The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (moboreader .TXT) 📕

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 II.

Belmont. PORTIA’S house

Enter PORTIA with her waiting-woman, 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 pronounc’d.

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 afear’d 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-cap’ring; 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 seal’d 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 call’d.

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

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

Enter a SERVINGMAN

How now! what news?

SERVINGMAN. 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 tonight.

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 III.

Venice. A public place

Enter BASSANIO With SHYLOCK the Jew

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, squand’red abroad. But ships are but boards, sailors but men; there be land-rats and water-rats, water-thieves and land-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 assur’d you may.

SHYLOCK. I will be assur’d 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