The Merchant Of Venice

1 Enter Bassanio, Portia, Gratiano, Nerissa and all their trains.
2 PORTIA.
3 I pray you tarry, pause a day or two
4 Before you hazard, for in choosing wrong
5 I lose your company; therefore forbear a while.
6 There’s something tells me (but it is not love)
7 I would not lose you, and you know yourself
8 Hate counsels not in such a quality.
9 But lest you should not understand me well,—
10 And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought,—
11 I would detain you here some month or two
12 Before you venture for me. I could teach you
13 How to choose right, but then I am forsworn.
14 So will I never be. So may you miss me.
15 But if you do, you’ll make me wish a sin,
16 That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes,
17 They have o’erlook’d me and divided me.
18 One half of me is yours, the other half yours,
19 Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours,
20 And so all yours. O these naughty times
21 Puts bars between the owners and their rights!
22 And so though yours, not yours. Prove it so,
23 Let Fortune go to hell for it, not I.
24 I speak too long, but ’tis to peise the time,
25 To eche it, and to draw it out in length,
26 To stay you from election.
27 BASSANIO.
28 Let me choose,
29 For as I am, I live upon the rack.
30 PORTIA.
31 Upon the rack, Bassanio! Then confess
32 What treason there is mingled with your love.
33 BASSANIO.
34 None but that ugly treason of mistrust,
35 Which makes me fear th’ enjoying of my love.
36 There may as well be amity and life
37 ’Tween snow and fire as treason and my love.
38 PORTIA.
39 Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack
40 Where men enforced do speak anything.
41 BASSANIO.
42 Promise me life, and I’ll confess the truth.
43 PORTIA.
44 Well then, confess and live.
45 BASSANIO.
46 “Confess and love”
47 Had been the very sum of my confession:
48 O happy torment, when my torturer
49 Doth teach me answers for deliverance!
50 But let me to my fortune and the caskets.
51 PORTIA.
52 Away, then! I am lock’d in one of them.
53 If you do love me, you will find me out.
54 Nerissa and the rest, stand all aloof.
55 Let music sound while he doth make his choice.
56 Then if he lose he makes a swan-like end,
57 Fading in music. That the comparison
58 May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream
59 And wat’ry death-bed for him. He may win,
60 And what is music then? Then music is
61 Even as the flourish when true subjects bow
62 To a new-crowned monarch. Such it is
63 As are those dulcet sounds in break of day
64 That creep into the dreaming bridegroom’s ear
65 And summon him to marriage. Now he goes,
66 With no less presence, but with much more love
67 Than young Alcides when he did redeem
68 The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy
69 To the sea-monster: I stand for sacrifice;
70 The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives,
71 With bleared visages come forth to view
72 The issue of th’ exploit. Go, Hercules!
73 Live thou, I live. With much much more dismay
74 I view the fight than thou that mak’st the fray.
75 A song, whilst Bassanio comments on the caskets to himself.
76 _Tell me where is fancy bred,
77 Or in the heart or in the head?
78 How begot, how nourished?
79 Reply, reply.
80 It is engend’red in the eyes,
81 With gazing fed, and fancy dies
82 In the cradle where it lies.
83 Let us all ring fancy’s knell:
84 I’ll begin it.—Ding, dong, bell._
85 ALL.
86 _Ding, dong, bell._
87 BASSANIO.
88 So may the outward shows be least themselves.
89 The world is still deceiv’d with ornament.
90 In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt
91 But, being season’d with a gracious voice,
92 Obscures the show of evil? In religion,
93 What damned error but some sober brow
94 Will bless it, and approve it with a text,
95 Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?
96 There is no vice so simple but assumes
97 Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.
98 How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false
99 As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins
100 The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars,
101 Who inward search’d, have livers white as milk,
102 And these assume but valour’s excrement
103 To render them redoubted. Look on beauty,
104 And you shall see ’tis purchas’d by the weight,
105 Which therein works a miracle in nature,
106 Making them lightest that wear most of it:
107 So are those crisped snaky golden locks
108 Which make such wanton gambols with the wind
109 Upon supposed fairness, often known
110 To be the dowry of a second head,
111 The skull that bred them in the sepulchre.
112 Thus ornament is but the guiled shore
113 To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf
114 Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,
115 The seeming truth which cunning times put on
116 To entrap the wisest. Therefore thou gaudy gold,
117 Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee,
118 Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge
119 ’Tween man and man: but thou, thou meagre lead,
120 Which rather threaten’st than dost promise aught,
121 Thy palenness moves me more than eloquence,
122 And here choose I, joy be the consequence!
123 PORTIA.
124 [_Aside._] How all the other passions fleet to air,
125 As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embrac’d despair,
126 And shudd’ring fear, and green-ey’d jealousy.
127 O love, be moderate; allay thy ecstasy,
128 In measure rain thy joy; scant this excess!
129 I feel too much thy blessing, make it less,
130 For fear I surfeit.
131 BASSANIO.
132 What find I here? [_Opening the leaden casket_.]
133 Fair Portia’s counterfeit! What demi-god
134 Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes?
135 Or whether, riding on the balls of mine,
136 Seem they in motion? Here are sever’d lips,
137 Parted with sugar breath, so sweet a bar
138 Should sunder such sweet friends. Here in her hairs
139 The painter plays the spider, and hath woven
140 A golden mesh t’entrap the hearts of men
141 Faster than gnats in cobwebs. But her eyes!—
142 How could he see to do them? Having made one,
143 Methinks it should have power to steal both his
144 And leave itself unfurnish’d. Yet look how far
145 The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow
146 In underprizing it, so far this shadow
147 Doth limp behind the substance. Here’s the scroll,
148 The continent and summary of my fortune.
149 _You that choose not by the view
150 Chance as fair and choose as true!
151 Since this fortune falls to you,
152 Be content and seek no new.
153 If you be well pleas’d with this,
154 And hold your fortune for your bliss,
155 Turn to where your lady is,
156 And claim her with a loving kiss._
157 A gentle scroll. Fair lady, by your leave, [_Kissing her_.]
158 I come by note to give and to receive.
159 Like one of two contending in a prize
160 That thinks he hath done well in people’s eyes,
161 Hearing applause and universal shout,
162 Giddy in spirit, still gazing in a doubt
163 Whether those peals of praise be his or no,
164 So, thrice-fair lady, stand I even so,
165 As doubtful whether what I see be true,
166 Until confirm’d, sign’d, ratified by you.
167 PORTIA.
168 You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,
169 Such as I am; though for myself alone
170 I would not be ambitious in my wish
171 To wish myself much better, yet for you
172 I would be trebled twenty times myself,
173 A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times
174 More rich,
175 That only to stand high in your account,
176 I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends,
177 Exceed account. But the full sum of me
178 Is sum of something, which, to term in gross,
179 Is an unlesson’d girl, unschool’d, unpractis’d;
180 Happy in this, she is not yet so old
181 But she may learn; happier than this,
182 She is not bred so dull but she can learn;
183 Happiest of all, is that her gentle spirit
184 Commits itself to yours to be directed,
185 As from her lord, her governor, her king.
186 Myself, and what is mine, to you and yours
187 Is now converted. But now I was the lord
188 Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,
189 Queen o’er myself; and even now, but now,
190 This house, these servants, and this same myself
191 Are yours,—my lord’s. I give them with this ring,
192 Which when you part from, lose, or give away,
193 Let it presage the ruin of your love,
194 And be my vantage to exclaim on you.
195 BASSANIO.
196 Madam, you have bereft me of all words,
197 Only my blood speaks to you in my veins,
198 And there is such confusion in my powers
199 As after some oration fairly spoke
200 By a beloved prince, there doth appear
201 Among the buzzing pleased multitude,
202 Where every something being blent together,
203 Turns to a wild of nothing, save of joy
204 Express’d and not express’d. But when this ring
205 Parts from this finger, then parts life from hence.
206 O then be bold to say Bassanio’s dead!
207 NERISSA.
208 My lord and lady, it is now our time,
209 That have stood by and seen our wishes prosper,
210 To cry, good joy. Good joy, my lord and lady!
211 GRATIANO.
212 My Lord Bassanio, and my gentle lady,
213 I wish you all the joy that you can wish;
214 For I am sure you can wish none from me.
215 And when your honours mean to solemnize
216 The bargain of your faith, I do beseech you
217 Even at that time I may be married too.
218 BASSANIO.
219 With all my heart, so thou canst get a wife.
220 GRATIANO.
221 I thank your lordship, you have got me one.
222 My eyes, my lord, can look as swift as yours:
223 You saw the mistress, I beheld the maid.
224 You lov’d, I lov’d; for intermission
225 No more pertains to me, my lord, than you.
226 Your fortune stood upon the caskets there,
227 And so did mine too, as the matter falls.
228 For wooing here until I sweat again,
229 And swearing till my very roof was dry
230 With oaths of love, at last, (if promise last)
231 I got a promise of this fair one here
232 To have her love, provided that your fortune
233 Achiev’d her mistress.
234 PORTIA.
235 Is this true, Nerissa?
236 NERISSA.
237 Madam, it is, so you stand pleas’d withal.
238 BASSANIO.
239 And do you, Gratiano, mean good faith?
240 GRATIANO.
241 Yes, faith, my lord.
242 BASSANIO.
243 Our feast shall be much honoured in your marriage.
244 GRATIANO.
245 We’ll play with them the first boy for a thousand ducats.
246 NERISSA.
247 What! and stake down?
248 GRATIANO.
249 No, we shall ne’er win at that sport and stake down.
250 But who comes here? Lorenzo and his infidel?
251 What, and my old Venetian friend, Salerio!
252 Enter Lorenzo, Jessica and Salerio.
253 BASSANIO.
254 Lorenzo and Salerio, welcome hither,
255 If that the youth of my new int’rest here
256 Have power to bid you welcome. By your leave,
257 I bid my very friends and countrymen,
258 Sweet Portia, welcome.
259 PORTIA.
260 So do I, my lord,
261 They are entirely welcome.
262 LORENZO.
263 I thank your honour. For my part, my lord,
264 My purpose was not to have seen you here,
265 But meeting with Salerio by the way,
266 He did entreat me, past all saying nay,
267 To come with him along.
268 SALERIO.
269 I did, my lord,
270 And I have reason for it. Signior Antonio
271 Commends him to you.
272 [_Gives Bassanio a letter._]
273 BASSANIO.
274 Ere I ope his letter,
275 I pray you tell me how my good friend doth.
276 SALERIO.
277 Not sick, my lord, unless it be in mind,
278 Nor well, unless in mind. His letter there
279 Will show you his estate.
280 [_Bassanio opens the letter._]
281 GRATIANO.
282 Nerissa, cheer yond stranger, bid her welcome.
283 Your hand, Salerio. What’s the news from Venice?
284 How doth that royal merchant, good Antonio?
285 I know he will be glad of our success.
286 We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece.
287 SALERIO.
288 I would you had won the fleece that he hath lost.
289 PORTIA.
290 There are some shrewd contents in yond same paper
291 That steals the colour from Bassanio’s cheek.
292 Some dear friend dead, else nothing in the world
293 Could turn so much the constitution
294 Of any constant man. What, worse and worse?
295 With leave, Bassanio, I am half yourself,
296 And I must freely have the half of anything
297 That this same paper brings you.
298 BASSANIO.
299 O sweet Portia,
300 Here are a few of the unpleasant’st words
301 That ever blotted paper. Gentle lady,
302 When I did first impart my love to you,
303 I freely told you all the wealth I had
304 Ran in my veins, I was a gentleman.
305 And then I told you true. And yet, dear lady,
306 Rating myself at nothing, you shall see
307 How much I was a braggart. When I told you
308 My state was nothing, I should then have told you
309 That I was worse than nothing; for indeed
310 I have engag’d myself to a dear friend,
311 Engag’d my friend to his mere enemy,
312 To feed my means. Here is a letter, lady,
313 The paper as the body of my friend,
314 And every word in it a gaping wound
315 Issuing life-blood. But is it true, Salerio?
316 Hath all his ventures fail’d? What, not one hit?
317 From Tripolis, from Mexico, and England,
318 From Lisbon, Barbary, and India,
319 And not one vessel scape the dreadful touch
320 Of merchant-marring rocks?
321 SALERIO.
322 Not one, my lord.
323 Besides, it should appear, that if he had
324 The present money to discharge the Jew,
325 He would not take it. Never did I know
326 A creature that did bear the shape of man
327 So keen and greedy to confound a man.
328 He plies the Duke at morning and at night,
329 And doth impeach the freedom of the state
330 If they deny him justice. Twenty merchants,
331 The Duke himself, and the magnificoes
332 Of greatest port have all persuaded with him,
333 But none can drive him from the envious plea
334 Of forfeiture, of justice, and his bond.
335 JESSICA.
336 When I was with him, I have heard him swear
337 To Tubal and to Chus, his countrymen,
338 That he would rather have Antonio’s flesh
339 Than twenty times the value of the sum
340 That he did owe him. And I know, my lord,
341 If law, authority, and power deny not,
342 It will go hard with poor Antonio.
343 PORTIA.
344 Is it your dear friend that is thus in trouble?
345 BASSANIO.
346 The dearest friend to me, the kindest man,
347 The best condition’d and unwearied spirit
348 In doing courtesies, and one in whom
349 The ancient Roman honour more appears
350 Than any that draws breath in Italy.
351 PORTIA.
352 What sum owes he the Jew?
353 BASSANIO.
354 For me three thousand ducats.
355 PORTIA.
356 What, no more?
357 Pay him six thousand, and deface the bond.
358 Double six thousand, and then treble that,
359 Before a friend of this description
360 Shall lose a hair through Bassanio’s fault.
361 First go with me to church and call me wife,
362 And then away to Venice to your friend.
363 For never shall you lie by Portia’s side
364 With an unquiet soul. You shall have gold
365 To pay the petty debt twenty times over.
366 When it is paid, bring your true friend along.
367 My maid Nerissa and myself meantime,
368 Will live as maids and widows. Come, away!
369 For you shall hence upon your wedding day.
370 Bid your friends welcome, show a merry cheer;
371 Since you are dear bought, I will love you dear.
372 But let me hear the letter of your friend.
373 BASSANIO.
374 _Sweet Bassanio, my ships have all miscarried, my creditors grow cruel,
375 my estate is very low, my bond to the Jew is forfeit, and since in
376 paying it, it is impossible I should live, all debts are clear’d
377 between you and I, if I might but see you at my death. Notwithstanding,
378 use your pleasure. If your love do not persuade you to come, let not my
379 letter._
380 PORTIA.
381 O love, dispatch all business and be gone!
382 BASSANIO.
383 Since I have your good leave to go away,
384 I will make haste; but, till I come again,
385 No bed shall e’er be guilty of my stay,
386 Nor rest be interposer ’twixt us twain.
387 [_Exeunt._]