The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 368
Flourish cornets. Enter the PRINCE OF ARRAGON,
his train, and PORTIA.
PORTIA Behold, there stand the caskets noble prince,
If you choose that wherein I am contain’d
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Straight shall our nuptial rites be solemniz’d:
But if you fail, without more speech my lord
You must be gone from hence immediately.
ARRAGON
I am enjoin’d by oath to observe three things, –
First, never to unfold to any one
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Which casket ’twas I chose; next, if I fail
Of the right casket, never in my life
To woo a maid in way of marriage:
Lastly,
If I do fail in fortune of my choice,
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Immediately to leave you, and be gone.
PORTIA To these injunctions every one doth swear
That comes to hazard for my worthless self.
ARRAGON And so have I address’d me, – fortune now
To my heart’s hope! – gold, silver, and base lead.
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Who chooseth me, must give and hazard all he hath.
You shall look fairer ere I give or hazard.
What says the golden chest? ha! let me see,
Who chooseth me, shall gain what many men desire,
What many men desire, – that ‘many’ may be meant
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By the fool multitude that choose by show,
Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach,
Which pries not to th’ interior, but like the martlet
Builds in the weather on the outward wall,
Even in the force and road of casualty.
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I will not choose what many men desire,
Because I will not jump with common spirits,
And rank me with the barbarous multitudes.
Why then to thee (thou silver treasure house),
Tell me once more what title thou dost bear;
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Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves,
And well said too; for who shall go about
To cozen Fortune, and be honourable
Without the stamp of merit? – let none presume
To wear an undeserved dignity:
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O that estates, degrees, and offices,
Were not deriv’d corruptly, and that clear honour
Were purchas’d by the merit of the wearer! –
How many then should cover that stand bare!
How many be commanded that command!
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How much low peasantry would then be gleaned
From the true seed of honour! and how much honour
Pick’d from the chaff and ruin of the times,
To be new-varnish’d! – well, but to my choice.
Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves, –
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I will assume desert; give me a key for this,
And instantly unlock my fortunes here.
[He opens the silver casket.]
PORTIA
Too long a pause for that which you find there.
ARRAGON What’s here? the portrait of a blinking idiot
Presenting me a schedule! I will read it:
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How much unlike art thou to Portia!
How much unlike my hopes and my deservings!
Who chooseth me, shall have as much as he deserves!
Did I deserve no more than a fool’s head?
Is that my prize? are my deserts no better?
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PORTIA To offend and judge are distinct offices,
And of opposed natures.
ARRAGON What is here?
The fire seven times tried this:
Seven times tried that judgment is,
That did never choose amiss.
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Some there be that shadows kiss,
Such have but a shadow’s bliss:
There be fools alive (Iwis)
Silver’d o’er, and so was this.
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Take what wife you will to bed,
I will ever be your head:
So be gone, you are sped.
Still more fool I shall appear
By the time I linger here, –
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With one fool’s head I came to woo,
But I go away with two.
Sweet adieu! I’ll keep my oath,
Patiently to bear my wroth.
Exit Arragon with his train.
PORTIA Thus hath the candle sing’d the moth:
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O these deliberate fools! when they do choose,
They have the wisdom by their wit to lose.
NERISSA The ancient saying is no heresy,
Hanging and wiving goes by destiny.
PORTIA Come draw the curtain Nerissa.
Enter Messenger.
MESSENGER Where is my lady?
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PORTIA Here, what would my lord?
MESSENGER Madam, there is alighted at your gate
A young Venetian, one that comes before
To signify th’approaching of his lord,
From whom he bringeth sensible regreets;
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To wit, (besides commends and courteous breath)
Gifts of rich value; yet I have not seen
So likely an ambassador of love.
A day in April never came so sweet
To show how costly summer was at hand,
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As this fore-spurrer comes before his lord.
PORTIA No more I pray thee, I am half afeard
Thou wilt say anon he is some kin to thee,
Thou spend’st such high-day wit in praising him:
Come, come Nerissa, for I long to see
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Quick Cupid’s post that comes so mannerly.
NERISSA Bassanio, Lord Love, if thy will it be! Exeunt.
3.1 Enter SOLANIO and SALERIO.
SOLANIO Now what news on the Rialto?
SALERIO Why yet it lives there uncheck’d, that Antonio
hath a ship of rich lading wrack’d on the narrow seas;
the Goodwins I think they call the place, a very
dangerous flat, and fatal, where the carcases of many a
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tall ship lie buried, as they say, – if my gossip Report
be an honest woman of her word.
SOLANIO I would she were as lying a gossip in that, as
ever knapp’d ginger, or made her neighbours believe
she wept for the death of a third husband: but it is
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true, without any slips of prolixity, or crossing the
plain highway of talk, that the good Antonio, the
honest Antonio; – O that I had a title good enough to
keep his name company! –
SALERIO Come, the full stop.
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SOLANIO Ha! what sayest thou? – why the end is, he hath lost a ship.
SALERIO I would it might prove the end of his losses.
SOLANIO Let me say ‘amen’ betimes, lest the devil cross
my prayer, for here he comes in the likeness of a Jew.
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Enter SHYLOCK.
How now Shylock! what news among the merchants?
SHYLOCK You knew, none so well, none so well as you,
of my daughter’s flight.
SALERIO That’s certain, – I (for my part) knew the tailor
that made the wings she flew withal.
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SOLANIO And Shylock (for his own part) knew the bird
was flidge, and then it is the complexion of them all to
leave the dam.
SHYLOCK She is damn’d for it.
SALERIO That’s certain, if the devil may be her judge.
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SHYLOCK My own flesh and blood to r
ebel!
SOLANIO Out upon it old carrion! rebels it at these
years?
SHYLOCK I say my daughter is my flesh and my blood.
SALERIO There is more difference between thy flesh
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and hers, than between jet and ivory, more between
your bloods, than there is between red wine and
Rhenish: but tell us, do you hear whether Antonio
have had any loss at sea or no?
SHYLOCK There I have another bad match, a bankrupt,
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a prodigal, who dare scarce show his head on the
Rialto, a beggar that was us’d to come so smug upon
the mart: let him look to his bond! he was wont to call
me usurer, let him look to his bond! he was wont to
lend money for a Christian cur’sy, let him look to his
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bond!
SALERIO Why I am sure if he forfeit, thou wilt not take
his flesh, – what’s that good for?
SHYLOCK To bait fish withal, – if it will feed nothing
else, it will feed my revenge; he hath disgrac’d me, and
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hind’red me half a million, laugh’d at my losses,
mock’d at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my
bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies, –
and what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes?
hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses,
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affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with
the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed
by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same
winter and summer as a Christian is? – if you prick us
do we not bleed? if you tickle us do we not laugh? if
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you poison us do we not die? and if you wrong us shall
we not revenge? – if we are like you in the rest, we will
resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what
is his humility? revenge! If a Christian wrong a Jew,
what should his sufferance be by Christian example? –
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why revenge! The villainy you teach me I will execute,
and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
Enter a Servingman from Antonio.
SERVINGMAN Gentlemen, my master Antonio is at his
house, and desires to speak with you both.
SALERIO We have been up and down to seek him.
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Enter TUBAL.
SOLANIO Here comes another of the tribe, – a third
cannot be match’d, unless the devil himself turn Jew.
Exeunt Solanio and Salerio with Servant.
SHYLOCK How now Tubal! what news from Genoa?
hast thou found my daughter?
TUBAL I often came where I did hear of her, but cannot
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find her.
SHYLOCK Why there, there, there, there! a diamond
gone cost me two thousand ducats in Frankfort, – the
curse never fell upon our nation till now, I never felt it
till now, – two thousand ducats in that, and other
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precious, precious jewels; I would my daughter were
dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear: would she
were hears’d at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin:
– no news of them? why so! – and I know not what’s
spent in the search: why thou – loss upon loss! the
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thief gone with so much, and so much to find the thief,
and no satisfaction, no revenge, nor no ill luck stirring
but what lights o’ my shoulders, no sighs but o’ my
breathing, no tears but o’ my shedding.
TUBAL Yes, other men have ill luck too, – Antonio (as I
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heard in Genoa) –
SHYLOCK What, what, what? ill luck, ill luck?
TUBAL – hath an argosy cast away coming from Tripolis.
SHYLOCK I thank God, I thank God! is it true, is it true?
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TUBAL I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wrack.
SHYLOCK I thank thee good Tubal, good news, good news: ha ha! heard in Genoa!
TUBAL Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, one
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night, fourscore ducats.
SHYLOCK Thou stick’st a dagger in me, – I shall never
see my gold again, – fourscore ducats at a sitting,
fourscore ducats!
TUBAL There came divers of Antonio’s creditors in my
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company to Venice, that swear, he cannot choose but
break.
SHYLOCK I am very glad of it, – I’ll plague him, I’ll
torture him, – I am glad of it.
TUBAL One of them showed me a ring that he had of
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your daughter for a monkey.