SHYLOCK Out upon her! – thou torturest me Tubal, – it
was my turquoise, I had it of Leah when I was a
bachelor: I would not have given it for a wilderness of
monkeys.
115
TUBAL But Antonio is certainly undone.
SHYLOCK Nay, that’s true, that’s very true, – go Tubal,
fee me an officer, bespeak him a fortnight before, – I
will have the heart of him if he forfeit, for were he out
of Venice I can make what merchandise I will: go
120
Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue, – go good
Tubal, – at our synagogue Tubal. Exeunt.
3.2 Enter BASSANIO, PORTIA, GRATIANO,
NERISSA and all their trains.
PORTIA I pray you tarry, pause a day or two
Before you hazard, for in choosing wrong
I lose your company; therefore forbear a while, –
There’s something tells me (but it is not love)
I would not lose you, and you know yourself,
5
Hate counsels not in such a quality;
But lest you should not understand me well, –
And yet a maiden hath no tongue, but thought, –
I would detain you here some month or two
Before you venture for me. I could teach you
10
How to choose right, but then I am forsworn,
So will I never be, – so may you miss me, –
But if you do, you’ll make me wish a sin,
That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes,
They have o’erlook’d me and divided me,
15
One half of me is yours, the other half yours, –
Mine own I would say: but if mine then yours,
And so all yours; O these naughty times
Put bars between the owners and their rights!
And so though yours, not yours, – prove it so,
20
Let Fortune go to hell for it, not I.
I speak too long, but ’tis to peise the time,
To eche it, and to draw it out in length,
To stay you from election.
BASSANIO Let me choose,
For as I am, I live upon the rack.
25
PORTIA Upon the rack Bassanio? then confess
What treason there is mingled with your love.
BASSANIO None but that ugly treason of mistrust,
Which makes me fear th’enjoying of my love, –
There may as well be amity and life
30
’Tween snow and fire, as treason and my love.
PORTIA Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack
Where men enforced do speak any thing.
BASSANIO Promise me life, and I’ll confess the truth.
PORTIA Well then, confess and live.
BASSANIO ‘Confess and love’
35
Had been the very sum of my confession:
O happy torment, when my torturer
Doth teach me answers for deliverance!
But let me to my fortune and the caskets.
PORTIA Away then! I am lock’d in one of them, –
40
If you do love me, you will find me out.
Nerissa and the rest, stand all aloof, –
Let music sound while he doth make his choice,
Then if he lose he makes a swan-like end,
Fading in music. That the comparison
45
May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream
And wat’ry death-bed for him: – he may win,
And what is music then? Then music is
Even as the flourish, when true subiects bow
To a new-crowned monarch: such it is,
50
As are those dulcet sounds in break of day,
That creep into the dreaming bridegroom’s ear,
And summon him to marriage. Now he goes
With no less presence, but with much more love
Than young Alcides, when he did redeem
55
The virgin tribute, paid by howling Troy
To the sea-monster: I stand for sacrifice,
The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives,
With bleared visages come forth to view
The issue of th’exploit: go Hercules!
60
Live thou, I live – with much much more dismay,
I view the fight, than thou that mak’st the fray.
A song to music the whilst Bassanio comments on the
caskets to himself.
Tell me where is Fancy bred,
Or in the heart, or in the head?
How begot, how nourished?
65
ALL Reply, reply.
It is engend’red in the eyes,
With gazing fed, and Fancy dies
In the cradle where it lies:
Let us all ring Fancy’s knell.
70
I’ll begin it. Ding, dong, bell.
ALL Ding, dong, bell.
BASSANIO
So may the outward shows be least themselves, –
The world is still deceiv’d with ornament –
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,
75
But being season’d with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil? In religion,
What damned error but some sober brow
Will bless it, and approve it with a text,
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?
80
There is no vice so simple, but assumes
Some mark of virtue on his outward parts;
How many cowards whose hearts are all as false
As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins
The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars,
85
Who inward search’d, have livers white as milk? –
And these assume but valour’s excrement
To render them redoubted. Look on beauty,
And you shall see ’tis purchas’d by the weight,
Which therein works a miracle in nature,
90
Making them lightest that wear most of it:
So are those crisped snaky golden locks
Which make such wanton gambols with the wind
Upon supposed fairness, often known
To be the dowry of a second head,
95
The skull that bred them in the sepulchre.
Thus ornament is but the guiled shore
To a most dangerous sea: the beauteous scarf
Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,
The seeming truth which cunning times put on
100
To entrap the wisest. Therefore thou gaudy gold,
Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee,
Nor none of thee thou pale and common drudge
’Tween man and man: but thou, thou meagre lead
Which rather threaten’st than dost promise aught,
105
Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence,
And here choose I, – joy be the consequence!
PORTIA [aside] How all the other passions fleet to air:
As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embrac’d despair,
And shudd’ring fear, and green-eyed jealousy.
110
O love be moderate, allay thy extasy,
In measure rain thy joy, scant this excess!
I feel too much thy blessing, make it less
For fear I surfeit.
BASSANIO What find I here?
[He opens the leaden casket.]
Fair Portia’s counterfeit! What demi-god
115
Hath come so near creation? move these eyes?
Or whether (riding on the balls of mine)
Seem they in motion? Here are sever’d lips
Parted with
sugar breath, – so sweet a bar
Should sunder such sweet friends: here in her hairs
120
The painter plays the spider, and hath woven
A golden mesh t’entrap the hearts of men
Faster than gnats in cobwebs, – but her eyes!
How could he see to do them? having made one,
Methinks it should have power to steal both his
125
And leave itself unfurnish’d: yet look how far
The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow
In underprizing it, so far this shadow
Doth limp behind the substance. Here’s the scroll,
The continent and summary of my fortune.
130
You that choose not by the view
Chance as fair, and choose as true:
Since this fortune falls to you,
Be content, and seek no new.
If you be well pleas’d with this,
135
And hold your fortune for your bliss,
Turn you where your lady is,
And claim her with a loving kiss.
A gentle scroll: fair lady, by your leave,
I come by note to give, and to receive, –
140
Like one of two contending in a prize
That thinks he hath done well in people’s eyes,
Hearing applause and universal shout,
Giddy in spirit, still gazing in a doubt
Whether those peals of praise be his or no,
145
So (thrice-fair lady) stand I even so,
As doubtful whether what I see be true,
Until confirm’d, sign’d, ratified by you.
PORTIA You see me Lord Bassanio where I stand,
Such as I am; though for myself alone
150
I would not be ambitious in my wish
To wish myself much better, yet for you,
I would be trebled twenty times myself,
A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich,
That only to stand high in your account,
155
I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends
Exceed account: but the full sum of me
Is sum of something: which to term in gross,
Is an unlesson’d girl, unschool’d, unpractised,
Happy in this, she is not yet so old
160
But she may learn: happier than this,
She is not bred so dull but she can learn;
Happiest of all, is that her gentle spirit
Commits itself to yours to be directed,
As from her lord, her governor, her king.
165
Myself, and what is mine, to you and yours
Is now converted. But now I was the lord
Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,
Queen o’er myself: and even now, but now.
This house, these servants, and this same myself
170
Are yours, – my lord’s! – I give them with this ring,
Which when you part from, lose, or give away,
Let it presage the ruin of your love,
And be my vantage to exclaim on you.
BASSANIO Madam, you have bereft me of all words,
175
Only my blood speaks to you in my veins,
And there is such confusion in my powers,
As after some oration fairly spoke
By a beloved prince, there doth appear
Among the buzzing pleased multitude,
180
Where every something being blent together,
Turns to a wild of nothing, save of joy
Express’d, and not express’d: but when this ring
Parts from this finger, then parts life from hence, –
O then be bold to say Bassanio’s dead!
185
NERISSA My lord and lady, it is now our time
That have stood by and seen our wishes prosper,
To cry good joy, – good joy my lord and lady!
GRATIANO My Lord Bassanio, and my gentle lady,
I wish you all the joy that you can wish:
190
For I am sure you can wish none from me:
And when your honours mean to solemnize
The bargain of your faith, I do beseech you
Even at that time I may be married too.
BASSANIO With all my heart, so thou canst get a wife.
195
GRATIANO I thank your lordship, you have got me one.
My eyes my lord can look as swift as yours:
You saw the mistress, I beheld the maid:
You lov’d, I lov’d – for intermission
No more pertains to me my lord than you;
200
Your fortune stood upon the caskets there,
And so did mine too as the matter falls:
For wooing here until I sweat again,
And swearing till my very roof was dry
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 369
