play'd Pyramus, and hanged himself in
Thisbe's garter, it would have been a fine
tragedy and so it is, truly; and very notably
discharged. But come, your Bergomask: let
your epilogue alone.
[A dance.
The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve:- Obe.
Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time.

I fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn,
As much as we this night have overwatch'd.
This palpable gross play hath well beguil'd
The heavy gait of night.-Sweet friends, to
bed.-

A fortnight hold we this solemnity,
In nightly revels, and new jollity.

Salanio, Friends to Antonio and Bassanio. Nerissa, her waiting-maid.

SCENE,-Partly at Venice, and partly at Belmont, the seat of Portia, on the Continent.

Salar. We'll make our leisures to attend on
yours. [Exeunt Salarino and Salanio.
Lor. My lord Bassanio, since you have
found Antonio,

We too will leave you: but, at dinner-time,
I pray you, have in mind where we must meet.
Bass. I will not fail you.

Gra. You look not well, signior Antonio;
You have too much respect upon the world:
They lose it that do buy it with much care:
Believe me, you are marvellously chang'd.
Ant. I hold the world but as the world,
Gratiano;

A stage, where every man must play a part,
And mine a sad one.

Gra.
Let me play the fool:
With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come;
And let my liver rather heat with wine,
Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
Why should a man, whose blood is warm
within,

Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?

To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,
That you to-day promis'd to tell me of?

Bass. 'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,
How much I have disabled mine estate,
By something showing a more swelling port
Than my faint means would grant continuance :
Nor do I now make moan to be abridg'd
From such a noble rate; but my chief care
Is, to come fairly off from the great debts,
Wherein my time, something too prodigal,
Hath left me gaged. To you, Antonio,
I owe the most, in money and in love;
And from your love I have a warranty
To unburthen all my plots and purposes,
How to get clear of all the debts I owe.

Ant. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me
know it;

And if it stand, as you yourself still do,
Within the eye of honour, be assur'd,
My purse, my person, my extremest means,
Lie all unlock'd to your occasions. [one shaft,
Bass. In my school-days, when I had lost

Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the I shot his fellow of the self-same flight

jaundice

The self-same way, with more advised watch,
find the other forth; and by adventuring
both,

I oft found both: I urge this childhood proof,
Because what follows is pure innocence.

I owe you much; and, like a wilful youth,
That which I owe is lost but if you please
To shoot another arrow that self way
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.

By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio,-To
I love thee, and it is my love that speaks,—
There are a sort of men, whose visages
Do cream and mantle like a standing pond;
And do a wilful stillness entertain,
With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion
Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit;
As who should say, "I am Sir Oracle,
And, when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!"
O my Antonio, I do know of these,
That therefore only are reputed wise,
For saying nothing; who, I am very sure,
If they should speak, would almost damn
those ears,
[fools.
Which, hearing them, would call their brothers
I'll tell thee more of this another time:
But fish not, with this melancholy bait,
For this fool-gudgeon, this opinion.—
Come, good Lorenzo.-Fare ye well, awhile:
I'll end my exhortation after dinner.

Lor. Well, we will leave you, then, till din-
ner-time:

I must be one of these same dumb wise men,
For Gratiano never lets me speak. [more,
Gra. Well, keep me company but two years
Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own
tongue.
[gear.
Ant. Farewell: I'll grow a talker for this
Gra. Thanks, i' faith; for silence is only
commendable
[vendible.
In a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not
[Exeunt Gratiano and Lorenzo.

Ant. Is that anything 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.
[same
Aut. Well; tell me now, what lady is the

Ant. 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.

Bass. 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'
strand,

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.

Ant. Thou knowest that all my fortunes are
Neither have I money, nor commodity (at sea;
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 enquire, 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. A Room in Portia's
Mansion.

Enter Portia and Nerissa.

Por. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world.

Ner. 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 comes sooner by white hairs; but competency lives longer.

should say,
"An you will not have me,
choose." He hears merry tales, and smiles
not: I fear he will prove the weeping philo-
sopher when he grows old, being so full of un-
mannerly 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!

Ner. How say you by the French lord,
Monsieur 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 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 capering: 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. Ner. What say you, then, to Faulconbridge, the young baron of England?

Por. Good sentences, and well pronounced. Ner. They would be better, if well followed. Por. If to do were as easy as to know what Por. You know I say nothing to him; for were good to do, chapels had been churches, he understands not me, nor I him: he hath and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. It neither Latin, French, nor Italian; and you is a good divine that follows his own in- will come into the court and swear that I have structions: I can easier teach twenty what a poor penny-worth in the English. He is a were good to be done, than be one of the proper man's picture; but, alas, who can contwenty to follow mine own teaching. The verse with a dumb show? How oddly he is 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 none? •

suited! I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere.

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. Your father was ever virtuous; and holy men, at their death, have good inspirations: therefore, the lottery, that he hath de- Por. Very vilely in the morning, when he is vised in these three chests, of gold, silver, and sober; and most vilely in the afternoon, when lead (whereof who chooses his meaning, he is drunk: when he is best, he is a little worse chooses you), will, no doubt, never be chosen by any rightly, but one whom you shall rightly love. But what warmth is there in your affection towards any of these princely suitors that are already come?

Ner. How like you the young German, the duke of Saxony's nephew?

Por. I pray thee, over-name them; and as thou namest them, I will describe them; and, according to my description, level at my affection.

Ner. First, there is the Neapolitan prince. Por. 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 afraid, my lady his mother played false with a smith.

Ner. Then is there the county Palatine.
Por. He doth nothing but frown: as who

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 anything, Nerissa, ere I will be married to a sponge.

Ner. 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 The man is, notwithstanding, sufficient :other sort than your father's imposition, de- three thousand ducats:-I think, I may take pending on the caskets. Bass. Be assured you may.

Bass. For the which, as I told you, Antonio shall be bound.

Shy. Antonio shall become bound,-well. Bass. May you stead me? Will you pleasure me? Shall I know your answer?

Shy. Three thousand ducats for three months, and Antonio bound.

Bass. Your answer to that.

Shy. Antonio is a good man. [contrary? Bass. Have you heard any imputation to the Shy. Oh 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; understand, moreover, upon the Rialto, he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for England,-and other ventures he hath, squandered abroad. But ships are but boards, sailors but men: there be land-rats and water-rats, land-thieves and water-thieves,-I mean pirates; and then there is the peril of waters, winds, and rocks.