SALAR. Not in love neither? Then let us say, you are sad

Because you are not merry: an 't were as easy

For you to laugh, and leap, and say you are merry,
Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus ",
Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time:
Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,

And laugh, like parrots, at a bagpiper:

And other of such vinegar aspect,

That they 'll not show their teeth in way of smile,
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.

Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO.

SOLAN. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman,
Gratiano, and Lorenzo: Fare you well;

We leave you now with better company.
SALAR. I would have stay'd till I had made you merry,
If worthier friends had not prevented me.

ANT. Your worth is very dear in my regard.

I take it, your own business calls on you, embrace the occasion to depart.

And you

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.

[Exeunt SALARINO and SOLANIO.

LOR. My lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio,
We two 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,

• My ventures, &c. This was no doubt proverbial—something more elegant than "all the eggs in one basket." Sir Thomas More, in his 'History of Richard III.,' has-" For what wise merchant adventureth all his good in one ship?"

Why should a man whose blood is warm within
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?

Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the jaundice
By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio,-
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 entertaina,
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; whoc, I am very sure,

If they should speak, would almost damn those ears
Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools.

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; a while;
I'll end my exhortation after dinner.

LOR. Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time :
I must be one of these same dumb wise men,
For Gratiano never lets me speak.

GRA. Well, keep me company but two years more,
Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue.
ANT. Farewell: I'll grow a talker for this geard.
GRA. Thanks, i'faith; for silence is only commendable
In a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not vendible.

ANT. Is that anything now?

[Exeunt GRATIANO and LORENZO.

▪ And do a wilful stillness, &c. So Pope, addressing Silence :—
"With thee, in private, modest Dulness lies,

And in thy bosom lurks, in thought's disguise,
Thou varnisher of fools, and cheat of all the wise."

Sir Oracle. So the quartos of 1600; the folio, an oracle.

• Who. The original copies have when.

For this gear-a colloquial expression, meaning, for this matter. The Anglo-Saxon gearwian is to prepare-gear is the thing prepared, in hand-the business or subject in question.

• All the old copies read "It is that anything now." Those, we apprehend, did wisely who re

BASS. Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice: His reasons are two grains of wheata 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

To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,
That you to-day promis'd to tell me of?
BASS. "T is 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 gag'd: 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.

BASS. 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.

ANT. You know me well: and herein spend but time,

jected the it, and rendered the sentence interrogative. Gratiano has made a commonplace attempt at wit; and. Antonio gravely, but sarcastically, asks, "Is that anything?" Bassanio replies,

"Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing." This is Tyrwhitt's sensible explanation.

• Two grains of wheat. The ordinary reading, that of the quartos, is, as two grains, &c. The folio omits as.

Port-appearance, carriage.

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 wond'rous 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.

ANT. 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.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.-Belmont. A Room in Portia's House.

Enter PORTIA and NERISSA.

POR. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is a-weary 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

• Me now.

The words are found in the quartos, but are omitted in the folio.
Prest-ready.
• Sometimes-formerly.

surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing: It is no small a happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean; superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.

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 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 none?

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,) will, no doubt, never be chosen by any rightly, but one who you shall rightly love. But what warmth is there in your affection towards any of these princely suitors that are already come?

POR. I pray thee, overname 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 should say, "An 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 to 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?