Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub

THE JEW'S COMMANDS TO HIS daughter. Lock up my doors; and when you hear the drum, And the vile squeaking of the wry-neck'd fife, Clamber not you up to the casements then, Nor thrust your head into the public street, To gaze on Christian fools with varnish'd faces: But stop my house's ears, I mean my casements; Let not the sound of shallow foppery enter My sober house.

POSSESSION MORE LANGUID THAN EXPECTATION.

O, ten times faster Venus' pigeons fly

To seal love's bonds new made, than they are wont, To keep obliged faith unforfeited!

Who riseth from a feast,

With that keen appetite that he sits down?
Where is the horse that doth untread again
His tedious measures with the unbated fire
That he did pace them first? All things that are,
Are with more spirit chased than enjoy'd.
How like a younker, or a prodigal,

The scarfed bark puts from her native bay,
Hugg'd and embraced by the strumpet wind!
How like the prodigal doth she return,
With overweather'd ribs, and ragged sails,
Lean, rent, and beggar'd by the strumpet wind!

PORTIA'S SUITORS.

From the four corners of the earth they come, To kiss this shrine, this mortal breathing saint. The Hyrcanian deserts, and the vasty wilds Of wide Arabia, are as through-fares now, For princes to come view fair Portia :

* Decorated with flags.

The watery kingdom, whose ambitious head
Spits in the face of heaven, is no bar
To stop the foreign spirits; but they come,
As o'er a brook, to see fair Portia.

THE PARTING OF FRIENDS.

I saw Bassanio and Antonio part:
Bassanio told him, he would make some speed
Of his return; he answered—Do not so,
Slubber not business for my sake, Bassanio,
But stay the very riping of the time;
And for the Jen's bond, which he hath of me,
Let it not enter in your mind of love:
Be merry; and employ your chiefest thoughts
To courtship, and such fair ostents of love
As shall conveniently become you there:
And even there, his eye being big with tears,
Turning his face, he put his hand behind him,
And with affection wondrous sensible

He wrung Bassanio's hand, and so they parted.

HONOUR TO BE CONFERRED ON MERIT ONLY.

For who shall go about

To cozen fortune, and be honourable

Without the stamp of merit! Let none presume To wear an undeserved dignity.

O, that estates, degrees, and offices,

Were not deriv'd corruptly! and that clear honour
Were purchased by the merit of the wearer!
How many then should cover, that stand bare?
How many be commanded, that command?
How much low peasantry would then be glean'd
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?

* To slubber, is to do a thing carelessly. Shows, tokens.

LOVE'S MESSENGER COMPARED TO AN APRIL DAY.

I have not seen

So likely an embassador of love:

A day in April never came so sweet,
To show how costly summer was at hand,
As this fore-spurrer comes before his lord.

ACT III.

THE JEW'S Revenge.

If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered me of half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked 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, 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 you poison us, do we not die? and 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? why, revenge. The villany, you teach me, I will execute: and it shall go hard, but I will better the instruction.

if

MUSIC.

Let music sound, while he doth make his choice;

Then, if he lose, he makes a swanlike end,
Fading in music: that the comparison

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 subjects bow
To a new-crowned monarch: such it is,
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
The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy
To the seamonster: I stand for sacrifice,
The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives,
With bleared visages, come forth to view
The issue of the exploit.

THE DECEIT OF ORNAMENT OR APPEARANCES.
The world is still deceiv'd with ornament.
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,
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?
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;
Who, inward search'd, have livers white as milk?
And these assume but valour's excrement,
To render them redoubted.

* Dignity of mien

Look on beauty,

+ Winning favour,

And you shall see 'tis purchas'd by the weights;
Which therein works a miracle in nature,
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,

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
To entrap the wisest.

PORTIA'S PICTURE.

What find I here? [Opening the leaden casket. Fair Portia's counterfeit? What demigod 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 The painter plays the spider; and hath woven A golden mesh to 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, And leave itself unfurnish'd.

SUCCESSFUL LOVER COMPARED TO A CONQUEROR.

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

* Curled.

+ Treacherous.

Likeness, portrait.

« PředchozíPokračovat »