[ern man; I'll slash; I'll do it by the sword :

Biron. For the ass to the Jude; give it him :-I pray you, let me borrow my arms again.

Biron. Greater than great, great, great, great Play'd foul play with our oaths; your beauty,

Hath much deform'd us, fashioning our humours

Biron. Pompey is moved:-More Ates, more Even to the opposed end of our intents;

Ates; stir them on! stir them on!
Dum. Hector will challenge him.
Biron. Ay, if he have no more man's blood
in's belly than will sup a flea.

Arm. By the north pole, 1 do challenge thee.
Cost. I will not fight with a pole, like a north-

To every varied object in his glance:
Which party-coated presence of loose love
Put on by us, if, in your heavenly eyes,
Have misbecom'd our oaths and gravities,
Those heavenly eyes, that look into these faults,
Suggested us to make: Therefore, ladies,
Our love being yours, the error that love makes
Is likewise yours: we to ourselves prove false,
By being once false for ever to be true

To those that make us both,-fair ladies, you:
And even that falsehood, in itself a sin,'
Thus purifies itself, and turns to grace."

I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend. Long. I'll stay with patience; but the time is long.

Mar. The liker you; few taller are so young. Biron. Studies my lady ? mistress, look on me Behold the window of mine heart, mine eye, What humble suit attends thy answer there: Impose some service on me for thy love.

Ros. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Biror, Before I saw you: and the world's large tongue Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks; Full of comparisons and wounding flouts;

Prin. We have receiv'd your letters, full of Which you on all estates will execute,

love;

Your favours, the ambassadors of love;
And, in our maiden council, rated them
At courtship, pleasant jest, and courtesy,
As bombast, and as lining to the time:
But more devout than this, in our respects,
Have we not been; and therefore met your loves
In their own fashion, like a merriment.
Dum. Our letters, madam, show'd much more
than jest.

Long. So did our looks.
Ros.
We did not quote them so.
King. Now, at the latest minute of the hour,
Grant us your loves.
Prin.
A time, methinks, too short
To make a world-without-end bargain in :
No, no, my lord, your grace is perjur'd much,
Full of dear guiltiness; and, therefore this,-
If for my love (as there is no such cause)
You will do aught, this shall you do for me:
Your oath I will not trust; but go with speed
To some forlorn and naked hermitage,
Remote from all the pleasures of the world;
There stay, until the twelve celestial signs
Have brought about their annual reckoning:
If this austere insociable life

Change not your offer made in heat of blood;
If frosts, and fasts, hard lodging, and thin weeds,
Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,
But that it bear this trial, and last love;
Then, at the expiration of the year,
Come challenge, challenge me by these deserts,
And, by this virgin palm, now kissing thine,
I will be thine; and, till that instant, shut
My woful self up in a mourning house;
Raining the tears of lamentation,
For the remembrance of my father's death.
If this thou do deny, let our hands part;
Neither entitled in the other's heart.
King. If this, or more than this, I would deny,
To flatter up these powers of mine with rest.
The sudden hand of death close up mine eye!
Hence ever then my heart is in thy breast.
Biron. And what to me, my love? and what
to me?

Ros. You must be purged too, your sins are
rank;

You are attaint with faults and perjury;
Therefore, if you my favour mean to get,
A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest,
But seek the weary beds of people sick.
Dum. But what to me, my love 7 but what
to me?

Kath. A wife!-A beard, fair health, and ho-
nesty;

With three-fold love I wish you all these three.
Dum. O, shall I say, I thank you, gentle wife?
Kath. Not so, my lord ;-a twelvemonth and
a day

I'll mark no words that smooth-faced wooers
say:

Come when the king doth to my lady come,
Then, if I have much love, I'll give you some.
Dum. I'll serve thee true and faithfully till
then.

Kath. Yet swear not, lest you be forsworn
again.

Long. What says Maria?

Mar.

At the twelvemonth's end,

That lie within the mercy of your wit:
To weed this wormwood from your fruitful
brain;

And, therewithal, to win me, if you please
(Without the which, I am not to be won,)
You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day
Visit the speechless sick, and still converse
With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,
With all the fierce endeavour of your wit,
To enforce the pained impotent to smile.
Biron. To move wild laughter in the throat of
death?
It cannot be; it is impossible:
Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.
Ros. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing
spirit,

Whose influence is begot of that loose grace,
Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools:
A jest's prosperity lies in the ear

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it: then, if sickly ears,
Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear

groans,

Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,
And I will have you, and that fault withal;
But, if they will not, throw away that spirit,
And I shall find you empty of that fault,
Right joyful of your reformation.

Biron. A twelvemonth 7 well, befall what will
befall,

I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital.
Prin. Ay, sweet my lord; and so I take my
leave.
[To the King.
King. No, madam; we will bring you on your

way.

Biron. Our wooing doth not end like an old
play;

Jack hath not Jill: these ladies' courtesy
Might well have made our sport a comedy.
King. Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth and
a day.
And then 'twill end.
Biron.

That's too long for a play.
Enter Armado.
Arm. Sweet majesty, vouchsafe me,-
Prin. Was not that Hector?
Dum. The worthy knight of Troy.
Arm. I will kiss thy royal finger, and take
leave: I am a votary; I have vowed to Jaque-
netta to hold the plough for her sweet love three
years. But, most esteemed greatness, will you
hear the dialogue that the two learned men have
compiled, in praise of the owl and the cuckoo?
it should have followed in the end of our show.
King. Call them forth quickly, we will do so.
Arm. Holla! approach.

Enter Holofernes, Nathaniel, Moth, Costard,
and others.

This side is Hiems, winter; this Ver, the spring;
the one maintain'd by the owl, the other by the
cuckoo. Ver, begin."
SONG.
I.

Spring.

When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And Cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, way.

MERCHANT OF VENICE.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

OLD GOBBO, Father to Launcelot.
SALERIO, a Messenger from Venice.
LEONARDO, Servant to Bassanio.

BALTHAZAR, Servants to Portia.
STEPHANO, S

Friends to Antonio and Bassa PORTIA, a rich Heiress.

NERISSA, her Waiting-Maid.
JESSICA, Daughter to Shylock.

Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court
of Justice, Jailer, Servants, and other Atten-
dants.

SCENE-partly at Venice, and partly at Belmont, the Seat of Portia, on the Continent.

Enter Bassanio, Lorenzo, and Gratiano. Salan. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble

kinsman,

Gratiano, and Lorenzo: Fare you well;
We leave you now with better company.

Bass. "Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,
How much I have disabled mine estate,
By something showing a more swelling port
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

Salar. I would have staid till I had made you is, to come fairly off from the great debts,

merry,

If worthier friends had not prevented me.
Ant. Your worth is very dear in my regard.
I take it, your own business calls on you,
And you embrace the occasion to depart."
Salar. Good morrow, my good lords.
Bass. Good signiors both, when shall we laugh?
Say, when?

You grow exceeding strange: Must it be so ?
Salar. We'll make our leisures to attend on
[Exeunt Salar. and Salan.
Lor. My lord Bassanio, since you have found
Antonio,

yours.

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:
They lose it, that do buy it with much care.
Believe me you are marvellously chang'd.
Ant. I hold the world but as the world, Gra-

tiano;

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

dice

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
To unburden 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 selfsame flight
The selfsame way, with more advised watch,
To find the other forth; and, by advent'ring both,
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.

Ant. You know me well; and herein spend but
time,

And, out of doubt, you do me now more wrong,
To wind about my love with circumstance:
jaun-Than if you had made waste of all I have:
In making question of my uttermost,

By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio,-Then do but say to me what I should do,
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;
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, 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's gudgeon, this opinion.-
Come, good Lorenzo :-Fare ye well a while;
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.

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

Ant. Is that any thing now?
Bass. Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of no-
thing 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
To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,
That you to-day promis'd to tell me of?

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 undervalued
To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia.
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'
And many Jasons come in quest of her.
strand,
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.
Ant. Thou know'st that all my fortunes are at
Neither have I money, nor commodity
To raise a present sum: therefore go forth,
Try what my credit can in Venice do;
To furnish thee to Belmont, to fair Portia.
That shall be rack'd, even to the uttermost,
Where money is; and I no question make,
Go, presently inquire, and so will I,
To have it of my trust, or for my sake. [Exeunt.
SCENE 11. 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.

sea;

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. sober; and most vilely in the afternoon, when Ner. They would be better, if well followed. he is drunk: when he is best, he is a little worse Por. If to do were as easy as to know what than a man; and when he is worst, he is little were good to do, chapels had been churches, better than a beast: and the worst fall that ever and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. It is fell, I hope, I shall make shift to go without him. a good divine that follows his own instructions: Ner. If he should offer to choose, and choose I can easier teach twenty what were good to be the right casket, you should refuse to perform done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine your father's will, if you should refuse to accept own teaching. The brain may devise laws for him. the blood; but a hot temper leaps over a cold Por. Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray decree; such a hare is madness the youth, to thee, set a deep glass of Rhenish wine on the skip o'er the meshes of good counsel the cripple. contrary casket: for, if the devil be within, and But this reasoning is not in the fashion to choose that temptation without, I know he will choose me a husband :-O me, the word choose! I may it. I will do any thing, Nerissa, ere I will be neither choose whom I would, nor refuse whom married to a sponge. 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. You need not fear, lady, the having any of these lords; they have acquainted me with their determinations: which is, indeed, to return to their home, and to trouble you with no more Ner. Your father was ever virtuous; and holy suit; unless you may be won by some other sort men, at their death, have good inspirations; than your father's imposition, depending on the therefore, the lottery, that he hath devised in caskets. these three chests, of gold, silver, and lead, Por. If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die (whereof who chooses his meaning, chooses as chaste as Diana, unless 1 be obtained by the you will, no doubt, never be chosen by any manner of my father's will; I am glad this parcel rightly, but one who you shall rightly love. But of wooers are so reasonable; for there is not one what warmth is there in your affection towards among them but I dote on his very absence, and any of these princely suitors that are already I pray God grant them a fair departure. Ner. Do you not remember, lady, in your Por. I pray thee over-name them; and as thou father's time, a Venetian, a scholar, and a solnamest them, I will describe them: and, accord-dier, that came hither in company of the mar ing 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 play'd false with a smith.

come?

Ner. Then, is there the county Palatine. Por. He doth nothing but frown; as who should say, An, 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 7

Por. God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. 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: if he would despise me, would forgive him; for if he love me to madness, I shall never requite him.

Ner. What say you then to Faulconbridge, the young baron of England?

Por. You know, I say nothing to him; for he understands not me, nor 1 him: he hath neither Latin, French, nor Italian; and you will come into the court and swear, that I have a poor| penny-worth in the English. He is a proper man's picture; but, alas! who can converse with a dumb show? How oddly he is suited! I think, he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere.

Ner. What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour ?

quis of Montferrat ?

Por. Yes, yes, it was Bassanio; as I think, so was he called.

Ner. True, madam; he, of all the men that ever my foolish eyes looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady..

Por. I remember him well; and I reinember him worthy of thy praise.-How now I what news?

Enter a Servant.

Serv. The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take their leave and there is a fore-runner come from a fifth, the prince of Morocco; who brings word, the prince, his master, will be here to-night.

Por. If I could bid the fifth welcome with so
good heart as I can bid the other four farewell,
I should be glad of his approach: if he have the
condition of a saint, and the complexion of a
devil, I had rather he should shrive me than
wive me.-Come, Nerissa.-Sirrah, go before.-
Whiles we shut the gate upon one wooer, an-
other knocks at the door.
[Exeunt.

SCENE III. Venice. A publick Place.
Enter Bassanio and Shylock.

Shy. Three thousand ducats,-well.
Bass. Ay, sir, for three months.
Shy. For three months,-well.
Bass. For the which, as I told you, Antonio
shall be bound.

Shy. Antonio shall become bound,-well.
Bass. May you stead me? Will you pleasure
me? Shall I know your answer?
Shy. Three thousand ducats, for three months,
and Antonio bound.

Bass. Your answer to that.
Shy. Antonio is a good man.

Bass. Have you heard any imputation to the contrary?

Shy. Ho, no, no, no, no;-my meaning in Por. That he hath a neighbourly charity in saying he is a good man, is to have you underhim; for he borrowed a box of the ear of the stand me, that he is sufficient: yet his means are Englishman, and swore he would pay him again, in supposition: he hath an argosy bound to Triwhen he was able: I think, the Frenchman be-polis, another to the Indies; I understand more. came his surety, and sealed under for another. ove upon the Rialto, he hath a third at Mexico, Ner. How like you the young German, the a fourth for England,and other ventures he duke of Saxony's nephew? hath, squander'd abroad: But ships are but Por. Very vilely in the morning, when he is' boards sailors but men: there be land-rats, and