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Antonio. Well, tell me now what lady is the same
To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,
That you to-day promised to tell me of?

Bassanio. '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 abridged
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 unburden all my plots and purposes
How to get clear of all the debts I owe.

Antonio. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it; > And if it stand, as you yourself still do,

X

Within the eye of honour, be assured,

My purse, my person, my extremest means,

Lie all unlock'd to your occasions, thanks

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Bassanio. In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft

I shot his fellow of the self-same flight

The self-same way, with more advised watch,

To 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.

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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 undervalued

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 !

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.

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hando

wave of

[Exeunt.P

SCENE II. Belmont. A room in Portia's house.

Enter PORTIA and 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:

R A.L

ΙΟ

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.
Portia. Good sentences and well pronounced.
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 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 counsely
the cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to >
choose me a husband.

O me, the word 'choose!' I may Crea) neither choose whom I would nor refuse whom I dislike; ach

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 t

one nor refuse none?

24

Nerissa. 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, will, no doubt, never be chosen by any rightly but one who shali 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.

Nerissa. Then there is the County Palatine.

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Portia. He doth nothing but frown, as who should say 'If 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! 46 Ner. How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon ? Portia th Gød 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.

Nerissa. What say you then to Falconbridge, the young baron of England?

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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 dumbshow? How oddly he is suited! I think he bought his doublet in Haly, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany and his behaviour every where.

Nerissa. What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour?

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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 sealed 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.

80 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 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.

88

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 amount them fair departure. them but I dote on his very absence, and I pray God grant

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?

102

Portia. Yes, yes, it was Bassanio, as I think, he was so called.

Nerissa. True, madam: he, of all the men that ever my foolish eyes looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady. Portia. I remember him well, and I remember him worer him well, and thy of thy praise.

Enter a Serving-man.

How now! what news?

love

a

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Serv. 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 to-night.