The Works of William Shakespeare

Dum. The head of a bodkin.

Biron. A death's face in a ring.

Long. The face of an old Roman coin, scarce

seen.

Boyet. The pummel of Cæsar's faulchion.
Dum. The carv'd-bone face on a flask.
Biron. St. George's half-cheek in a brooch.
Dum. Ay, in a brooch of lead.

Biron. Ay, and worn in the cap of a toothdrawer:

And row, forward; for we have put thee in coun

tenance.

Hol. You have put me out of countenance. Biren. False; we have given thee faces. Hot. But you have out-faced them all. Biron. An thou wert a lion, we would do so Boyet. Therefore, as he is an ass, let him go. And so, adieu, sweet Jude! nay, why dost thou stay?

Dum. For the latter end of his name.

Biron. For the ass to the Jude; give it him :Jud-as, away.

Hol. This is not generous, not gentle, not humble.

Boyet. A light for Monsieur Judas: it grows dark, he may stumble. 1

Prin. Alas, poor Machabæus, how hath he been baited.

Prin. Speak, brave Hector; we are much de

lighted.

Arm. I do adore thy sweet grace's slipper.

Boyet. Loves her by her foot.

Dum. He may not by the yard.

Arm. This Hector far surmounted Hannibal.Cost. The party is gone, fellow Hector, she is gone; she is two months on her way.

Arm. What meanest thou?

Cost. Faith, unless you play the honest Trojar. the poor wench is cast away: she's quick; the child brags in her belly already; 'tis yours.

Arm. Dost thou infamonize me among poten tates? thou shalt die.

Cost. Then shall Hector be whipp'd, for Jaque netta that is quick by him; and hanged, for Pom pey that is dead by him.

Dum. Most rare Pompey!

Boyet. Renowned Pompey!

Biron. Greater than great, great, great, great Pompey! Pompey the huge!

Dum. Hector trembles.

Biron. Pompey is mov'd:-More Ates, more Ates; stir them on! stir them on!

Dum. Hector will challenge him.

Biron. Ay, if he have no more man's blood in's belly than will sup a flea.

Arm. By the north pole, I do challenge thee. Cost. I will not fight with a pole, like a northern man; I'll slash; I'll do it by the sword:-I pray you, let me borrow my arms again.

Dum. Room for the incensed worthies.
Cost. I'll do it in my shirt.

Dum. Most resolute Pompey!

Moth. Master, let me take you a button-hole lower. Do you not see, Pompey is uneasing for the combat? What mean you? you will lose your reputation.

Arm. The armipotent Mars, of lances the al-I mighty,

Gave Hector a gift,-
Dum, A gilt nutmeg.
Biron. A lemon.

Long. Stuck with cloves.

Dum. No, cloven.

Arm. Peace!

The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,
Cave Hector a gift, the heir of Ilion;

A man so break'd, that certain he would fight, yea
From morn al night, out of his pavilion.
I am that flower,←

Dum.

Long.

That mint.

That columbine. Arm. Sweet lord Longaville, rein thy tongue. Long. I must rather give it the rein; for it runs against Hector.

Dum. Ay, and Hector's a greyhound.

Arm. The sweet war-man is dead and rotten; sweet chucks, beat not the bones of the buried: when he breath'd, he was a man.-But I will forward with my device: Sweet royalty, [To the Princess.] bestow on me the sense of hearing.

[BIRON whispers COSTARD.

Arm. Gentlemen, and soldiers, pardon me; I will not combat in my shirt.

Dum. You may not deny it: Pompey hath made the challenge.

Arm. Sweet bloods, I both may and will.
Biron. What reason have you for't?
Arm. The naked truth of it is, I have no shirt;
go woolward' for penance.

Boyet. True, and it was enjoin'd him in Rome for want of linen: since when, I'll be sworn, he wore none, but a dish-clout of Jaquenetta's; and that 'a wears next his heart, for a favor.

Enter MERCADE.

Mer. God save you, madam!

Prin. Welcome, Mercade;

But that thou interrupt'st our merriment.

Mer. I am sorry, madam; for the news I bring Is heavy in my tongue. The king your fatherPrin. Dead, for my life.

Mer. Even so; my tale is told.

Biron. Worthies, away; the scene begins to cloud.

Arm. For mine own part, I breathe free breath: I have seen the day of wrong through the little soldier. hole of discretion, and I will right myself like a [Exeunt Worthies. King. How fares your majesty? Prin. Boyet, prepare; I will away to-night.

Ate was the god of discord. Clothed in wool withort linen.

King. Madam, not so; I do beseech you, stay.
Prin. Prepare, I say.—I thank you, gracious
lords,

For all your fair endeavors; and entreat,
Out of a new-sad soul, that you vouchsafe
In your rich wisdom, to excuse or hide,
The liberal opposition of our spirits:
If over-boldly we have borne ourselves
In the converse of breath, your gentleness
Was guilty of it.-Farewell, worthy lord!
A heavy heart bears not an humble tongue:
Excuse me so, coming so short of thanks
For my great suit so easily obtain'd.

Full of dear guiltiness; and therefore this.-
If for my love (as there is no such cause)
You will do aught, this shall you do for me
Your oath I will not trust; but go with speed
To some forlorn and naked hermitage,
Remote from all the pleasures of the wold;
There stay, until the twelve celestial signs
Have brought about their annual reckoning;
If this austere insociable life

Change not your offer made in heat of blood,
If frosts, and fasts, hard lodging, and thin weeds,
Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,
But that it bear this trial, and last love;

King. The extreme parts of time extremely form Then, at the expiration of the year,

All causes to the purpose of his speed;
And often, at his very loose, decides

That which long process could not arbitrate:
And though the mourning brow of progeny
Forbid the smiling courtesy of love,
The holy suit which fain it would convince;
Yet, since love's argument was first on foot,
Let not the cloud of sorrow justle it
From what it purpos'd; since, to wail friends lost,
Is not by much so wholesome, profitable,
As to rejoice at friends but newly found.

Prin. I understand you not; my griefs are double.
Biron. Honest plain words best pierce the ear of
grief;-

And by these badges understand the king.
For your fair sakes have we neglected time,
Play'd foul play with our oaths; your beauty, ladies,
Hath much deform'd us, fashioning our humors
Even to the opposed end of our intents:
And what in us hath seem'd ridiculous,-
As love is full of unbefitting strains;
All wanton as a child, skipping, and vain;
Form'd by the eye, and, therefore, like the eye,
Full of strange shapes, of habits, and of forms,
Varying in subjects as the eye doth roll
To every varied object in his glance:
Which party-coated presence of loose love
Put on by us, if, in your heavenly eyes,
Have misbecom'd our oaths and gravities,
Those heavenly eyes, that look into these faults,
Suggested us to make: Therefore, ladies,
Our love being yours, the error that love makes
Is likewise yours: we to ourselves prove false,
By being once false for ever to be true

To those that make us both,-fair ladies, you:
And even that falsehood, in itself a sin,
Thus purifies itself, and turns to grace.

Come challenge, challenge me by these deserts,
And, by this virgin palm, now kissing thine,
I will be thine; and, till that instant, shut
My woeful self up in a mourning house;
Raining the tears of lamentation,
For the remembrance of my father's death.
If this thou do deny, let our hands part;
Neither intitled in the other's heart.

King. If this, or more than this, I would deny
To flatter up these powers of mine with rest,
The sudden hand of death close up mine eye!
Hence ever then my heart is in thy breast.
Biron. And what to me, my love? and what to
me?

Ros. You must be purged too, your sins are rank;
You are attaint with faults and perjury;
Therefore, if you my favor mean to get,
A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest,
But seek the weary beds of people sick.

Dum. But what to me, my love? but what to me?
Kath. A wife!-A beard, fair health, and ho-

nesty;

With three-fold love I wish you all these three.

Dum. O, shall I say, I thank you, gentle wife?
Kath. Not so, my lord;-a twelvemonth and a day
I'll mark no words that smooth-faced wooers say.
Come when the king doth to my lady come,
Then, if I have much love, I'll give you some.

Dum. I' serve thee true and faithfully till then.
Kath. Yet swear not, lest you be forsworn again.
Long. What says Maria?

Mar.
At the twelvemonth's end,
I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend.
Long. I'll stay with patience; but the time is long.
Mar. The liker you; few taller are so young.
Biron. Studies my lady? mistress, look on me.
Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,

Prin. We have receiv'd your letters, full of love; What humble suit attends thy answer there;

Your favors, the embassadors of love;
And, in our maiden council, rated them
At courtship, pleasant jest, and courtesy,
As bombast, and as lining to the time:
But more devout than this, in our respects,
Have we not been; and therefore met your loves
In their own fashion, like a nerriment.

Dum. Our letters, madam, show'd much more
than jest.

Long. So did our looks.
Ros.
We did not quote' them so.
King. Now, at the latest minute of the hour,
Grant us your loves.

Prin.
A time, methinks, too short
To make a world-without-end bargain in :
No, no, my lord, your grace is perjur'd much,

Impose some service on me for thy love.

Ros. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Birón,
Before I saw you: and the world's large tongue
Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks;
Full of comparisons and wounding flouts;
Which you on all estates will execute,
That lie within the mergy of your wit:
To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain;
And, therewithal, to win me, if you please,
(Without the which I am not to be won,)
You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day
Visit the speechless sick, and still converse
With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,
With all the fierce endeavor of your wit
To enforce the pained impotent to smile.

Biron. To move wild laughter in the throat of
death?

• Clothing.

It cannot be; it is impossible:
Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.

SONG.

Ros. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit, Spring. When daisies pied, and violets blue,

Whose influence is begot of that loose grace,
Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools:
A jest's prosperity lies in the ear

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it: then if sickly years,
Deaf'd with the clamors of their own dear groans,
Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,
And I wi!! have you, and that fault withal;
But, if they will not, throw away that spirit,
And I shall find you empty of that fault,
Right joyful of your reformation.

Biron. A twelvemonth? well, befal what will befal,

I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital.

Prin. Ay, sweet my lord: and so I take my leave. [To the KING.

King. No, madam: we will bring you on your

Arm. Sweet majesty, vouchsafe me,--
Prin. Was not that Hector?

Dum. The worthy knight of Troy.

Arm. I will kiss thy royal finger and take leave: I am a votary; I have vowed to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her sweet love three years. But, most esteemed greatness, will you hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled, in praise of the owl and the cuckoo? it should have followed in the end of our show.

King. Call them forth quickly, we will do so. Arm. Holla! approach.

Enter HOLOFERNES, NATHANIEL, MOTH, Cosand others.

TARD,

This side is Hiems, winter; this Ver, the spring; the one inaintain'd by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin.

And lady smocks all silver-white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue, Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men, for thus sings he, Cuckoo; Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear!

SALANIO,

SALARINO, Friends to Antonio and Bassanio. GRATIANO,

LORENZO, in love with Jessica.

SHYLOCK, a Jew.

TUBAL, a Jew, his Friend.

LAUNCELOT GO Bвo, a Clown, Servant to Shylock.

Old GOBBо, Father to Launcelot. SALERIO, a Messenger from Venice. LEONARDO, Servant to Bassanio.

BALTHAZAR, Servants to Portia. STEPHANO,

PORTIA, a rich Heiress.

NERISSA, her Waiting-Maid.
JESSICA, Daughter to Shylock.

Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of
Justice, Gaoler, Servants, and other Attendants.

SCENE, partly at Venice, and partly at Belmont, the Seat of Portia, on the Continent.

ACT I.

SCENE I-Venice. A Street.
Enter ANTONIO, SALARINO, and SALANIO.

Ant. In sooth, I know not why I am so sad;
It wearies me; you say it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn;

And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself.

Salar. Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
There, where your argosies' with portly sail,-
Like signiors and rich burghers of the flood,
Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea,-
Do overpeer the petty traffickers,

That curt'sy to them, do them reverence,
As they fly by them with their woven wings.
Salan. Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth,
The better part of my affections would
Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still
Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind;
Peering in maps, for ports, and piers, and roads;
And every object, that might make me fear
Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt,
Would make me sad.

Salar.
My wind, cooling my broth,
Would blow me to an ague, when I thought
What harm a wind too great might do at sea.
should not see the sandy hour-glass run,

1 Ships of large burden.

But I should thing of shallows and of flats,
And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand,
Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs,
To kiss her burial. Should I go to church,
And see the holy edifice of stone,
And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks?
Which touching but my gentle vessel's side
Would scatter all her spices on the stream;
Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks;
And, in a word, but even now worth this,
And now worth nothing! Shall I have the thought
To think on this; and shall I lack the thought,
That such a thing, bechanc'd,would make me sad?
But, tell not me; I know, Antonio

Is sad to think upon his merchandize.

Ant. Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for it, My ventures are not in one bottom trusted, Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate Upon the fortune of this present year: Therefore, my merchandize makes me not sad. Salan. Why then you are in love. Ant. Fye, fye! Salan. Not in love neither? Then let's say, you

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.
Salan. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble
Gratiano, and Lorenzo : Fare you well; [kinsman.
We leave you now with better company.
Salar. I would have staid till I had made you
If worthier friends had not prevented me. [merry,
Ant. Your worth is very dear in my regard.
I take it, your own business calls on you,
And you embrace the occasion to depart.
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 SALANIO. Lor. My lord Bassanio, since you have found AnWe two will leave you: but, at dinner-time, [tonio, 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, And mine a sad one.

Gra.
Let me play the Fool:
With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come;
And let my liver rather heat with wine,
Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
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 entertain,
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; who, 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's 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:
Į 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 gear. Gra. Thanks, i'faith; for silence is only commendable

In a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not vendible. [Exeunt GRATIANO and LORENZO.

Ant. Is that any thing now? Bass. Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice : His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff;

Obstinate silence.

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 this same To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage, That you to-day promis'd to tell me of?

Buss. "Tis not unknown to you, Antonio, How much I have disabled mine estate, Than my faint means would grant continuance: By something showing a more swelling port 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 gaged: To you, Antonio, I owe the most, in money, and in love; And from your love I have a warranty How to get clear of all the debts I owe To unburthen all my plots, and purposes,

Ant. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it; And, if it stand, as you yourself still do, Within the eye of honor, be assured, 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 advent'ring 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,

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.

Buss. 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 scat 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, Nor 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. Where money is; and I no question make, Go, presently inquire, and so will I, To have it of my trust, or for my sake. [Exeunt. • Ready. Formerly

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The Works of William Shakespeare: Comprising His Dramatic and Poetical Works ...