The Merchant Of Venice

1 Enter Portia with her waiting-woman Nerissa.
2 PORTIA.
3 By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world.
4 NERISSA.
5 You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same abundance
6 as your good fortunes are. And yet, for aught I see, they are as sick
7 that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing. It is no
8 mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean. Superfluity come
9 sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.
10 PORTIA.
11 Good sentences, and well pronounc’d.
12 NERISSA.
13 They would be better if well followed.
14 PORTIA.
15 If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been
16 churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces. It is a good divine
17 that follows his own instructions; I can easier teach twenty what were
18 good to be done than to be one of the twenty to follow mine own
19 teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper
20 leaps o’er a cold decree; such a hare is madness the youth, to skip
21 o’er the meshes of good counsel the cripple. But this reasoning is not
22 in the fashion to choose me a husband. O me, the word “choose”! I may
23 neither choose who I would nor refuse who I dislike, so is the will of
24 a living daughter curb’d by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard,
25 Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refuse none?
26 NERISSA.
27 Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their death have good
28 inspirations. Therefore the lott’ry that he hath devised in these three
29 chests of gold, silver, and lead, whereof who chooses his meaning
30 chooses you, will no doubt never be chosen by any rightly but one who
31 you shall rightly love. But what warmth is there in your affection
32 towards any of these princely suitors that are already come?
33 PORTIA.
34 I pray thee over-name them, and as thou namest them, I will describe
35 them, and according to my description level at my affection.
36 NERISSA.
37 First, there is the Neapolitan prince.
38 PORTIA.
39 Ay, that’s a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of his horse,
40 and he makes it a great appropriation to his own good parts that he can
41 shoe him himself. I am much afeard my lady his mother play’d false with
42 a smith.
43 NERISSA.
44 Then is there the County Palatine.
45 PORTIA.
46 He doth nothing but frown, as who should say “And you will not have me,
47 choose.” He hears merry tales and smiles not. I fear he will prove the
48 weeping philosopher when he grows old, being so full of unmannerly
49 sadness in his youth. I had rather be married to a death’s-head with a
50 bone in his mouth than to either of these. God defend me from these
51 two!
52 NERISSA.
53 How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon?
54 PORTIA.
55 God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. In truth, I know it
56 is a sin to be a mocker, but he! why, he hath a horse better than the
57 Neapolitan’s, a better bad habit of frowning than the Count Palatine.
58 He is every man in no man. If a throstle sing, he falls straight
59 a-cap’ring. He will fence with his own shadow. If I should marry him, I
60 should marry twenty husbands. If he would despise me, I would forgive
61 him, for if he love me to madness, I shall never requite him.
62 NERISSA.
63 What say you then to Falconbridge, the young baron of England?
64 PORTIA.
65 You know I say nothing to him, for he understands not me, nor I him: he
66 hath neither Latin, French, nor Italian, and you will come into the
67 court and swear that I have a poor pennyworth in the English. He is a
68 proper man’s picture; but alas, who can converse with a dumb-show? How
69 oddly he is suited! I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round
70 hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere.
71 NERISSA.
72 What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour?
73 PORTIA.
74 That he hath a neighbourly charity in him, for he borrowed a box of the
75 ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay him again when he was
76 able. I think the Frenchman became his surety, and seal’d under for
77 another.
78 NERISSA.
79 How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony’s nephew?
80 PORTIA.
81 Very vilely in the morning when he is sober, and most vilely in the
82 afternoon when he is drunk: when he is best, he is a little worse than
83 a man, and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast. And the
84 worst fall that ever fell, I hope I shall make shift to go without him.
85 NERISSA.
86 If he should offer to choose, and choose the right casket, you should
87 refuse to perform your father’s will, if you should refuse to accept
88 him.
89 PORTIA.
90 Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee set a deep glass of
91 Rhenish wine on the contrary casket, for if the devil be within and
92 that temptation without, I know he will choose it. I will do anything,
93 Nerissa, ere I will be married to a sponge.
94 NERISSA.
95 You need not fear, lady, the having any of these lords. They have
96 acquainted me with their determinations, which is indeed to return to
97 their home, and to trouble you with no more suit, unless you may be won
98 by some other sort than your father’s imposition, depending on the
99 caskets.
100 PORTIA.
101 If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as Diana,
102 unless I be obtained by the manner of my father’s will. I am glad this
103 parcel of wooers are so reasonable, for there is not one among them but
104 I dote on his very absence. And I pray God grant them a fair departure.
105 NERISSA.
106 Do you not remember, lady, in your father’s time, a Venetian, a scholar
107 and a soldier, that came hither in company of the Marquis of
108 Montferrat?
109 PORTIA.
110 Yes, yes, it was Bassanio, as I think, so was he call’d.
111 NERISSA.
112 True, madam. He, of all the men that ever my foolish eyes look’d upon,
113 was the best deserving a fair lady.
114 PORTIA.
115 I remember him well, and I remember him worthy of thy praise.
116 Enter a Servingman.
117 How now! what news?
118 SERVINGMAN.
119 The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take their leave. And there
120 is a forerunner come from a fifth, the Prince of Morocco, who brings
121 word the Prince his master will be here tonight.
122 PORTIA.
123 If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good heart as I can bid the
124 other four farewell, I should be glad of his approach. If he have the
125 condition of a saint and the complexion of a devil, I had rather he
126 should shrive me than wive me. Come, Nerissa. Sirrah, go before. Whiles
127 we shut the gate upon one wooer, another knocks at the door.
128 [_Exeunt._]