William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition (217 page)

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Authors: William Shakespeare

Tags: #Drama, #Literary Criticism, #Shakespeare

BOOK: William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
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Enter a Man from Antonio
 
MAN (
to Solanio and Salerio
) Gentlemen, my master Antonio is at his house and desires to speak with you both.
SALERIO We have been up and down to seek him.
Enter Tubal
 
SOLANIO Here comes another of the tribe. A third cannot be matched unless the devil himself turn Jew.
Exeunt Solanio and Salerio, with Antonio’s Man
 
SHYLOCK How now, Tubal? What news from Genoa? Hast thou found my daughter?
TUBAL I often came where I did hear of her, but cannot find her.
SHYLOCK Why, there, there, there, there. A diamond gone cost me two thousand ducats in Frankfurt. The curse never fell upon our nation till now—I never felt it till now. Two thousand ducats in that and other precious, precious jewels. I would my daughter were dead at my foot and the jewels in her ear! Would she were hearsed at my foot and the ducats in her coffin! No news of them? Why, so. And I know not what’s spent in the search. Why thou, loss upon loss: the thief gone with so much, and so much to find the thief, and no satisfaction, no revenge, nor no ill luck stirring but what lights o’ my shoulders, no sighs but o’ my breathing, no tears but o’ my shedding.
TUBAL Yes, other men have ill luck too. Antonio, as I heard in Genoa—
SHYLOCK What, what, what? Ill luck, ill luck?
TUBAL Hath an argosy cast away coming from Tripolis.
SHYLOCK I thank God, I thank God! Is it true, is it true?
TUBAL I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wreck.
SHYLOCK I thank thee, good Tubal. Good news, good news! Ha, ha—heard in Genoa?
TUBAL Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, one night fourscore ducats.
SHYLOCK Thou stick’st a dagger in me. I shall never see my gold again. Fourscore ducats at a sitting? Fourscore ducats?
TUBAL There came divers of Antonio’s creditors in my company to Venice that swear he cannot choose but break.
SHYLOCK I am very glad of it. I’ll plague him, I’ll torture him. I am glad of it. 109
TUBAL One of them showed me a ring that he had of your daughter for a monkey.
SHYLOCK Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal. It was my turquoise. I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor. I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.
TUBAL, But Antonio is certainly undone.
SHYLOCK Nay, that’s true, that’s very true. Go, Tubal, fee me an officer. Bespeak him a fortnight before. I will have the heart of him if he forfeit, for were he out of Venice I can make what merchandise I will. Go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue. Go, good Tubal; at our synagogue, Tubal.
Exeunt severally
3.2
Enter Bassanio, Portia, Nerissa, Graziano, and all their trains
. ⌈
The curtains are drawn aside revealing the three caskets
⌉
 
PORTIA (
to Bassanio
)
I pray you tarry. Pause a day or two
Before you hazard, for in choosing wrong
I lose your company. Therefore forbear a while.
There’s something tells me—but it is not love—
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
Before you venture for me. I could teach you
How to choose right, but then I am 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,
They have o‘erlooked me and divided me. 15
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
Puts bars between the owners and their rights;
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 piece the time,
To eke it, and to draw it out in length
To stay you from election.
BASSANIO Let me choose,
For as I am, I live upon the rack. 25
PORTIA
Upon the rack, Bassanio? Then confess
What treason there is mingled with your love.
BASSANIO
None but that ugly treason of mistrust
Which makes me fear th‘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.
BASSANIO
Promise me life and I’ll confess the truth.
PORTIA
Well then, confess and live.
BASSANIO ’Confess and love’ 35
Had been the very sum of my confession.
O happy torment, when my torturer
Doth teach me answers for deliverance!
But let me to my fortune and the caskets.
PORTIA
Away then. I am locked in one of them.
If you do love me, you will find me out.
Nerissa and the rest, stand all aloof.
Let music sound while he doth make his choice.
Then if he lose he makes a swanlike end,
Fading in music. That the comparison
May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream
And wat‘ry deathbed for him. He may win,
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
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.
The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives,
With blearèd visages come forth to view
The issue of th’exploit. Go, Hercules.
Live thou, I live. With much much more dismay
I view the fight than thou that mak’st the fray.
⌈
Here music.
⌉
A song the whilst Bassanio comments on the caskets to himself
 
⌈ONE FROM PORTIA’S TRAIN⌉
Tell me where is fancy bred,
Or in the heart, or in the head?
How begot, how nourished?
 
⌈ALL⌉ Reply, reply.
⌈ONE FROM PORTIA’S TRAIN⌉
It is engendered in the eyes,
With gazing fed; and fancy dies
In the cradle where it lies.
Let us all ring fancy’s knell.
I’ll begin it: ding, dong, bell.
 
ALL Ding, dong, bell.
BASSANIO (
aside
)
So may the outward shows be least themselves.
The world is still deceived with ornament.
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt
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? 80
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,
Who, inward searched, 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, 90
Making them lightest that wear most of it.
So are those crisped, snaky, golden locks
Which makes such wanton gambols with the wind
Upon supposed fairness, often known
To be the dowry of a second head,
The skull that bred them in the sepulchre.
Thus ornament is but the guilèd shore
To a most dangerous sea, the beauteous scarf
Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,
The seeming truth which cunning times put on
To entrap the wisest. (Aloud) Therefore, thou gaudy
gold,
Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee.
(To the silver casket) Nor none of thee, thou pale and
common drudge
Tween man and man. But thou, thou meagre lead,
Which rather threaten’st than dost promise aught,
Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence, 106
And here choose I. Joy be the consequence!
PORTIA (
aside
)
How all the other passions fleet to air,
As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embraced despair,
And shudd’ring fear, and green-eyed jealousy. 110
O love, be moderate! Allay thy ecstasy.
In measure rain thy joy; scant this excess.
I feel too much thy blessing: make it less,
For fear I surfeit.
Bassanio
opens the leaden casket
 
BASSANIO What find I here?
Fair Portia’s counterfeit. What demi-god 115
Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes?
Or whether, riding on the balls of mine,
Seem they in motion? Here are severed lips
Parted with sugar breath. So sweet a bar
Should sunder such sweet friends. Here in her hairs
The painter plays the spider, and hath woven
A golden mesh t’untrap 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
And leave itself unfurnished. 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.
‘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,
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,
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 those peals of praise be his or no.
So, thrice-fair lady, stand I even so,
As doubtful whether what I see be true
Until confirmed, signed, ratified by you.
PORTIA
You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,
Such as I am. Though for myself alone
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
I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends,
Exceed account. But the full sum of me
Is sum of something which, to term in gross,
Is an unlessoned girl, unschooled, unpractised,
Happy in this, she is not yet so old
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.
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 170
Are yours, my lord’s. 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.
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, 180
Where every something being blent together
Turns to a wild of nothing save of joy,
Expressed and not expressed. But when this ring
Parts from this finger, then parts life from hence.
O, then be bold to say Bassanio’s dead.
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 ladyl’

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