ladies, Let not the cloud of sorrow justle it [lost, From what it purpos'd; since, to wail friends Is not by much so wholesome, profitable, As to rejoice at friends but newly found. Prin. I understand you not; my griefs are double. [ear of grief;Biron. Honest plain words best pierce the And by these badges understand the king. For your fair sakes have we neglected time, Play'd foul play with our oaths; your beauty, [mours Hath much deform'd us, fashioning our huEven to the opposed end of our intents: And what in us hath seem'd ridiculous,As love is full of unbefitting strains; All wanton as a child, skipping, and vain; Form'd by the eye, and, therefore, like the eye Full of strange shapes, of habits, and of forms, Varying in subjects as the eye doth roll 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 faise 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. [love; Prin. We have receiv'd your letters, full of 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 In their own fashion, like a merriment. [loves Dum.Our letters, madam, show'd much more Long. So did our looks. [than jest. 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 1, Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love, ⚫Tempted. + Regard. [again. Kath. Yet swear not, lest you be forsworn Mar. is long. Mar. The liker you; few taller are 80 Biron. Studies my lady? mistress look on me, Behold the window of my 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 Birón, Before I saw you; and the world's large tongue Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks; Full of comparisons and wounding flouts; Which you on all estates will execute, That lie within the mercy of your wit: [brain; To weed this wormwood from your fruitful And, therewithal, to win me, if you please, (Without the which I am not to be won,) [day You shall this twelvemonth teria from day to Visit the speechless sick, and still converse With groaning wretches; and your task shall With all the fierces endeavour of your wit, [be, To enforce the pained impotent to smile. Biron. To move wild laughter in the throat Of him that hears it, never in the tongue groans, Will hear your idle scorns, continue then, And I will have you, and that fault withal; Immediate. + Clothing. § Vehement. But if they will not, throw away that spirit, And I shall find you empty of that fault, Right joyful of your reforination. Biron. A twelvemonth? well, befal what will befal, 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. [play; Biron. Our wooing doth not end like an old Jack hath not Jill: these ladies' courtesy Might well have made our sport a comedy. King, Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth And then 'twill end. [and a day. That's too long for a play, Enter ARMADO. Biron. Arm. Sweet majesty, vouchsafe me,- Arm. I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave: I am a votary; I have vowed to Jaqueuetta 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. Spring. When daisies pied, and violets blue, • Cool. The cuckoo then, on every tree, Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O̟ word of fear, When shepherds pipe on oaten straws, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear, Winter. When icicles hang by the wall, And m lk comes frozen home in pail, When blond is nipp'd, and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-who; Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel* the pot. IV. When all aloud the wind doth blaw, And coughing drowns the parson's sav And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw, When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-who; Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. Arm. The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo. You, that way; we, this, way. [Exeunt. + Wild apples. In this play, which all the editors have concurred to censure, and some have rejected as unworthy of our poet, it must be confessed that there are many passages mean, childish, and vulgar; and some which ought not to have been exhibited, as we are told they were, to a maiden queen. But there are scattered through the whole many sparks of genius; nor is there any play that has more evident marks of the hand of Shakspeare.-JOHNSON. Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of Justice, Jailer, Servants, and other Attendants. Scene,-Partly at Venice, and partly at Belmont, the Seat of Portia, on the Continent. SCENE I. Venice. A Street. ACT I. Enter ANTONIO, SALARINO, and SALANIO. And such a want-wit sadness makes of me, Salar. Your mind is tossing on the ocean; There, where your argosics* with portly sail, Like signiors and rich burghers of the flood, Or, as it were the pageants of the sea,-Do overpeer the petty traffickers, That curt'sy to them, do them reverence, As they fly by them with their woven wings. Salan. Believe me, sir, had I such venture The better part of my affections would [forth, Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still Plucking the grass, to know where sits the [roads; Peering in maps, for ports, and piers, and And every object, that might make me fear Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt, Would make me sad. wind; Salar. Which touching but n.y gentle vessel's side, Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks; Would scatter all her spices on the stream; And, in a word, but even now worth this, And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought [sad? To think on this; and shall I lack the thought, Because you are not merry: and 'twere as easy merry, Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time: Some that will evermore peep through their And laugh, like parrots, at a bag piper; [eyes, And other of such vinegar aspect, [smile, That they'll not show their teeth in way of Thongh Nestor swear the jest be laughable. Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO. Salan. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman, My wind, cooling my broth, Gratiano, and Lorenzo: Fare you well; ↑ Lowering. If worthier friends had not prevented me. You grow exceeding strange: Must it be so? [Exeunt SALARINO and SALANIO. Lor. My lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio, We two will leave you; but, at dinner-time, Gra. You look not well, signior Antonio; A stage, where every man must play a part, Gra. By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio,- ears, Ant. Farewell: I'll grow a talker for this gear. [commendable Gra. Thanks, i'faith; for silence is only 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 • Obstinate silence. 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 Bass. "Tis not unknown to you, Antonio, [it; Ant. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know Buss. In my school-days, when I had lost I oft found both: I urge this childhood proof, Ant. You know me well; and herein spend but time, To wind about my love with circumstance; Bass. In Belmont is a laly richly left, And many Jasons come in quest of her. Ant. Thou know'st, that all my fortunes are at sea; Nor have I money, nor commodity 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 a-weary of this great world. Ner. You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the sime abundance as your good fortunes are: And, yet, for anght 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, in 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:-0 me, the word choose! I may neither choose whom I would, nor refuse whom I ei-like; so is the will of a living daughter curb'd by the wit 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 goca inspira. tions; 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 yon shall ri htly love. But what warmth is there in your affection towards any of these princely suitors that are already come? Por. I pray the. 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: 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, 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? 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 men 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, I would forgive him; for if he love ine to madness, I shall never reqnite him. Ner. What say yon then to Faulconbridge, the young haren of England ? Por. You know, I say nothing to him; for he understands not me, nor I him: he hath nei her 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, aud his behaviour every where. Ner. What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour? Por. That he hath a neighbourly charity in him; for he borrowed a box of the ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay him again, when he was able: I think, the Frenchman became his surety, and sealed under for another. Ner. How like you the young German, the duke of Saxony's nephew? Por. Very vilely in the morning, when he is sober; and most vilely in the afternoon, when he is drunk: when he is best, he is a ittle worse t an a man; and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast: an the worst fall that ever el, I hope, I shall make shift to go without bin. Ner. If he should offer to choose, and choose the right casket, yon should refuse to perform your father's will, if you should refuse to accept him Por. Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee, set a deep glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket: for, if the devil be within and that temptation without, I know he will choose it. I will do any thing, Nerissa, ere I will be married to a spunge. Nor. You need kot fear, lady, the having any of these lords; they have acquainted ma |