeth here hard by,
 * To know your answer, whether you’ll admit him.

DUKE OF VENICE.
 * With all my heart: some three or four of you
 * Go give him courteous conduct to this place.
 * Meantime, the court shall hear Bellario’s letter.

CLERK.
 * ‘Your Grace shall understand that at the receipt
 * of your letter I am very sick; but in the instant that your
 * messenger came, in loving visitation was with me a young doctor
 * of Rome; his name is Balthazar. I acquainted him with the cause
 * in controversy between the Jew and Antonio the merchant; we
 * turn’d o’er many books together; he is furnished with my opinion
 * which, bettered with his own learning,—the greatness whereof I
 * cannot enough commend,—comes with him at my importunity to fill
 * up your Grace’s request in my stead. I beseech you let his lack
 * of years be no impediment to let him lack a reverend estimation,
 * for I never knew so young a body with so old a head. I leave him
 * to your gracious acceptance, whose trial shall better publish his
 * commendation.’

DUKE.
 * YOU hear the learn’d Bellario, what he writes;
 * And here, I take it, is the doctor come.

[Enter PORTIA, dressed like a doctor of laws.]


 * Give me your hand; come you from old Bellario?

PORTIA.
 * I did, my lord.

DUKE.
 * You are welcome; take your place.
 * Are you acquainted with the difference
 * That holds this present question in the court?

PORTIA.
 * I am informed throughly of the cause.
 * Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew?

DUKE OF VENICE.
 * Antonio and old Shylock, both stand forth.

PORTIA.
 * Is your name Shylock?

SHYLOCK.
 * Shylock is my name.

PORTIA.
 * Of a strange nature is the suit you follow;
 * Yet in such rule that the Venetian law
 * Cannot impugn you as you do proceed.
 * [To ANTONIO.] You stand within his danger, do you not?

ANTONIO.
 * Ay, so he says.

PORTIA.
 * Do you confess the bond?

ANTONIO.
 * I do.

PORTIA.
 * Then must the Jew be merciful.

SHYLOCK.
 * On what compulsion must I? Tell me that.

PORTIA.
 * The quality of mercy is not strain’d;
 * It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
 * Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
 * It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
 * ’Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
 * The throned monarch better than his crown;
 * His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
 * The attribute to awe and majesty,
 * Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
 * But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
 * It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
 * It is an attribute to God himself;
 * And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
 * When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
 * Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
 * That in the course of justice none of us
 * Should see salvation; we do pray for mercy,
 * And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
 * The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
 * To mitigate the justice of thy plea,
 * Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
 * Must needs give sentence ’gainst the merchant there.

SHYLOCK.
 * My deeds upon my head! I crave the law,
 * The penalty and forfeit of my bond.

PORTIA.
 * Is he not able to discharge the money?

BASSANIO.
 * Yes; here I tender it for him in the court;
 * Yea, twice the sum; if that will not suffice,
 * I will be bound to pay it ten times o’er
 * On forfeit of my hands, my head, my heart;
 * If this will not suffice, it must appear
 * That malice bears down truth. And, I beseech you,
 * Wrest once the law to your authority;
 * To do a great right do a little wrong,
 * And curb this cruel devil of his will.

PORTIA.
 * It must not be; there is no power in Venice
 * Can alter a decree established;
 * ’Twill be recorded for a precedent,
 * And many an error by the same example
 * Will rush into the state. It cannot be.

SHYLOCK.
 * A Daniel come to judgment! Yea, a Daniel!
 * O wise young judge, how I do honour thee!

PORTIA.
 * I pray you, let me look upon the bond.

SHYLOCK.
 * Here ’tis, most reverend doctor; here it is.

PORTIA.
 * Shylock, there’s thrice thy money offer’d thee.

SHYLOCK.
 * An oath, an oath! I have an oath in heaven.
 * Shall I lay perjury upon my soul?
 * No, not for Venice.

PORTIA.
 * Why, this bond is forfeit;
 * And lawfully by this the Jew may claim
 * A pound of flesh, to be by him cut off
 * Nearest the merchant’s heart. Be merciful.
 * Take thrice thy money; bid me tear the bond.

SHYLOCK.
 * When it is paid according to the tenour.
 * It doth appear you are a worthy judge;
 * You know the law; your exposition
 * Hath been most sound; I charge you by the law,
 * Whereof you are a well-deserving pillar,
 * Proceed to judgment. By my soul I swear
 * There is no power in the tongue of man
 * To alter me. I stay here on my bond.

ANTONIO.
 * Most heartily I do beseech the court
 * To give the judgment.

PORTIA.
 * Why then, thus it is:
 * You must prepare your bosom for his knife.

SHYLOCK.
 * O noble judge! O excellent young man!

PORTIA.
 * For the intent and purpose of the law
 * Hath full relation to the penalty,
 * Which here appeareth due upon the bond.

SHYLOCK.
 * ’Tis very true. O wise and upright judge,
 * How much more elder art thou than thy looks!

PORTIA.
 * Therefore, lay bare your bosom.

SHYLOCK.
 * Ay, ‘his breast’:
 * So says the bond:—doth it not, noble judge?—
 * ‘Nearest his heart’: those are the very words.

PORTIA.
 * It is so. Are there balance here to weigh
 * The flesh?

SHYLOCK.
 * I have them ready.

PORTIA.
 * Have by some surgeon, Shylock, on your charge,
 * To stop his wounds, lest he do bleed to death.

SHYLOCK.
 * Is it so nominated in the bond?

PORTIA.
 * It is not so express’d; but what of that?
 * ’Twere good you do so much for charity.

SHYLOCK.
 * I cannot find it; ’tis not in the bond.

PORTIA.
 * You, merchant, have you anything to say?

ANTONIO.
 * But little: I am arm’d and well prepar’d.
 * Give me your hand, Bassanio: fare you well.!
 * Grieve not that I am fallen to this for you,
 * For herein Fortune shows herself more kind
 * Than is her custom: it is still her use
 * To let the wretched man outlive his wealth,
 * To view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow
 * An age of poverty; from which lingering penance
 * Of such misery doth she cut me off.
 * Commend me to your honourable wife:
 * Tell her the process of Antonio’s end;
 * Say how I lov’d you; speak me fair in death;
 * And, when the tale is told, bid her be judge
 * Whether Bassanio had not once a love.
 * Repent but you that you shall lose your friend,
 * And he repents not that he pays your debt;
 * For if the Jew do cut but deep enough,
 * I’ll pay it instantly with all my heart.

BASSANIO.
 * Antonio, I am married to a wife
 * Which is as dear to me as life itself;
 * But life itself, my wife, and all the world,
 * Are not with me esteem’d above thy life;
 * I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all
 * Here to this devil, to deliver you.

PORTIA.
 * Your wife would give you little thanks for that,
 * If she were by to hear you make the offer.

GRATIANO.
 * I have a wife whom, I protest, I love;
 * I would she were in heaven, so she could
 * Entreat some power to change this currish Jew.

NERISSA.
 * ’Tis well you offer it behind her back;
 * The wish would make else an unquiet house.

SHYLOCK.
 * These be the Christian husbands! I have a daughter;
 * Would any of the stock of Barabbas
 * Had been her husband, rather than a Christian!
 * We trifle time; I pray thee, pursue sentence.

PORTIA.
 * A pound of that same merchant’s flesh is thine.
 * The court awards it and the law doth give it.

SHYLOCK.
 * Most rightful judge!

PORTIA.
 * And you must cut this flesh from off his breast.
 * The law allows it and the court awards it.

SHYLOCK.
 * Most learned judge! A sentence! Come, prepare.

PORTIA.
 * Tarry a little; there is something else.
 * This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood;
 * The words expressly are ‘a pound of flesh’:
 * Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh;
 * But, in the cutting it, if thou dost shed
 * One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods
 * Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate
 * Unto the state of Venice.

GRATIANO.
 * O upright judge! Mark, Jew: O learned judge!

SHYLOCK.
 * Is that the law?

PORTIA.
 * Thyself shalt see the act;
 * For, as thou urgest justice, be assur’d
 * Thou shalt have justice, more than thou desir’st.

GRATIANO.
 * O learned judge! Mark, Jew: alearned judge!

SHYLOCK.
 * I take this offer then: pay the bond thrice,
 * And let the Christian go.

BASSANIO.
 * Here is the money.

PORTIA.
 * Soft!
 * The Jew shall have all justice; soft! no haste:—
 * He shall have nothing but the penalty.

GRATIANO.
 * O Jew! an upright judge, a learned judge!

PORTIA.
 * Therefore, prepare thee to cut off the flesh.
 * Shed thou no blood; nor cut thou less nor more,
 * But just a pound of flesh: if thou tak’st more,
 * Or less, than a just pound, be it but so much
 * As makes it light or heavy in the substance,
 * Or the division of the twentieth part
 * Of one poor scruple; nay, if the scale do turn
 * But in the estimation of a hair,
 * Thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate.

GRATIANO.
 * A second Daniel, a Daniel, Jew!
 * Now, infidel, I have you on the hip.

PORTIA.
 * Why doth the Jew pause? Take thy forfeiture.

SHYLOCK.
 * Give me my principal, and let me go.

BASSANIO.
 * I have it ready for thee; here it is.

PORTIA.
 * He hath refus’d it in the open court;
 * He shall have merely justice, and his bond.

GRATIANO.
 * A Daniel still say I; a second Daniel!
 * I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word.

SHYLOCK.
 * Shall I not have barely my principal?

PORTIA.
 * Thou shalt have nothing but the forfeiture
 * To be so taken at thy peril, Jew.

SHYLOCK.
 * Why, then the devil give him good of it!
 * I’ll stay no longer question.

PORTIA.
 * Tarry, Jew.
 * The law hath yet another hold on you.
 * It is enacted in the laws of Venice,
 * If it be prov’d against an alien
 * That by direct or indirect attempts
 * He seek the life of any citizen,
 * The party ’gainst the which he doth contrive
 * Shall seize one half his goods; the other half
 * Comes to the privy coffer of the state;
 * And the offender’s life lies in the mercy
 * Of the duke only, ’gainst all other voice.
 * In which predicament, I say, thou stand’st;
 * For it appears by manifest proceeding
 * That indirectly, and directly too,
 * Thou hast contrived against the very life
 * Of the defendant; and thou hast incurr’d
 * The danger formerly by me rehears’d.
 * Down, therefore, and beg mercy of the duke.

GRATIANO.
 * Beg that thou mayst have leave to hang thyself;
 * And yet, thy wealth being forfeit to the state,
 * Thou hast not left the value of a cord;
 * Therefore thou must be hang’d at the state’s charge.

DUKE.
 * That thou shalt see the difference of our spirits,
 * I pardon thee thy life before thou ask it.
 * For half thy wealth, it is Antonio’s;
 * The other half comes to the general state,
 * Which humbleness may drive unto a fine.

PORTIA.
 * Ay, for the state; not for Antonio.

SHYLOCK.
 * Nay, take my life and all, pardon not that:
 * You take my house when you do take the prop
 * That doth sustain my house; you take my life
 * When you do take the means whereby I live.

PORTIA.
 * What mercy can you render him, Antonio?

GRATIANO.
 * A halter gratis; nothing else, for God’s sake!

ANTONIO.
 * So please my lord the Duke and all the court
 * To quit the fine for one half of his goods;
 * I am content, so he will let me have
 * The other half in use, to render it
 * Upon his death unto the gentleman
 * That lately stole his daughter:
 * Two things provided more, that, for this favour,
 * He presently become a Christian;
 * The other, that he do record a gift,
 * Here in the court, of all he dies possess’d
 * Unto his son Lorenzo and his daughter.

DUKE.
 * He shall do this, or else I do recant
 * The pardon that I late pronounced here.

PORTIA.
 * Art thou contented, Jew? What dost thou say?

SHYLOCK.
 * I am content.

PORTIA.
 * Clerk, draw a deed of gift.

SHYLOCK.
 * I pray you, give me leave to go from hence;
 * I am not well; send the deed after me
 * And I will sign it.

DUKE.
 * Get thee gone, but do it.

GRATIANO.
 * In christening shalt thou have two god-fathers;
 * Had I been judge, thou shouldst have had ten more,
 * To bring thee to the gallows, not to the font.

[Exit SHYLOCK.]

DUKE.
 * Sir, I entreat you home with me to dinner.

PORTIA.
 * I humbly do desire your Grace of pardon;
 * I must away this night toward Padua,
 * And it is meet I presently set forth.

DUKE.
 * I am sorry that your leisure serves you not.
 * Antonio, gratify this gentleman,
 * For in my mind you are much bound to him.

[Exeunt DUKE, Magnificoes, and Train.]

BASSANIO.
 * Most worthy gentleman, I and my friend
 * Have by your wisdom been this day acquitted
 * Of grievous penalties; in lieu whereof
 * Three thousand ducats, due unto the Jew,
 * We freely cope your courteous pains withal.

ANTONIO.
 * And stand indebted, over and above,
 * In love and service to you evermore.

PORTIA.
 * He is well paid that is well satisfied;
 * And I, delivering you, am satisfied,
 * And therein do account myself well paid:
 * My mind was never yet more mercenary.
 * I pray you, know me when we meet again:
 * I wish you well, and so I take my leave.

BASSANIO.
 * Dear sir, of force I must attempt you further;
 * Take some remembrance of us, as a tribute,
 * Not as fee. Grant me two things, I pray you,
 * Not to deny me, and to pardon me.

PORTIA.
 * You press me far, and therefore I will yield.

[To ANTONIO]
 * Give me your gloves, I’ll wear them for your sake.

[To BASSANIO]
 * And, for your love, I’ll take this ring from you.
 * Do not draw back your hand; I’ll take no more;
 * And you in love shall not deny me this.

BASSANIO.
 * This ring, good sir? alas, it is a trifle;
 * I will not shame myself to give you this.

PORTIA.
 * I will have nothing else but only this;
 * And now, methinks, I have a mind to it.

BASSANIO.
 * There’s more depends on this than on the value.
 * The dearest ring in Venice will I give you,
 * And find it out by proclamation:
 * Only for this, I pray you, pardon me.

PORTIA.
 * I see, sir, you are liberal in offers;
 * You taught me first to beg, and now methinks
 * You teach me how a beggar should be answer’d.

BASSANIO.
 * Good sir, this ring was given me by my wife;
 * And, when she put it on, she made me vow
 * That I should neither sell, nor give, nor lose it.

PORTIA.
 * That ’scuse serves many men to save their gifts.
 * And if your wife be not a mad-woman,
 * And know how well I have deserv’d this ring,
 * She would not hold out enemy for ever
 * For giving it to me. Well, peace be with you!

[Exeunt PORTIA and NERISSA.]

ANTONIO.
 * My Lord Bassanio, let him have the ring:
 * Let his deservings, and my love withal,
 * Be valued ’gainst your wife’s commandment.

BASSANIO.
 * Go, Gratiano, run and overtake him;
 * Give him the ring, and bring him, if thou canst,
 * Unto Antonio’s house. Away! make haste.

[Exit GRATIANO.]


 * Come, you and I will thither presently;
 * And in the morning early will we both
 * Fly toward Belmont. Come, Antonio.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II. The same. A street
[Enter PORTIA and NERISSA.]

PORTIA.
 * Inquire the Jew’s house out, give him this deed,
 * And let him sign it; we’ll away tonight,
 * And be a day before our husbands home.
 * This deed will be well welcome to Lorenzo.

[Enter GRATIANO.]

GRATIANO.
 * Fair sir, you are well o’erta’en.
 * My Lord Bassanio, upon more advice,
 * Hath sent you here this ring, and doth entreat
 * Your company at dinner.

PORTIA.
 * That cannot be:
 * His ring I do accept most thankfully;
 * And so, I pray you, tell him: furthermore,
 * I pray you show my youth old Shylock’s house.

GRATIANO.
 * That will I do.

NERISSA.
 * Sir, I would speak with you.
 * [Aside to PORTIA.]
 * I’ll see if I can get my husband’s ring,
 * Which I did make him swear to keep for ever.

PORTIA.[To NERISSA]
 * Thou Mayst, I warrant. We shall have old swearing
 * That they did give the rings away to men;
 * But we’ll outface them, and outswear them too.
 * Away! make haste: thou know’st where I will tarry.

NERISSA.
 * Come, good sir, will you show me to this house?

[Exeunt.]

SCENE I. Belmont. The avenue to PORTIA’s house.
[Enter LORENZO and JESSICA.]

LORENZO.
 * The moon shines bright: in such a night as this,
 * When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,
 * And they did make no noise, in such a night,
 * Troilus methinks mounted the Troyan walls,
 * And sigh’d his soul toward the Grecian tents,
 * Where Cressid lay that night.

JESSICA.
 * In such a night
 * Did Thisby fearfully o’ertrip the dew,
 * And saw the lion’s shadow ere himself,
 * And ran dismay’d away.

LORENZO.
 * In such a night
 * Stood Dido with a willow in her hand
 * Upon the wild sea-banks, and waft her love
 * To come again to Carthage.

JESSICA.
 * In such a night
 * Medea gather’d the enchanted herbs
 * That did renew old AEson.

LORENZO.
 * In such a night
 * Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew,
 * And with an unthrift love did run from Venice
 * As far as Belmont.

JESSICA.
 * In such a night
 * Did young Lorenzo swear he lov’d her well,
 * Stealing her soul with many vows of faith,—
 * And ne’er a true one.

LORENZO.
 * In such a night
 * Did pretty Jessica, like a little shrew,
 * Slander her love, and he forgave it her.

JESSICA.
 * I would out-night you, did no body come;
 * But, hark, I hear the footing of a man.

[Enter STEPHANO.]

LORENZO.
 * Who comes so fast in silence of the night?

STEPHANO.
 * A friend.

LORENZO.
 * A friend! What friend? Your name, I pray you, friend?

STEPHANO.
 * Stephano is my name, and I bring word
 * My mistress will before the break of day
 * Be here at Belmont; she doth stray about
 * By holy crosses, where she kneels and prays
 * For happy wedlock hours.

LORENZO.
 * Who comes with her?

STEPHANO.
 * None but a holy hermit and her maid.
 * I pray you, is my master yet return’d?

LORENZO.
 * He is not, nor we have not heard from him.
 * But go we in, I pray thee, Jessica,
 * And ceremoniously let us prepare
 * Some welcome for the mistress of the house.

[Enter LAUNCELOT.]

LAUNCELOT. Sola, sola! wo ha, ho! sola, sola!

LORENZO.
 * Who calls?

LAUNCELOT.
 * Sola! Did you see Master Lorenzo? Master Lorenzo! Sola, sola!

LORENZO.
 * Leave holloaing, man. Here!

LAUNCELOT.
 * Sola! Where? where?

LORENZO.
 * Here!

LAUNCELOT.
 * Tell him there’s a post come from my master with his
 * horn full of good news; my master will be here ere morning.

[Exit]

LORENZO.
 * 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.

[Exit STEPHANO.]


 * How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
 * 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: look how the floor of heaven
 * Is thick inlaid with patines 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.

[Music.]

JESSICA.
 * I am never merry when I hear sweet music.

LORENZO.
 * 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,
 * Nor is not mov’d with concord of sweet sounds,
 * 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.]

PORTIA.
 * 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.

NERISSA.
 * When the moon shone, we did not see the candle.

PORTIA.
 * 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!

NERISSA.
 * It is your music, madam, of the house.

PORTIA.
 * Nothing is good, I see, without respect:
 * Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.

NERISSA.
 * Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam.

PORTIA.
 * 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.
 * How many things by season season’d are
 * To their right praise and true perfection!
 * Peace, ho! The moon sleeps with Endymion,
 * And would not be awak’d!

[Music ceases.]

LORENZO.
 * That is the voice,
 * Or I am much deceiv’d, of Portia.

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

LORENZO. Dear lady, welcome home.

PORTIA.
 * We have been praying for our husbands’ welfare,
 * Which speed, we hope, the better for our words.
 * Are they return’d?

LORENZO.
 * Madam, they are not yet;
 * But there is come a messenger before,
 * To signify their coming.

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

[A tucket sounds.]

LORENZO.
 * Your husband is at hand; I hear his trumpet.
 * We are no tell-tales, madam, fear you not.

PORTIA.
 * This night methinks is but the daylight sick;
 * It looks a little paler; ’tis a day
 * Such as the day is when the sun is hid.

[Enter BASSANIO, ANTONIO, GRATIANO, and their Followers.]

BASSANIO.
 * We should hold day with the Antipodes,
 * If you would walk in absence of the sun.

PORTIA.
 * Let me give light, but let me not be light,
 * For a light wife doth make a heavy husband,
 * And never be Bassanio so for me:
 * But God sort all! You are welcome home, my lord.

BASSANIO.
 * I thank you, madam; give welcome to my friend:
 * This is the man, this is Antonio,
 * To whom I am so infinitely bound.

PORTIA.
 * You should in all sense be much bound to him,
 * For, as I hear, he was much bound for you.

ANTONIO.
 * No more than I am well acquitted of.

PORTIA.
 * Sir, you are very welcome to our house.
 * It must appear in other ways than words,
 * Therefore I scant this breathing courtesy.

GRATIANO. [To NERISSA]
 * By yonder moon I swear you do me wrong;
 * In faith, I gave it to the judge’s clerk.
 * Would he were gelt that had it, for my part,
 * Since you do take it, love, so much at heart.

PORTIA.
 * A quarrel, ho, already! What’s the matter?

GRATIANO.
 * About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring
 * That she did give me, whose posy was
 * For all the world like cutlers’ poetry
 * Upon a knife, ‘Love me, and leave me not.’

NERISSA.
 * What talk you of the posy, or the value?
 * 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.

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

NERISSA.
 * Ay, if a woman live to be a man.

GRATIANO.
 * 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.

PORTIA.
 * 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 ’twere to me, I should be mad at it.

BASSANIO.[Aside]
 * Why, I were best to cut my left hand off,
 * And swear I lost the ring defending it.

GRATIANO.
 * 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.

PORTIA.
 * What ring gave you, my lord?
 * Not that, I hope, which you receiv’d of me.

BASSANIO.
 * 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.

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

NERISSA.
 * Nor I in yours
 * Till I again see mine.

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

PORTIA.
 * 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 pleas’d 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.

BASSANIO.
 * No, by my honour, madam, by my soul,
 * No woman had it, but a civil doctor,
 * Which did refuse three thousand ducats of me,
 * And begg’d the ring; the which I did deny him,
 * And suffer’d him to go displeas’d away;
 * Even he that had held up the very life
 * Of my dear friend. What should I say, sweet lady?
 * I was enforc’d 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.

PORTIA.
 * 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,
 * No, not my body, nor my husband’s bed.
 * Know him I shall, I am well sure of it.
 * Lie not a night from home; watch me like Argus;
 * If you do not, if I be left alone,
 * Now, by mine honour which is yet mine own,
 * I’ll have that doctor for mine bedfellow.

NERISSA.
 * And I his clerk; therefore be well advis’d
 * How you do leave me to mine own protection.

GRATIANO.
 * Well, do you so: let not me take him then;
 * For, if I do, I’ll mar the young clerk’s pen.

ANTONIO.
 * I am the unhappy subject of these quarrels.

PORTIA.
 * Sir, grieve not you; you are welcome notwithstanding.

BASSANIO.
 * 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,—

PORTIA.
 * 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.

BASSANIO.
 * Nay, but hear me:
 * Pardon this fault, and by my soul I swear
 * I never more will break an oath with thee.

ANTONIO.
 * 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,
 * My soul upon the forfeit, that your lord
 * Will never more break faith advisedly.

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

ANTONIO.
 * Here, Lord Bassanio, swear to keep this ring.

BASSANIO.
 * By heaven! it is the same I gave the doctor!

PORTIA.
 * I had it of him: pardon me, Bassanio,
 * For, by this ring, the doctor lay with me.

NERISSA.
 * And pardon me, my gentle Gratiano,
 * For that same scrubbed boy, the doctor’s clerk,
 * In lieu of this, last night did lie with me.

GRATIANO.
 * Why, this is like the mending of high ways
 * In summer, where the ways are fair enough.
 * What! are we cuckolds ere we have deserv’d it?

PORTIA.
 * Speak not so grossly. 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
 * 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.

ANTONIO.
 * I am dumb.

BASSANIO.
 * Were you the doctor, and I knew you not?

GRATIANO.
 * Were you the clerk that is to make me cuckold?

NERISSA.
 * Ay, but the clerk that never means to do it,
 * Unless he live until he be a man.

BASSANIO.
 * Sweet doctor, you shall be my bedfellow:
 * When I am absent, then lie with my wife.

ANTONIO.
 * Sweet lady, you have given me life and living;
 * For here I read for certain that my ships
 * Are safely come to road.

PORTIA.
 * How now, Lorenzo!
 * My clerk hath some good comforts too for you.

NERISSA.
 * 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.

LORENZO.
 * Fair ladies, you drop manna in the way
 * Of starved people.

PORTIA.
 * 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.

GRATIANO.
 * Let it be so: he first inter’gatory
 * That my Nerissa shall be sworn on is,
 * Whe’r till the next night she had rather stay,
 * Or go to bed now, being two hours to day:
 * But were the day come, I should wish it dark,
 * Till I were couching with the doctor’s clerk.
 * Well, while I live, I’ll fear no other thing
 * So sore as keeping safe Nerissa’s ring.

[Exeunt.] William Shakespeare