You have too much respect upon the world: 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. Than my heart cool with mortifying groans. 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, But fish not, with this melancholy bait, Lor. Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time: I 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 commend able 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; 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 † Bass. 'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio, Ant. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it; Within the eye of honour, 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, 5 a more swelling port, &c.] Port, in the present instance, comprehends the idea of expensive equipage, and external pomp of appearance. To find the other forth; and by advent'ring both, Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt, 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: Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth; Which makes her seat of Belmont, Colchos' strand, O my Antonio, had I but the means 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 6 prest unto it :] Prest may not here signify impress'd, as into military service, but ready. Prêt, Fr. To raise a present sum: therefore go forth, [Exeunt. SCENE II. Belmont. A Room in Portia's House. Enter PORTIA and NERISSA. Por. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary 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. The brain may devise laws for the blood; but a hot temper leaps over 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 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: I am much afraid, my lady his mother played false with a smith. Ner. Then, is there the county' Palatine. Por. He doth nothing but frown; as who should say, And 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. God defend me from these two! Ner. How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon ? man. Por. God made him, and therefore let him pass for a 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 : is there the county Palatine.] County and count in old language were synonymous. 7- |