Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus, That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile, Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO. Solan. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kins man, Gratiano, and Lorenzo: Fare you well; Salar. I would have stay'd till I had made you merry, If worthier friends had not prevented me. Bass. Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? You grow exceeding strange: Must it be so? Salar. We'll make our leisures to attend on yours. [Exeunt SALARINO and SOLANIO. Lor. My lord Bassanio, since you have found An tonio, We two will leave you; but at dinner-time I I pray you have in mind where we must meet. 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: Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the jaundice 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 gudgeon, this opinion. Come, good Lorenzo:-Fare ye well, a while; Lor. Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time : 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.a Gra. Thanks, i' faith; for silence is only commendable In a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not vendible. [Exeunt GRATIANO and LORENZO. a For this gear-a colloquial expression, meaning for this matter. Ant. Is that anything now ?a Bass. Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice His reasons are two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff; 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 the same Bass. T is not unknown to you, Antonio, Ant. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it; Within the eye of honour, be assur'd 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 a Gratiano has made a commonplace attempt at wit; and Antonio gravely, but sarcastically, asks, "Is that anything?' Bassanio replies, "Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing." b Port-appearance, carriage. I owe you much; and, like a wilful youth, you please To shoot another arrow that self way Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt, 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, a Bass. In Belmont is a lady richly left, Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth; Ant. Thou know'st that all my fortunes are at sea; a Prest-ready. To furnish thee to Belmont, to fair Portia. SCENE II.-Belmont. [Exeunt. A Room in Portia's House. 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 small 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. The brain may devise laws for the blood; but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel the cripple. 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 curbed 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, |