Out, sword, and wound The pap of Pyramus; Ay, that left pap, Where heart doth hop: [Stabs himself. mask: let your epilogue alone. Thus die I, thus, thus, thus. Now am I dead, Now am I fled; My soul is in the sky: 300 Marry, if he that writ it had played Pyramus and Moon, take thy flight: [Exit Moonshine. Now die, die, die, die, die. [Dies. Dem. No die, but an ace, for him; for he is but one. Lys. Less than an ace, man; for he is dead; he is nothing. The. With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover, and prove an ass. Hip How chance Moonshine is gone before Re-enter THISBE. Here 321 371 In nightly revels and new jollity. [Exeunt. Enter PUCK. Puck. Now the hungry lion roars, Now the wasted brands do glow, 380 Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud, In remembrance of a shroud. That the graves all gaping wide, By the triple Hecate's team, To sweep the dust behind the door. 390 [Song and dance. Obe. Now, until the break of day, Ever shall be fortunate. So shall all the couples three And the blots of Nature's hand And each several chamber bless, 410 420 SCENE I. Venice. A street. Enter ANTONIO, SALARINO, and SALANIO. And such a want-wit sadness makes of me, ΤΟ Salar. Your mind is tossing on the ocean; There, where your argosies with portly sail, Ike signiors and rich burghers on the flood, Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea, Do overpeer the petty traffickers, That curtsy to them, do them reverence, As they fly by them with their woven wings. Salan. Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth, The better part of my affections would Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still Pucking the grass, to know where sits the wind, Pening in maps for ports and piers and roads; every object that might make me fear 14 fortune to my ventures, out of doubt Wald make me sad. 20 Salar My wind cooling my broth Would blow me to an ague, when I thought What harm a wind too great at sea might do. I should not see the sandy hour-glass run, Fut I should think of shallows and of flats, And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand, Vng her high-top lower than her ribs To kiss her burial. Should I go to church And see the holy edifice of stone, 30 4 not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks, Wch touching but my gentle vessel's side, Wad scatter all her spices on the stream, Fanbe the roaring waters with my silks, 4, in a word, but even now worth this, As now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought To think on this, and shall I lack the thought That such a thing bechanced would make me sad? But tell not me; I know, Antonio Is sad to think upon his merchandise. 40 OLD GOBBO, father to Launcelot. LEONARDO, servant to Bassanio. BALTHASAR,) STEPHANO, servants to Portia. PORTIA, a rich heiress. NERISSA, her waiting-maid. JESSICA, daughter to Shylock. Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of Justice, Gaoler, Servants to Portia, and other Attendants. SCENE: Partly at Venice, and partly at Belmont, the seat of Portia, on the Continent. Ant. Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for it, My ventures are not in one bottom trusted, Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate Upon the fortune of this present year : Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad. Salar. Why, then you are in love. Ant. Fie, fie! Salar. Not in love neither? Then let us say you are sad, Because you are not merry: and 'twere as easy For you to laugh and leap and say you are merry, Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus, 50 Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time: Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO. Salan. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman, Gratiano and Lorenzo. Fare ye well: If worthier friends had not prevented me. 60 Salar. Good morrow, my good lords. Bass. Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? say, when? You grow exceeding strange must it be so? Salar. We'll make our leisures to attend on yours. They lose it that do buy it with much care: A stage where every man must play a part, Gra. Let me play the fool: 90 If they should speak, would almost damn those ears Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools. 100 I'll tell thee more of this another time: I must be one of these same dumb wise men, Gra. Well, keep me company but two years moe, In a neat's tongue dried and a maid not vendible. [Exeunt Gratiano and Lorenzo. Ant. Is that any thing now? Bass. Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you, find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search. Ant. Well, tell me now what lady is the same 120 Bass. 'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio, Within the eye of honour, be assured, Bass. In my school-days, when I had lost m I shot his fellow of the self-same flight Ant. You know me well, and herein spes To wind about my love with circumstance: Bass. In Belmont is a lady richly left: at sea; : Neither have I money nor commodity Ner. You would be, sweet madam, if yer miseries were in the same abundance as your goo fortunes are: and yet, for aught I see, they a as sick that surfeit with too much as they t 130 starve with nothing. It is no mean happines therefore, to be seated in the mean: superflu comes sooner by white hairs, but competen lives longer. Por. Good sentences and well pronounced. 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 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 whom I would nor refuse whom I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one nor refuse 29 Ner. Your father was ever virtuous; and holy men at their death have good inspirations: therefore the lottery, that he hath devised in these three chests of gold, silver and lead, whereof who chooses his meaning chooses you, vil, no doubt, never be chosen by any rightly but one who shall rightly love. But what warmth is there in your affection towards any of these princely suitors that are already come? Ner. What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour? Por. 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 sealed under for another. Ner. How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony's nephew? 91 Por. 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. Ner. 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. Por. 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 any thing, Nerissa, ere I'll be married to a sponge.. For. I pray thee, over-name them; and as thon namest them, I will describe them; and, Ner. You need not fear, lady, the having any according to my description, level at my affec-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. Ner. First, there is the Neapolitan prince. Far. Ay, that's a colt indeed, for he doth thing but talk of his horse; and he makes it a at appropriation to his own good parts, that he shoe him himself. I am much afeard my lady his mother played false with a smith. Ner. Then there is the County Palatine. Por. He doth nothing but frown, as who Could say If you will not have me, choose:' he rears merry tales and smiles not: I fear he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows xd. being so full of unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather be married to a death'stead with a bone in his mouth than to either of these. God defend me from these two! Ner. How say you by the French lord, MonFieur Le Bon? Por. 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 Can the Neapolitan's, a better bad habit of rowning than the Count Palatine; he is every man in no man; if a throstle sing, he falls straight a capering: he will fence with his own shadow: f 1 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. 70 Ner. What say you, then, to Falconbridge, the young baron of England? Per. You know I say nothing to him, for he cnderstands 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 dumbshow! How oddly he is suited! I think he ught his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany and his beha* every where. Por. 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. Ner. 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? Por. Yes, yes, it was Bassanio; as I think, he was so called. Ner. True, madam: he, of all the men that ever my foolish eyes looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady. 131 Por. I remember him well, and I remember him worthy of thy praise, |