| ACT IIISCENE II | Belmont. A room in PORTIA'S house. | |
| | Enter BASSANIO, PORTIA, GRATIANO, NERISSA, andAttendants | |
| PORTIA | I pray you, tarry: pause a day or two | |
| | Before you hazard; for, in choosing wrong, | |
| | I lose your company: therefore forbear awhile. | |
| | There's something tells me, but it is not love, | 5 |
| | I would not lose you; and you know yourself, | |
| | Hate counsels not in such a quality. | |
| | But lest you should not understand me well,-- | |
| | And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought,-- | |
| | I would detain you here some month or two | 10 |
| | Before you venture for me. I could teach you | |
| | How to choose right, but I am then forsworn; | |
| | So will I never be: so may you miss me; | |
| | But if you do, you'll make me wish a sin, | |
| | That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes, | 15 |
| | They have o'erlook'd me and divided me; | |
| | One half of me is yours, the other half yours, | |
| | Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours, | |
| | And so all yours. O, these naughty times | |
| | Put bars between the owners and their rights! | 20 |
| | And so, though yours, not yours. Prove it so, | |
| | Let fortune go to hell for it, not I. | |
| | I speak too long; but 'tis to peize the time, | |
| | To eke it and to draw it out in length, | |
| | To stay you from election. | 25 |
| BASSANIO | Let me choose | |
| | For as I am, I live upon the rack. | |
| PORTIA | Upon the rack, Bassanio! then confess | |
| | What treason there is mingled with your love. | |
| BASSANIO | None but that ugly treason of mistrust, | 30 |
| | Which makes me fear the enjoying of my love: | |
| | There may as well be amity and life | |
| | 'Tween snow and fire, as treason and my love. | |
| PORTIA | Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack, | |
| | Where men enforced do speak anything. | 35 |
| BASSANIO | Promise me life, and I'll confess the truth. | |
| PORTIA | Well then, confess and live. | |
| BASSANIO | 'Confess' and 'love' | |
| | Had been the very sum of my confession: | |
| | O happy torment, when my torturer | 40 |
| | Doth teach me answers for deliverance! | |
| | But let me to my fortune and the caskets. | |
| PORTIA | Away, then! I am lock'd in one of them: | |
| | If you do love me, you will find me out. | |
| | Nerissa and the rest, stand all aloof. | 45 |
| | Let music sound while he doth make his choice; | |
| | Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end, | |
| | Fading in music: that the comparison | |
| | May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream | |
| | And watery death-bed for him. He may win; | 50 |
| | And what is music then? Then music is | |
| | Even as the flourish when true subjects bow | |
| | To a new-crowned monarch: such it is | |
| | As are those dulcet sounds in break of day | |
| | That creep into the dreaming bridegroom's ear, | 55 |
| | And summon him to marriage. Now he goes, | |
| | With no less presence, but with much more love, | |
| | Than young Alcides, when he did redeem | |
| | The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy | |
| | To the sea-monster: I stand for sacrifice | 60 |
| | The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives, | |
| | With bleared visages, come forth to view | |
| | The issue of the exploit. Go, Hercules! | |
| | Live thou, I live: with much, much more dismay | |
| | I view the fight than thou that makest the fray. | 65 |
| | Music, whilst BASSANIO comments on the caskets to himself | |
| | | |
| | SONG. | |
| | Tell me where is fancy bred, | |
| | Or in the heart, or in the head? | |
| | How begot, how nourished? | 70 |
| | Reply, reply. | |
| | It is engender'd in the eyes, | |
| | With gazing fed; and fancy dies | |
| | In the cradle where it lies. | |
| | Let us all ring fancy's knell | 75 |
| | I'll begin it,--Ding, dong, bell. | |
| ALL | Ding, dong, bell. | |
| BASSANIO | So may the outward shows be least themselves: | |
| | The world is still deceived with ornament. | |
| | In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt, | 80 |
| | But, being seasoned with a gracious voice, | |
| | Obscures the show of evil? In religion, | |
| | What damned error, but some sober brow | |
| | Will bless it and approve it with a text, | |
| | Hiding the grossness with fair ornament? | 85 |
| | There is no vice so simple but assumes | |
| | Some mark of virtue on his outward parts: | |
| | How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false | |
| | As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins | |
| | The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars; | 90 |
| | Who, inward search'd, have livers white as milk; | |
| | And these assume but valour's excrement | |
| | To render them redoubted! Look on beauty, | |
| | And you shall see 'tis purchased by the weight; | |
| | Which therein works a miracle in nature, | 95 |
| | Making them lightest that wear most of it: | |
| | So are those crisped snaky golden locks | |
| | Which make such wanton gambols with the wind, | |
| | Upon supposed fairness, often known | |
| | To be the dowry of a second head, | 100 |
| | The skull that bred them in the sepulchre. | |
| | Thus ornament is but the guiled shore | |
| | To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf | |
| | Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word, | |
| | The seeming truth which cunning times put on | 105 |
| | To entrap the wisest. Therefore, thou gaudy gold, | |
| | Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee; | |
| | Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge | |
| | 'Tween man and man: but thou, thou meagre lead, | |
| | Which rather threatenest than dost promise aught, | 110 |
| | Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence; | |
| | And here choose I; joy be the consequence! | |
| PORTIA | Aside | |
| | As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embraced despair, | |
| | And shuddering fear, and green-eyed jealousy! O love, | |
| | Be moderate; allay thy ecstasy, | 115 |
| | In measure rein thy joy; scant this excess. | |
| | I feel too much thy blessing: make it less, | |
| | For fear I surfeit. | |
| BASSANIO | What find I here? | |
| | Opening the leaden casket | |
| | Fair Portia's counterfeit! What demi-god | 120 |
| | Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes? | |
| | Or whether, riding on the balls of mine, | |
| | Seem they in motion? Here are sever'd lips, | |
| | Parted with sugar breath: so sweet a bar | |
| | Should sunder such sweet friends. Here in her hairs | 125 |
| | The painter plays the spider and hath woven | |
| | A golden mesh to entrap the hearts of men, | |
| | Faster than gnats in cobwebs; but her eyes,-- | |
| | How could he see to do them? having made one, | |
| | Methinks it should have power to steal both his | 130 |
| | And leave itself unfurnish'd. Yet look, how far | |
| | The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow | |
| | In underprizing it, so far this shadow | |
| | Doth limp behind the substance. Here's the scroll, | |
| | The continent and summary of my fortune. | 135 |
| | Reads | |
| | You that choose not by the view, | |
| | Chance as fair and choose as true! | |
| | Since this fortune falls to you, | |
| | Be content and seek no new, | |
| | If you be well pleased with this | 140 |
| | And hold your fortune for your bliss, | |
| | Turn you where your lady is | |
| | And claim her with a loving kiss. | |
| | A gentle scroll. Fair lady, by your leave; | |
| | I come by note, to give and to receive. | 145 |
| | Like one of two contending in a prize, | |
| | That thinks he hath done well in people's eyes, | |
| | Hearing applause and universal shout, | |
| | Giddy in spirit, still gazing in a doubt | |
| | Whether these pearls of praise be his or no; | 150 |
| | So, thrice fair lady, stand I, even so; | |
| | As doubtful whether what I see be true, | |
| | Until confirm'd, sign'd, ratified by you. | |
| PORTIA | You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand, | |
| | Such as I am: though for myself alone | 155 |
| | I would not be ambitious in my wish, | |
| | To wish myself much better; yet, for you | |
| | I would be trebled twenty times myself; | |
| | A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich; | |
| | That only to stand high in your account, | 160 |
| | I might in virtue, beauties, livings, friends, | |
| | Exceed account; but the full sum of me | |
| | Is sum of something, which, to term in gross, | |
| | Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractised; | |
| | Happy in this, she is not yet so old | 165 |
| | But she may learn; happier than this, | |
| | She is not bred so dull but she can learn; | |
| | Happiest of all is that her gentle spirit | |
| | Commits itself to yours to be directed, | |
| | As from her lord, her governor, her king. | 170 |
| | Myself and what is mine to you and yours | |
| | Is now converted: but now I was the lord | |
| | Of this fair mansion, master of my servants, | |
| | Queen o'er myself: and even now, but now, | |
| | This house, these servants and this same myself | 175 |
| | Are yours, my lord: I give them with this ring; | |
| | Which when you part from, lose, or give away, | |
| | Let it presage the ruin of your love | |
| | And be my vantage to exclaim on you. | |
| BASSANIO | Madam, you have bereft me of all words, | 180 |
| | Only my blood speaks to you in my veins; | |
| | And there is such confusion in my powers, | |
| | As after some oration fairly spoke | |
| | By a beloved prince, there doth appear | |
| | Among the buzzing pleased multitude; | 185 |
| | Where every something, being blent together, | |
| | Turns to a wild of nothing, save of joy, | |
| | Express'd and not express'd. But when this ring | |
| | Parts from this finger, then parts life from hence: | |
| | O, then be bold to say Bassanio's dead! | 190 |
| NERISSA | My lord and lady, it is now our time, | |
| | That have stood by and seen our wishes prosper, | |
| | To cry, good joy: good joy, my lord and lady! | |
| GRATIANO | My lord Bassanio and my gentle lady, | |
| | I wish you all the joy that you can wish; | 195 |
| | For I am sure you can wish none from me: | |
| | And when your honours mean to solemnize | |
| | The bargain of your faith, I do beseech you, | |
| | Even at that time I may be married too. | |
| BASSANIO | With all my heart, so thou canst get a wife. | 200 |
| GRATIANO | I thank your lordship, you have got me one. | |
| | My eyes, my lord, can look as swift as yours: | |
| | You saw the mistress, I beheld the maid; | |
| | You loved, I loved for intermission. | |
| | No more pertains to me, my lord, than you. | 205 |
| | Your fortune stood upon the casket there, | |
| | And so did mine too, as the matter falls; | |
| | For wooing here until I sweat again, | |
| | And sweating until my very roof was dry | |
| | With oaths of love, at last, if promise last, | 210 |
| | I got a promise of this fair one here | |
| | To have her love, provided that your fortune | |
| | Achieved her mistress. | |
| PORTIA | Is this true, Nerissa? | |
| NERISSA | Madam, it is, so you stand pleased withal. | 215 |
| BASSANIO | And do you, Gratiano, mean good faith? | |
| GRATIANO | Yes, faith, my lord. | |
| BASSANIO | Our feast shall be much honour'd in your marriage. | |
| GRATIANO | We'll play with them the first boy for a thousand ducats. | |
| NERISSA | What, and stake down? | 220 |
| GRATIANO | No; we shall ne'er win at that sport, and stake down. | |
| | But who comes here? Lorenzo and his infidel? What, | |
| | and my old Venetian friend Salerio? | |
| | Enter LORENZO, JESSICA, and SALERIO, a Messengerfrom Venice | |
| BASSANIO | Lorenzo and Salerio, welcome hither; | |
| | If that the youth of my new interest here | 225 |
| | Have power to bid you welcome. By your leave, | |
| | I bid my very friends and countrymen, | |
| | Sweet Portia, welcome. | |
| PORTIA | So do I, my lord: | |
| | They are entirely welcome. | 230 |
| LORENZO | I thank your honour. For my part, my lord, | |
| | My purpose was not to have seen you here; | |
| | But meeting with Salerio by the way, | |
| | He did entreat me, past all saying nay, | |
| | To come with him along. | 235 |
| SALERIO | I did, my lord; | |
| | And I have reason for it. Signior Antonio | |
| | Commends him to you. | |
| | Gives Bassanio a letter | |
| BASSANIO | Ere I ope his letter, | |
| | I pray you, tell me how my good friend doth. | 240 |
| SALERIO | Not sick, my lord, unless it be in mind; | |
| | Nor well, unless in mind: his letter there | |
| | Will show you his estate. | |
| GRATIANO | Nerissa, cheer yon stranger; bid her welcome. | |
| | Your hand, Salerio: what's the news from Venice? | 245 |
| | How doth that royal merchant, good Antonio? | |
| | I know he will be glad of our success; | |
| | We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece. | |
| SALERIO | I would you had won the fleece that he hath lost. | |
| PORTIA | There are some shrewd contents in yon same paper, | 250 |
| | That steals the colour from Bassanio's cheek: | |
| | Some dear friend dead; else nothing in the world | |
| | Could turn so much the constitution | |
| | Of any constant man. What, worse and worse! | |
| | With leave, Bassanio: I am half yourself, | 255 |
| | And I must freely have the half of anything | |
| | That this same paper brings you. | |
| BASSANIO | O sweet Portia, | |
| | Here are a few of the unpleasant'st words | |
| | That ever blotted paper! Gentle lady, | 260 |
| | When I did first impart my love to you, | |
| | I freely told you, all the wealth I had | |
| | Ran in my veins, I was a gentleman; | |
| | And then I told you true: and yet, dear lady, | |
| | Rating myself at nothing, you shall see | 265 |
| | How much I was a braggart. When I told you | |
| | My state was nothing, I should then have told you | |
| | That I was worse than nothing; for, indeed, | |
| | I have engaged myself to a dear friend, | |
| | Engaged my friend to his mere enemy, | 270 |
| | To feed my means. Here is a letter, lady; | |
| | The paper as the body of my friend, | |
| | And every word in it a gaping wound, | |
| | Issuing life-blood. But is it true, Salerio? | |
| | Have all his ventures fail'd? What, not one hit? | 275 |
| | From Tripolis, from Mexico and England, | |
| | From Lisbon, Barbary and India? | |
| | And not one vessel 'scape the dreadful touch | |
| | Of merchant-marring rocks? | |
| SALERIO | Not one, my lord. | 280 |
| | Besides, it should appear, that if he had | |
| | The present money to discharge the Jew, | |
| | He would not take it. Never did I know | |
| | A creature, that did bear the shape of man, | |
| | So keen and greedy to confound a man: | 285 |
| | He plies the duke at morning and at night, | |
| | And doth impeach the freedom of the state, | |
| | If they deny him justice: twenty merchants, | |
| | The duke himself, and the magnificoes | |
| | Of greatest port, have all persuaded with him; | 290 |
| | But none can drive him from the envious plea | |
| | Of forfeiture, of justice and his bond. | |
| JESSICA | When I was with him I have heard him swear | |
| | To Tubal and to Chus, his countrymen, | |
| | That he would rather have Antonio's flesh | 295 |
| | Than twenty times the value of the sum | |
| | That he did owe him: and I know, my lord, | |
| | If law, authority and power deny not, | |
| | It will go hard with poor Antonio. | |
| PORTIA | Is it your dear friend that is thus in trouble? | 300 |
| BASSANIO | The dearest friend to me, the kindest man, | |
| | The best-condition'd and unwearied spirit | |
| | In doing courtesies, and one in whom | |
| | The ancient Roman honour more appears | |
| | Than any that draws breath in Italy. | 305 |
| PORTIA | What sum owes he the Jew? | |
| BASSANIO | For me three thousand ducats. | |
| PORTIA | What, no more? | |
| | Pay him six thousand, and deface the bond; | |
| | Double six thousand, and then treble that, | 310 |
| | Before a friend of this description | |
| | Shall lose a hair through Bassanio's fault. | |
| | First go with me to church and call me wife, | |
| | And then away to Venice to your friend; | |
| | For never shall you lie by Portia's side | 315 |
| | With an unquiet soul. You shall have gold | |
| | To pay the petty debt twenty times over: | |
| | When it is paid, bring your true friend along. | |
| | My maid Nerissa and myself meantime | |
| | Will live as maids and widows. Come, away! | 320 |
| | For you shall hence upon your wedding-day: | |
| | Bid your friends welcome, show a merry cheer: | |
| | Since you are dear bought, I will love you dear. | |
| | But let me hear the letter of your friend. | |
| BASSANIO | Reads | |
| | miscarried, my creditors grow cruel, my estate is | 325 |
| | very low, my bond to the Jew is forfeit; and since | |
| | in paying it, it is impossible I should live, all | |
| | debts are cleared between you and I, if I might but | |
| | see you at my death. Notwithstanding, use your | |
| | pleasure: if your love do not persuade you to come, | 330 |
| | let not my letter. | |
| PORTIA | O love, dispatch all business, and be gone! | |
| BASSANIO | Since I have your good leave to go away, | |
| | I will make haste: but, till I come again, | |
| | No bed shall e'er be guilty of my stay, | 335 |
| | No rest be interposer 'twixt us twain. | |
| | Exeunt | |
