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

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 gleaned 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. [Aside] 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? [Reads]

‘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 iwis

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 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

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ACT III. SCENE I.

Venice. A street

Enter SOLANIO and SALERIO

SOLANIO. Now, what news on the Rialto?

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

SOLANIO. I would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever knapp’d 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!-

SALERIO. Come, the full stop.

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

SALERIO. I would it might prove the end of his losses.

SOLANIO. 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.

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

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

SHYLOCK. She is damn’d for it.

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

SHYLOCK. My own flesh and blood to rebel!

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

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

SALERIO. 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 was us’d 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.

SALERIO. 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 itshall go hard but I will better the instruction.

Enter a MAN from ANTONIO

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

SALERIO. We have been up and down to seek him.

Enter TUBAL

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

Exeunt SOLANIO, SALERIO, and MAN

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 hears’d 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 o’ my shoulders; no sighs but o’ my breathing; no tears but o’ 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 wreck.

SHYLOCK. I thank thee, good Tubal. Good news, good news-ha, ha!-

heard 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 II.

Belmont. PORTIA’S house

Enter BASSANIO, PORTIA, GRATIANO, NERISSA, and all their trains 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