And his affections dark as Erebus:

Let no such man be trusted.-Mark the music.

Enter PORTIA and NERISSA, at a distance.

Por. That light we see is burning in my hall.
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

90

Ner. When the moon shone, we did not see the candle.

Por. So doth the greater glory dim the less:
A substitute shines brightly as a king,

Until a king be by; and then his state
Empties itself, as doth an inland brook
Into the main of waters. Music! hark!

Ner. It is your music, madam, of the house.
Por. Nothing is good, I see, without respect;
Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.

Ner. Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam. Por. The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark, When neither is attended; and, I think,

The nightingale, if she should sing by day,

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100

When every goose is cackling, would be thought 105
No better a musician than the wren.
How many things by season season'd are
To their right praise, and true perfection!-
Peace, ho! the moon sleeps with Endymion,
And would not be awak'd!

Lor.

[Music ceases.

That is the voice,

Or I am much deceiv'd, of Portia.

ΠΙΟ

Por. He knows me, as the blind man knows the

cuckoo,

By the bad voice.

Lor.

Dear lady, welcome home.

Por. We have been praying for our husbands' welfare,

Which speed, we hope, the better for our words. 115 Are they return'd?

Lor.

Madam, they are not yet;

But there is come a messenger before,

To signify their coming.

Por.

Go in, Nerissa :

Give order to my servants, that they take

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No note at all of our being absent hence ;—
Nor you Lorenzo ;-Jessica, nor you. [A tucket sounds.
Lor. Your husband is at hand; I hear his trumpet:
We are no tell-tales, madam; fear you not.

Por. This night, methinks, is but the daylight sick; It looks a little paler: 'tis a day,

Such as a day is when the sun is hid.

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Enter BASSANIO, ANTONIO, GRATIANO, and their

followers.

Bass. We should hold day with the Antipodes, If you would walk in absence of the sun.

Por. Let me give light, but let me not be light; For a light wife doth make a heavy husband, And never be Bassanio so for me;

130

But God sort all !---You are welcome home, my lord. Bass. I thank you, madam: give welcome to my

friend.

This is the man, this is Antonio,

To whom I am so infinitely bound.

135

Por. You should in all sense be much bound to him,

For, as I hear, he was much bound for you.

Ant. No more than I am well acquitted of. Por. Sir, you are very welcome to our house: It must appear in other ways than words, Therefore, I scant this breathing courtesy.

140

[GRATIANO and NERISSA seem to talk apart. Grat. By yonder moon, I swear, you do me wrong;

In faith, I gave it to the judge's clerk.

145

Por. A quarrel, ho, already! what's the matter? Grat. About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring That she did give me; whose posy was, For all the world, like cutler's poetry Upon a knife, Love me, and leave me not.

Ner. What talk you of the posy, or the value? You swore to me, when I did give it you, That you would wear it till your hour of death; And that it should lie with you in your grave: Though not for me, yet for your vehement oaths, You should have been respective, and have kept it. Gave it a judge's clerk!-no, God's my judge, 155 The clerk will ne'er wear hair on's face, that had it. Grat. He will, an if he live to be a man.

150

Ner. Ay, if a woman live to be a man.

Grat. Now, by this hand, I gave it to a youth,—

A kind of boy; a little scrubbèd boy,

160

No higher than thyself, the judge's clerk;
A prating boy, that begg'd it as a fee;

I could not for my heart deny it him.

Por. You were to blame, I must be plain with you,

To part so slightly with your wife's first gift;
A thing stuck on with oaths upon your finger,
And so riveted with faith unto your flesh.
I gave my love a ring, and made him swear

165

Never to part with it; and here he stands:

I dare be sworn for him, he would not leave it,
Nor pluck it from his finger, for the wealth
That the world masters. Now, in faith, Gratiano,
You give your wife too unkind a cause of grief;
An 'twere to me, I should be mad at it.

170

Bass. Why, I were best to cut my left hand off, 175 And swear I lost the ring defending it.

Grat. My lord Bassanio gave his ring away Unto the judge that begg'd it, and, indeed, Deserv'd it too; and then the boy, his clerk,

[Aside.

That took some pains in writing, he begg'd mine: 180 And neither man, nor master, would take aught

But the two rings.

Por.

What ring gave you, my lord?

Not that, I hope, which you receiv'd of me.
Bass. If I could add a lie unto a fault,
I would deny it; but you see my finger
Hath not the ring upon it: it is gone.

Por. Even so void is your false heart of truth.
Bass. Sweet Portia,

If you did know to whom I gave the ring,

If you did know for whom I gave the ring,
And would conceive for what I gave the ring,
And how unwillingly I left the ring,

185

190

When naught would be accepted but the ring,
You would abate the strength of your displeasure.
Por. If you had known the virtue of the ring, 195
Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,

Or your own honour to contain the ring,
You would not then have parted with the ring.
What man is there so much unreasonable,

200

If you had pleas'd to have defended it

With any terms of zeal, wanted the modesty
To urge the thing held as a ceremony?
Nerissa teaches me what to believe:

I'll die for't, but some woman had the ring.

204

Bass. No, by mine honour, madam, by my soul, No woman had it, but a civil doctor,

Which did refuse three thousand ducats of me,
And begg'd the ring; the which I did deny him,
And suffer'd him to go displeas'd away,---

209