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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

Page 368

by William Shakespeare


  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.

 

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