Full of dear guiltiness; and therefore this, - Change not your offer made in heat of blood; It cannot be; it is impossible: Mirth cannot move a soul in agony. Ros. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit, Whose influence is begot of that loose grace, Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools: Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans, If frosts, and fasts, hard lodging, and thin weeds 8, Will hear your idle scorns, continue then, Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love, Come challenge, challenge me by these deserts, For the remembrance of my father's death. King. If this, or more than this, I would deny, Ros. You must be purged too, your sins are rank; You are attaint with faults and perjury; Therefore, if you my favour 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 honesty ; With three-fold love I wish you all these three. Dum. I'll serve thee true and faithfully till then. At the twelvemonth's end, Ros. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Birón, To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain; Biron. To move wild laughter in the throat of 8 Clothing. And I will have you, and that fault withal; 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 way. Biron. Our wooing doth not end like an old play; Jack hath not Jill: these ladies' courtesy Might well have made our sport a comedy. King. Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth and a day, And then 'twill end. Biron. That's too long for a play. Enter ARMADO. Arm. Sweet majesty, vouchsafe me, — 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. Enter HOLOFERNES, NATHANIEL, MOTH, COSTARD, and others. This side is Hiems, winter; this Ver, the spring; the one maintain'd by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin. SCENE, partly at Venice, and partly at Belmont, the Seat of Portia, on the Continent. SCENE I.-Venice. A Street. Enter ANTONIO, SALARINO, and SALANIO, ACT I. Ant. In sooth, I know not why I am so sad; And such a want-wit sadness makes of me, 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. I should not see the sandy hour-glass run, 1 Ships of large burden. But I should think of shallows and of flats; 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 are sad, Because you are not merry: and 'twere as easy 2 Lowering. And other of such vinegar aspect, Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO. Salan. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman, Gratiano, and Lorenzo: Fare you well; you shall seek all day ere you find them: and, when Bass. 'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio, Salar. I would have staid till I had made you merry, Nor do I now make moan to be abridg'd If worthier friends had not prevented me. Ant. Your worth is very dear in my regard. Bass. Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? You grow exceeding strange: Must it be so? We two will leave you: but, at dinner-time, Gra. You look not well, signior Antonio; 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 If they should speak, would almost dam those ears, : 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. [Exeunt GRATIANO and LORENZO. 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; 3 Obstinate silence, From such a noble rate; but my chief care Ant. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it; Bass. In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft I owe you much; and, like a wilful youth, Ant. You know me well; and herein spend but To wind about my love with circumstance; Bass. In Belmont is a lady richly left, 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. Go presently inquire, and so will I, Where money is; and I no question make, 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 surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing: It is no mean 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. 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 curb'd 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, over-name 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. Ner. Then, is there the county 6 Palatine. Por. He doth nothing but frown; as who should say, An if 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 be married to a death's head with a bone in his mouth, than to either of these. Heaven defend me from these two! Ner. How say you by the French lord, monsieur Le Bon? Por. Heaven 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? 6 Count. Por. You know, I say nothing to him; for he understands not me, nor I him: he hath neither Latin, French, nor Italian; and you will come into the court and swear, that I have a poor pennyworth in the English. He is a proper man's picture; But, alas! who can converse with a dumb show? How oddly he is suited! I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour every where. Ner. What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour? Por. That he hath a neighbourly charity in him; for he borrowed a box of the ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay him again, when he was able: I think, the Frenchman became his surety, and sealed under for another. Ner. How like you the young German, the duke of Saxony's nephew? Por. Very vilely in the morning, when he is sober; and most vilely in the afternoon, when he is drunk when he is best, he is a little worse than a man; and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast: an the worst fall that ever fell, I hope, I shall make shift to go without him. Ner. If he should offer to choose, and choose the right casket, you should refuse to perform your father's will, if you should refuse to accept him. Por. Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee, set a deep glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket; for, if the devil be within, and that temptation without, I know he will choose it. I will do any thing, Nerissa, ere I will be married to a spunge. Ner. You need not fear, lady, the having any of these lords; they have acquainted me with their determinations: which is indeed, to return to their home, and to trouble you with no more suit; unless you may be won by some other sort than your father's imposition, depending on the caskets. Por. If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner of my father's will: I am glad this parcel of wooers are so reasonable; for there is not one among them but I dote on his very absence, and I wish them a fair departure. Ner. Do you not remember, lady, in your father's time, a Venetian, a scholar, and a soldier, that came hither in company of the Marquis of Montferrat ? Por. Yes, yes, it was Bassanio; as I think, so was he called. Ner. True, madam; he of all the men that ever my foolish eyes looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady. Por. I remember him well; and I remember him worthy of thy praise. - How now! what news? Enter a Servant. Serv. The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take their leave: and there is a fore-runner come from a fifth, the prince of Morocco; who brings word, the prince, his master, will be here to-night. Por. If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good heart as I can bid the other four farewell, I dition 7 of a saint, and the complexion of a devil, I should be glad of his approach: if he have the conhad rather he should shrive me than wive me. Come, Nerissa. — Sirrah, go before. Whiles we shut the gate upon one wooer, another knocks at the door. [Exeunt. 7 Temper, qualities. |