Sal. Why, then you are in love.

Ant.

Fie, fie!
Sal. Not in love neither? Then let's say, you're sad,
Because you are not merry; and 'twere as easy
For you to laugh and leap, and say you're merry
'Cause you're not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus,"
Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time:
Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,
And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper;
And other of such vinegar aspéct,12

That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile,
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.13

Sol. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman,
Gratiano, and Lorenzo. Fare ye well:

We leave you now with better company.

Sal. I would have stay'd till I had made you merry,

If worthier friends had not prevented me.

14

Ant. Your worth is very dear in my regard.

I take it, your own business calls on you,

And you embrace th' occasion to depart.

Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO,

Sal. Good morrow, my good lords.

Bass. Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? say, when? You 15 grow exceeding strange: must it be so?

Sal. We'll make our leisures to attend on yours.

[Exeunt SALAR. and SOLAN. Lor. My Lord Bassanio, since you've found Antonio,

We two will leave you; but at dinner-time,

I pray you, have in mind where we must meet.
Bass. I will not fail you.

Gra. You look not well, Signior Antonio;
You have too much respect upon the world: 16

11 Janus, the old Latin Sun-god, who gave the name to the month of January, is here called two-headed, because he had two faces, one on either side of his head. There is also an allusion to certain antique two-faced images, one face being grave, the other merry, or a gloomy Saturn on one side, and a laughing Apollo on the other.

12 In Shakespeare and other writers of the time, aspect generally has the accent on the second syllable. — Other, the singular form, was sometimes used with the plural sense.

18 Nestor was the oldest and gravest of the Greek heroes in the Trojan The severest faces might justly laugh at what he should pronounce laughable.

war.

14 Prevented, in old language, is anticipated. To prevent is literally to go before. So in the Prayer-Book, 17th Sunday after Trinity: "That thy grace may always prevent and follow us."

15 Strange is distant, stranger-like.

16 The Poet often uses respect for consideration. So, in King Lear, i. 1. "Love's not love, when it is mingled with respects that stand aloof from tb'

They ose it that do buy it with much care.
Believe me, you are marvellously chang'd.

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
By being peevish? I tell thee what, António, —
I love thee, and it is my love that speaks, -
There are a sort of men whose visages
Do cream and mantle like a standing pond;
And do a wilful stillness entertain,
With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion
Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit; 18
As who should say, I am Sir Oracle,
And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!
O my Antonio! I do know of these,
That therefore only are reputed wise

For saying nothing; who,19 I'm 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, awhile:

I'll end my exhortation after dinner.

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.

entire point." Near the end of this play, we have respective for consuleratire.

17 To play the Fooi is, in Gratiano's sense, to act such a part as that of Touchstone in As You Like It.

18 Conceit for conception or thought. See page 87, note 5.

19 All the old copies have when instead of who, thus leaving would damn without a subject. -The following lines refer to the judgment pronounced in the Gospel against him who says to his brother, Thou fool." The meaning therefore, is, that if those who "only are reputed wise for saying nothing " should go to talking, they would be apt to damn their hearers, by provoking them to utter this reproach. Fool-gudgeon, a little below, appears to mean such a fish as any fool might catch, or none but fools would care to catch Gudgeon was the name of a small fish very easily caught.

Ant. Farewell: I'll grow a talker for this gear.20
Gra. Thanks, i' faith; for silence is only commendable
In a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not vendible.21

Ant. Is that any thing now?

[Exeunt GRATIA. and LOREN.

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 cre you find them; and when you have them, they are not worth the search.

Ant. Well; tell me now, what lady is the same
To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,
That you to-day promis'd to tell me of?

Bass. "Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,
How much I have disabled mine estate,
By something showing a more swelling port 22
Than my faint means would grant continuance :
Nor do I now make moan to be abridg'd
From such a noble rate; but my chief care
Is to come fairly off from the great debts
Wherein my time, something too prodigal,
Hath left me gag'd. To you, Antonio,
I owe the most, in money and in love;
And from your love I have a warranty
Tunburden all my plots and purposes,
How to get clear of all the debts I owe.

Ant. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it;
And if it stand, as you yourself still do,
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 24

The self-same way with more advised watch,25

To find the other forth; and, by adventuring both,

20 Gear was often used of any business, matter, or affair in hand. 21 Not good for the matrimonial market, unless she have the rare gift of silence to recommend her, or to make up for the lack of other attractions. 22 Port is bearing, carriage, behaviour. Next line, "continuance of." 23 Gay'd is pledged. So in 1 Henry IV. i. 3: "That men of your nobility and power did gage them both in an unjust behalf.”

24 Arrows were variously formed for different ranges. A shaft "of the self-same flight" was an arrow made for shooting the same distance. His for its, which was not then a legitimate word. See page 53, note 22.

25 Advised is careful deliberate. So Bacon says that judges ought to be more advised than confidant."- Observe, especially, that in the text as here Bet forth, and it is the same in the old copies, - in all such words, ed, when printed in full, except in words ending in ied, always makes a syllable by itself, and is required by the verse to be so. See page 39, note 6.

I oft found both. I urge this childhood proof,
Because what follows is pure innocence.
I owe you much, and, like a wilful youth,
That which I owe is lost; but if you please
To shoot another arrow that self way
Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,·
As I will watch the aim, or to find both,

Or bring your latter hazard back again,

And thankfully rest debtor for the first.

26

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

28

In making question of my uttermost,
Than if you had made waste of all I have:
Then do but say to me what I should do,
That in your knowledge may by me be done,
And I am prest unto it: therefore speak.
Bass. In Belmont is a lady richly left;
And she is fair, and, fairer than that word,
Of wondrous virtues: sometimes from her eyes
I did receive fair speechless messages.
Her name is Portia; nothing undervalu'd
To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia :

20

Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth;
For the four winds blow in from every coast
Renowned suitors; and her sunny locks
Hang on her temples like a golden fleece;
Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strand,
And many Jasons come in quest of her.
O my Antonio! had I but the means
To hold a rival place with one of them,
I have a mind presages me such thrift,
That I should questionless be fortunate.

80

Ant. Thou know'st that all my fortunes are at sea;
Neither 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.

26 The Poet elsewhere has childhood in the sense of childish.

27 Circumstance is circumlocution. Thus, in Hamlet, i. 5: "And so, without more circumstance at all, I hold it fit that we shake hands and part." 28 Prest is prompt, ready; from an old French word. Spenser has it repeatedly in the same sense. The Latin præsto is the origin of it. 29 Sometimes and sometime were used indifferently in the sense of for merly.

The language is awkward: "as one of them," we should say

Go, presently inquire, and so will I,

Where money is; and I no question make,

To have it of my trust, or for my sake.

[Exeunt

SCENE II. Belmont. 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.

2

Por. Good sentences, and well pronounc'd.

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 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 whom 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.

1 Troth is but an old form of truth.

2 That is, superfluity sooner acquires white hairs; becomes old. We still say, how did he come by it? - The quartos have "no mean happiness," which makes a poor jingle with "seated in the mean."

This use of blood was very common. See page 92, note 9.

4 Level at is guess or infer. The Poet uses aim in the same sense.