Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb (online e book reading .txt) 📕

The duke then said to Shylock: ‘That you may see the difference of our Christian spirit, I pardon you your life before you ask it; half your wealth belongs to Antonio, the other half comes to the state.’

The generous Antonio then said that he would give up his share of Shylock’s wealth, if Shylock would sign a deed to make it over at his death to his daughter and her husband; for Antonio knew that the Jew had an only daughter who had lately married against his consent to a young Christian, named Lorenzo, a friend of Antonio’s, which had so offended Shylock, that he had disinherited her.

The Jew agreed to this: and being thus disappointed in his revenge, and despoiled of his riches, he said: ‘I am ill. Let me go home; send the deed after me, and I will sign over half my riches to my daughter.’

‘Get thee gone, then,’ said the Duke, ‘and sign it; and if you repent your cruelty and turn Christian, the state will forgive you the fine of the other half of your riches.’

The duke now released Antonio, and dismissed the court. He then highly praised the wisdom and ingenuity of the young counsellor, and invited him home to dinner. Portia, who meant to return to Belmont before her husband, replied: ‘I humbly thank your grace, but I must away directly.’ The duke said he was sorry he had not leisure to stay and dine with him; and turning to Antonio, he added: ‘Reward this gentleman; for in my mind you are much indebted to him.’

The duke and his senators left the court; and then Bassanio said to Portia: ‘Most worthy gentleman, I and my friend Antonio have by your wisdom been this day acquitted of grievous penalties, and I beg you will accept of the three thousand ducats due unto the Jew.’ ‘And we shall stand indebted to you over and above,’ said Antonio, ‘in love and service evermore.’

Portia could not be prevailed upon to accept the money; but upon Bassanio still pressing her to accept of some reward, she said: ‘Give me your gloves; I will wear them for your sake’; and then Bassanio taking off his gloves, she espied the ring which she had given him upon his finger: now it was the ring the wily lady wanted to get from him to make a merry jest when she saw her Bassanio again, that made her ask him for his gloves; and she said, when she saw the ring, ‘and for your love I will take this ring from you.’ Bassanio was sadly distressed that the counsellor should ask him for the only thing he could not part with, and he replied in great confusion, that he could not give him that ring, because it was his wife’s gift, and he had vowed never to part with it; but that he would give him the most valuable ring in Venice, and find it out by proclamation. On this Portia affected to be affronted, and left the court, saying: ‘You teach me, sir, how a beggar should be answered.’

‘Dear Bassanio,’ said Antonio, ‘let him have the ring; let my love and the great service he has done for me be valued against your wife’s displeasure,’ Bassanio, ashamed to appear so ungrateful, yielded, and sent Gratiano after Portia with the ring; and then the clerk Nerissa, who had also given Gratiano a ring, she begged his ring, and Gratiano (not choosing to be outdone in generosity by his lord) gave it to her.

And there was laughing among these ladies to think, when they got home, how they would tax their husbands with giving away their rings, and swear that they had given them as a present to some woman.

Portia, when she returned, was in that happy temper of mind which never fails to attend the consciousness of having performed a good action; her cheerful spirits enjoyed everything she saw: the moon never seemed to shine so bright before; and when that pleasant moon was hid behind a cloud, then a light which she saw from her house at Belmont as well pleased her charmed fancy, and she said to Nerissa: ‘That light we see is burning in my hall; how far that little candle throws its beams, so shines a good deed in a naughty world’; and hearing the sound of music from her house, she said: ‘Methinks that music sounds much sweeter than by day.’

And now Portia and Nerissa entered the house, and dressing themselves in their own apparel, they awaited the arrival of their husbands, who soon followed them with Antonio; and Bassanio presenting his dear friend to the lady Portia, the congratulations and welcomings of that lady were hardly over, when they perceived Nerissa and her husband quarrelling in a corner of the room. ‘A quarrel already?’ said Portia. ‘What is the matter?’ Gratiano replied: ‘Lady, it is about a paltry gilt ring that Nerissa gave me, with words upon it like the poetry on a cutler’s knife; Love me, and leave me not.’

‘What does the poetry or the value of the ring signify?’ said Nerissa.

‘You swore to me when I gave it to you, that you would keep it till the hour of death; and now you say you gave it to the lawyer’s clerk. I know you gave it to a woman.’ ‘By this hand,’ replied Gratiano, ‘I gave it to a youth, a kind of boy, a little scrubbed boy, no higher than yourself; he was clerk to the young counsellor that by his wise pleading saved Antonio’s life: this prating boy begged it for a fee, and I could not for my life deny him.’ Portia said: ‘You were to blame, Gratiano, to part with your wife’s first gift. I gave my lord Bassanio a ring, and I am sure he would not part with it for all the world.’

Gratiano, in excuse for his fault, now said: ‘My lord Bassanio gave his ring away to the counsellor, and then the boy, his clerk, that took some pains in writing, he begged my ring.’

Portia, hearing this, seemed very angry, and reproached Bassanio for giving away her ring; and she said, Nerissa had taught her what to believe, and that she knew some woman had the ring. Bassanio was very unhappy to have so offended his dear lady, and he said with great earnestness: ‘No, by my honour, no woman had it, but a civil doctor, who refused three thousand ducats of me, and begged the ring, which when I denied him, he went displeased away. What could I do, sweet Portia? I was so beset with shame for my seeming ingratitude, that I was forced to send the ring after him. Pardon me, good lady; had you been there, I think you would have begged the ring of me to give the worthy doctor.’

‘Ah!’ said Antonio, ‘I am the unhappy cause of these quarrels.’

Portia bid Antonio not to grieve at that, for that he was welcome notwithstanding; and then Antonio said: ‘I once did lend my body for Bassanio’s sake; and but for him to whom your husband gave the ring, I should have now been dead. I dare be bound again, my soul upon the forfeit, your lord will never more break his faith with you.’ ‘Then you shall be his surety,’ said Portia; ‘give him this ring, and bid him keep it better than the other.’

When Bassanio looked at this ring, he was strangely surprised to find it was the same he gave away; and then Portia told him how she was the young counsellor, and Nerissa was her clerk; and Bassanio found, to his unspeakable wonder and delight, that it was by the noble courage and wisdom of his wife that Antonio’s life was saved.

And Portia again welcomed Antonio, and gave him letters which by some chance had fallen into her hands, which contained an account of Antonio’s ships, that were supposed lost, being safely arrived in the harbour. So these tragical beginnings of this rich merchant’s story were all forgotten in the unexpected good fortune which ensued; and there was leisure to laugh at the comical adventure of the rings, and the husbands that did not know their own wives Gratiano merrily swearing, in a sort of rhyming speech, that … while he lived, he’d fear no other thing So sore, as keeping safe Nerissa’s ring.

During the time of Augustus Caesar, emperor of Rome, there reigned n England (which was then called Britain) a king whose name was Cymbeline.

Cymbeline’s first wife died when his three children (two sons and a daughter) were very young. Imogen, the eldest of these children, was brought up in her father’s court; but by a strange chance the two sons of Cymbeline were stolen out of their nursery, when the eldest was but three years of age, and the youngest quite an infant; and Cymbeline could never discover what was become of them, or by whom they were conveyed away.

Cymbeline was twice married: his second wife was a wicked, plotting woman, and a cruel stepmother to Imogen, Cymbeline’s daughter by his first wife.

The queen, though she hated Imogen, yet wished her to marry a son of her own by a former husband (she also having been twice married): for by this means she hoped upon the death of Cymbeline to place the crown of Britain upon the head of her son Cloten; for she knew that, if the king’s sons were not found, the princess Imogen must be the king’s heir. But this design was prevented by Imogen herself, who married without the consent or even knowledge of her father or the queen.

Posthumus (for that was the name of Imogen’s husband) was the best scholar and most accomplished gentleman of that age. His father died fighting in the wars for Cymbeline, and soon after his birth his mother died also for grief at the loss of her husband.

Cymbeline, pitying the helpless state of this orphan, took Posthumus (Cymbeline having given him that name, because he was born after his father’s death), and educated him in his own court.

Imogen and Posthumus were both taught by the same masters, and were playfellows from their infancy; they loved each other tenderly when they were children, and their affection continuing to increase with their years, when they grew up they privately married.

The disappointed queen soon learnt this secret, for she kept spies constantly in watch upon the actions of her daughter-in-law, and she immediately told the king of the marriage of Imogen with Posthumus.

Nothing could exceed the wrath of Cymbeline, when he heard that his daughter had been so forgetful of her high dignity as to marry a subject.

He commanded Posthumus to leave Britain, and banished him from his

native country for ever.

The queen, who pretended to pity Imogen for the grief she suffered at losing her husband, offered to procure them a private meeting before Posthumus set out on his journey to Rome, which place he had chosen for his residence in his banishment: this seeming kindness she showed,

the better to succeed in her future designs in regard to her son Cloten; for she meant to persuade Imogen, when her husband was gone, that her

marriage was not lawful, being contracted without the consent of the king.

Imogen and Posthumus took a most affectionate leave of each other.

Imogen gave her husband a diamond ring, which had been her mother’s, and Posthumus promised never to part with the ring; and he fastened a bracelet on the arm of his wife, which he begged she would preserve with great care, as a token of his love; they then bid each other farewell, with many vows of everlasting love and fidelity.

Imogen remained