The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare

Dum. Hector will challenge him. Biron. Ay, if he have no more man's blood n's belly than will sup a flea.

Arm. By the north pole, I do challenge thee. Cost. I will not fight with a pole, like a northern man;* I'll slash; I'll do it by the sword:I pray you let me borrow my arms again. Dum Room for the incensed worthies. Cost I'll do it in my shirt. Dum. Most resolute Pompey!

Moth. Master, let me take you a button-hole lower. Do you not see, Pompey is uncasing for the combat? What mean you? you will lose your reputation.

Arm. Gentlemen, and soldiers, pardon me; I will not combat in my shirt.

Dum. You may not deny it; Pompey hath made the challenge.

Arm. Sweet bloods, I both may and will. Biron. What reason have you for't? Arm. The naked truth of it is, I have no shirt; I go woolwardt for penance.

Boyet. True, and it was enjoin'd him in Rome for want of linen: since when, I'll be sworn, he wore none, but a dish-clout of Jaquenetta's; and that 'a wears next his heart, for a favour. Enter MERCADE.

Mer. God save you, madam!
Prin. Welcome, Mercade;

But that thou interrupt'st our merriment.
Mer. I am sorry, madam; for the news I
bring,

Is heavy in my tongue. The king your fatherPrin. Dead, for my life.

Mer. Even so; my tale is told.

Biron. Worthies, away; the scene begins to cloud.

Arm. For mine own part, I breathe free breath: I have seen the day of wrong through the little hole of discretion, and I will right myself like a soldier. [Exeunt Worthies. King. How fares your majesty? Prim. Boyet, prepare ; I will away to-night. King, Madam, not so; I do beseech you, stay. Prin. Prepare, I say.-I thank you, gracious lords,

For all your fair endeavours; and entreat,
Out of a new-sad soul, that you vouchsafe

your rich wisdom, to excuse, or hide, The liberal; opposition of our spirits: If over-boldly we have borne ourselves In the converse of breath, your gentleness Was guilty of it.-Farewell, worthy lord! A heavy heart bears not an humble tongue: Excuse me so, coming so short of thanks For my great suit so easily obtain’d.

king. The extreme parts of time extremely All causes to the purpose of his speed; [form And often, at his very loose, decides That which long process could not arbitrate: And though the mourning brow of progeny Forbid the smiling courtesy of love,

[lost,

The holy suit which fain it would convince;
Yet, since love's argument was first on foot,
Let not the cloud of sorrow justle it
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.

Biron. Honest plain words best pierce the

ear of grief;

And by these badges understand the king. For your fair sakes have we neglected time, + Clothed in cool, without linen. : Free to excess

• à clown.

Play'd foul play with our oaths; your beauty, ladies,

Hath much deform'd us, fashioning our humours
Even 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 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.

Prin. We have receiv'd your letters, full of
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
In their own fashion, like a merriment. [loves
Dum. Our letters, madam, show'd much
more than jest.
Long. So did our looks.

Ros. We did not quotet 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 our 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 woeful 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? but what

to me?

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

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 [say: I'll mark no words that smooth-fac'd wooers 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, 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 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,) You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day Visit the speechless sick, and still converse With groaning wretches; and your task shall With all the fierce* endeavour of your wit, [be, To enforce the pained impotent to smile.

Biron. To move wild laughter in the throat of It cannot be; it is impossible: [death? 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 clamour of their own deart

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? well, befal what will I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital. [befal, 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
And then 'twill end.
[a day,

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 Jaquenetta 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 maintained by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin.

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.

DUKE OF VENICE.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

PRINCE OF MOROCCO, Suitors to Portia.

PRINCE OF ARRAGON,

ANTONIO, the Merchant of Venice.

BASSANIO, his Friend.

SALANIO,

SALERIO, a Messenger from Venice. LEONARDO, Servant to Bassanio. BALTHAZAR, Servants to Portia. STEPHANO,

PORTIA, a rich Heiress.

SALARINO,Friends to Antonio and Bassanio. NERISSA, her Waiting-maid.

GRATIANO, S

LORENZO, in love with Jessica.

SHYLOCK, a Jew.

TUBAL, a Jew, his Friend.

LAUNCELOT GOBBO, a Clown, Servant to Shy

lock.

OLD GOBEO, Father to Launcelot.

JESSICA, Daughter to Shylock.

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.

ACT I.

SCENE 1.-Venice.-A Street.
Enter ANTONIO, SALARINO, and SALANIO.
Ant. In sooth, I know not why I am so sad;
It wearies me; you say, it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn;

And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself.

Salar. Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
There, where your argosies 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 reverence,

As they fly by them with their woven wings.
Sulan. 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
wind;
[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.

Salar. My wind, cooling my broth,
Would blow me to an ague, when I thought
What harm a wind too great might do at sea.
I should not see the sandy hour-glass run,
But 1 should think of shallows and of flats;
And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand,
Vailingt her high-top lower than her ribs,
To kiss her burial. Should I go to church,
And see the holy edifice of stone,
[rocks?
And not bethink me straight of dangerous
Which touching but my gentle vessel's side,
Would scatter all her spices on the stream;
Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks;
And, in a word, but even now worth this,
And now worth nothing? Shall I have the

thought

To think on this; and shall I lack the thought,

you 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 fords.
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 yours.

[Exeunt SALARINO and SALANIO. Lor. My Lord Bassanio, since you have 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:
They lose it, that do buy it with much care.
Believe me, you are marvellously chang'd.
Ant. Eold 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? [dice
Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the jaun-
By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio,-
1 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
[fools.
Which, hearing them, would call their brothers,
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.

ears,

Lor. Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time:

1 must be one of these same dumb wise men, For Gratiano never lets me speak.

more,

Gra. Well, keep me company but two years [tongue. Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own Ant. Farewell: I'll grow a talker for this gear. Gra. Thanks, i'faith; for silence only is commendable

[ble.

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,
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,

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:
Then do but say to me what I should do,
That in your knowledge may by me be done,
And I am press'd unto it: therefore, speak.
Buss. In Belmont is a lady richly left,
And she is fair, and, fairer than that word,
Of wondrous virtues; sometimest 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, Colchus'
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.
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,
Try what my credit can in Venice do;
In a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not vendi-That shall be rack'd, even to the uttermost,
[Exeunt GRATIANO and LORENZO. To furnish thee to Belmont, to fair Portia.
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.

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?

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!
1s, to come fairly off from the great debts,
Wherein my time, something too prodigal,
Hath left me gaged: 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
And, if it stand, as you yourself still do, [it;
Within the eye of honour, be assur'd,
My purse, my person, my extremest means,

bstinate silence.

[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 set, 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 derise laws for the blood; but a hot temper leaps wer 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 bre. But what warmth is there in your affection towards any of these princely suitors that are already come?

Por. I pray thee, overname them; and as tou namest them, I will describe them: and, according to my description, level at my affec

Lon.

Ner. First, there is the Neapolitan prince. Per. Ay, that's a colt, indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of his horse; and he makes it a great appropriation to his good parts, that he (a 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, An if you will not have me, choose: hears merry tales, and smiles not: I fear, he will prove the weeping philosopher when be 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, Mon

sieur 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 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, I would forgive him; for if he love Le 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 be understands not me, nor I him: he hath neither Latin, French, nor Italian; and you Will come into the court and swear, that I have poor penny-worth in the English. He is a roper man's picture; But, alas! who can conVerse with a dumb show? How oddly he is cited! I think, he bought his doublet in Italy, s round hose in France, his bonnet in Gerny, and his behaviour every where. Ner. What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour?

Por. That he hath a neighbourly charity in bia; 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.

duke of Saxony's nephew? Ner. How like you the young German, the

sober; and most vilely in the afternoon, when Por. Very vilely in the morning, when he is he is drunk: when he is best, he is little worse than a man; and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast: an the worst fall that ever fell, I hope I shall make shift to go without him.

Ner. If he should offer to choose, and choose your father's will, if you should refuse to ac-' the right casket, you should refuse to perform! cept 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, eze Iwill be married to a sponge.

Ner. You need not fear, lady, the having any of these lords; they have acquainted me with their determination: which is indeed, to return to their home, and to trouble you with no more suit; unless you may be won by some other sort than your father's imposition, depending on the caskets.

will die as chaste as Diana, unless I be ab-
Por. If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I
tained by the manner of my father's will: I;
am glad this parcel of wooers are so reasona-
ble; for there is not one among them but I dote
them a fair departure.
on his very absence, and I pray God grant

father's time, a Venetian, a scholar, and a
Ner. Do you not remember, lady, in your
soldier, that came hither in company of the
marquis of Montferrat?

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

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

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

news?

Enter a SERVANT.

Serv. The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take their leave: and there is a forerunner 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 a 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, another knocks at the door. [Exeunt.

SCENE III-Venice.-A public 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.

Temper, qualities

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The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare: From the Text of Johnson ..., Band 2