SERV. The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take their leave: and there is a fore-runner come from a fifth, the prince of Morocco; who brings word, the prince, his master, will be here to-night.

POR. If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good heart as I can bid the other four farewell, I should be glad of his approach: if he have the condition of a saint, and the complexion of a devil, I had rather he should shrive me than wive me. Come, Nerissa. Sirrah, go before. Whiles we shut the gate upon one wooer, another knocks at the door. [Exeunt.

SCENE III.

Venice. A publick Place.

Enter BASSANIO and SHYLOCK.

SHY. Three thousand ducats,-well.

BASS. Ay, sir, for three months.

SHY. For three months,-well.

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.

5

the condition-] i. e. the temper, qualities. So, in

Othello: "

- and then, of so gentle a condition!" MALONE.

BASS. Your answer to that.

SHY. Antonio is a good man.

BASS. Have you heard any imputation to the contrary?

SHY. Ho, 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; I understand moreover upon the Ri alto, he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for England, and other ventures he hath, squander'd abroad: But ships are but boards, sailors but men : there be land-rats, and water-rats, water-thieves, and land-thieves; I mean, pirates; and then, there is the peril of waters, winds, and rocks: The man is, notwithstanding, sufficient ;-three thousand ducats; I think, I may take his bond.

BASS. Be assured you may.

SHY. I will be assured, I may; and, that I may be assured, I will bethink me: May I speak with Antonio ?

BASS. If it please you to dine with us.

6

SHY. Yes, to smell pork; to eat of the habitation which your prophet, the Nazarite, conjured the devil into: I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you. What news on the Rialto?-Who is he comes here?

6

the habitation which your prophet, the Nazarite, conjured the devil into:] Perhaps there is no character through all Shakspeare, drawn with more spirit, and just discrimination, than Shylock's. His language, allusions, and ideas, are every where so appropriate to a Jew, that Shylock might be exhibited for an exemplar of that peculiar people. HENLEY.

Enter ANTONIO.

BASS. This is signior Antonio.

SHY. [Aside.] How like a fawning publican he looks!

I hate him for he is a christian :

But more, for that, in low simplicity,

He lends out money gratis, and brings down
The rate of usance here with us in Venice.
If I can catch him once upon the hip,"

I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.
He hates our sacred nation; and he rails,
Even there where merchants most do congregate,
On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift,
Which he calls interest: Cursed be my tribe,
If I forgive him!

BASS.

Shylock, do you hear?

SHY. I am debating of my present store;
And, by the near guess of my memory,
I cannot instantly raise up the gross

Of full three thousand ducats: What of that?
Tubal, a wealthy Hebrew of my tribe,
Will furnish me: But soft; How many months
Do you desire?-Rest you fair, good signior;
[TO ANTONIO.
Your worship was the last man in our mouths.

ANT. Shylock, albeit I neither lend nor borrow, By taking, nor by giving of excess,

Yet, to supply the ripe wants of my friend,

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8

If I can catch him once upon the hip,] This, Dr. Johnson observes, is a phrase taken from the practice of wrestlers; and (he might have added) is an allusion to the angel's thus laying hold on Jacob when he wrestled with him. See Gen. xxxii. 24, &c. HENLEY.

-the ripe wants of my friend,] Ripe wants are wants

I'll break a custom :-Is he yet possess'd,"
How much you would?

SHY.

Ay, ay, three thousand ducats.

ANT. And for three months.

SHY. I had forgot,-three months, you told me so. Well then, your bond; and, let me see,But hear you;

Methought, you said, you neither lend, nor borrow, Upon advantage.

ANT.

I do never use it.

SHY. When Jacob graz'd his uncle Laban's sheep, This Jacob from our holy Abraham was (As his wise mother wrought in his behalf,) The third possessor; ay, he was the third.

ANT. And what of him? did he take interest? · SHY. No, not take interest; not, as you would

say,

Directly interest: mark what Jacob did.
When Laban and himself were compromis'd,
That all the eanlings' which were streak'd and pied,
Should fall as Jacob's hire; the ewes, being rank,
In the end of autumn turned to the rams:

come to the height, wants that can have no longer delay. Perhaps we might read-rife wants, wants that come thick upon him. JOHNSON.

Ripe is, I believe, the true reading. So, afterwards:

"But stay the very riping of the time." MALONE. Again, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream: "Here is a brief how many sports are ripe."

STEEVENS. "-possess'd,] i. e. acquainted, informed. So, in TwelfthNight: Possess us, possess us, tell us something of him."

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STEEVENS.

!--the eanlings-] Lambs just dropt: from ean, eniti.

MUSGRAVE.

And when the work of generation was
Between these woolly breeders in the act,
The skilful shepherd peel'd me certain wands,
And, in the doing of the deed of kind,3
He stuck them up before the fulsome ewes ;*

certain wands,] A wand in our author's time was the usual term for what we now call a switch. MALONE.

3

of kind,] i. e. of nature. So, Turberville, in his book of Falconry, 1575, p. 127:

"So great is the curtesy of kind, as she ever seeketh to recompense any defect of hers with some other better benefit." Again, in Drayton's Mooncalf:

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nothing doth so please her mind,

"As to see ntares and horses do their kind."

COLLINS.

· the fulsome ewes ;] Fulsome, I believe, in this instance, means lascivious, obscene. The same epithet is bestowed on the night, in Acolastus his After-Witte. By S. N. 1600;

"Why shines not Phoebus in the fulsome night?"

In the play of Muleasses the Turk, Madam Fulsome a Bawd is introduced. The word, however, sometimes signifies offensive in smell. So, in Chapman's version of the 17th Book of the Odyssey:

and fill'd his fulsome scrip," &c.

Again, in the dedication to Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, p. 63: noisome or fulsome for bad smells, as butcher's slaughter houses," &c.

It is likewise used by Shakspeare in King John, to express some quality offensive to nature:

"And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust." Again, in Thomas Newton's Herball to the Bible, 8vo. 1587: "Having a strong sent and fulsome smell, which neither men nor beastes take delight to smell unto.”

Again, ibid:

"Boxe is naturally dry, juicelesse, fulsomely and loathsomely smelling."

Again, in Arthur Golding's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, B. XV:

"But what have you poore sheepe misdone, a cattel meek and meeld,

"Created for to manteine man, whose fulsome dugs doe yeeld

"Sweete nectar," &c. STEEVENS.