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Venice. A Street. | |
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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, | 5 |
| 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; | 10 |
| There, where your argosies with portly sail,— | |
| Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood, | |
| Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea,— | |
| Do overpeer the petty traffickers, | |
| That curtsy to them, do them reverence, | 15 |
| As they fly by them with their woven wings. | |
| Salan. Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth, | |
| The better part of my affections would | |
| Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still | |
| Plucking the grass to know where sits the wind; | 20 |
| Peering in maps for ports, and piers, and roads; | |
| 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, | 25 |
| 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 I should think of shallows and of flats, | |
| And see my wealthy Andrew dock’d in sand | 30 |
| Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs | |
| To kiss her burial. Should I go to church | |
| And see the holy edifice of stone, | |
| And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks, | |
| Which touching but my gentle vessel’s side | 35 |
| 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 | 40 |
| That such a thing bechanc’d would make me sad? | |
| But tell not me: I know Antonio | |
| Is sad to think upon his merchandise. | |
| Ant. Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for it, | |
| My ventures are not in one bottom trusted, | 45 |
| Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate | |
| Upon the fortune of this present year: | |
| Therefore, my merchandise makes me not sad. | |
| Salar. Why, then you are in love. | |
| Ant. Fie, fie! | 50 |
| Salar. Not in love neither? Then let’s say you are sad, | |
| Because you are not merry: and ’twere as easy | |
| For you to laugh and leap, and say you are merry, | |
| Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus, | |
| Nature hath fram’d strange fellows in her time: | 55 |
| Some that will evermore peep through their eyes | |
| And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper, | |
| And other of such vinegar aspect | |
| That they’ll not show their teeth in way of smile, | |
| Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable. | 60 |
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Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO. | |
| Salan. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman, | |
| Gratiano, and Lorenzo. Fare ye well: | |
| We leave you now with better company. | |
| Salar. I would have stay’d till I had made you merry, | 65 |
| 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. | 70 |
| 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 too will leave you; but, at dinner-time, | 75 |
| 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: | 80 |
| Believe me, you are marvellously chang’d. | |
| Ant. I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; | |
| A stage where every man must play a part, | |
| And mine a sad one. | |
| Gra. Let me play the fool: | 85 |
| 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? | 90 |
| Sleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice | |
| By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio— | |
| 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, | 95 |
| 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!’ | 100 |
| O, my Antonio, I do know of these, | |
| That therefore only are reputed wise | |
| For saying nothing; when, I am very sure, | |
| If they should speak, would almost damn those ears | |
| Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools. | 105 |
| I’ll tell thee more of this another time: | |
| But fish not, with this melancholy bait, | |
| For this fool-gudgeon, this opinion. | |
| Come, good Lorenzo. Fare ye well a while: | |
| I’ll end my exhortation after dinner. | 110 |
| 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 moe, | |
| Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue. | 115 |
| 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 GRATIANO and LORENZO. | |
| Ant. Is that anything now? | |
| Bass. Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of 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. | 120 |
| Ant. Well, tell me now, what lady is the 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, | 125 |
| 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 | |
| Is, to come fairly off from the great debts | 130 |
| 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 unburthen all my plots and purposes | 135 |
| 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, | 140 |
| 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 adventuring both, | 145 |
| 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 | 150 |
| 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 | 155 |
| 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 | 160 |
| 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 | 165 |
| I did receive fair speechless messages: | |
| Her name is Portia; nothing undervalu’d | |
| To Cato’s daughter, Brutus’ Portia: | |
| Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth, | |
| For the four winds blow in from every coast | 170 |
| Renowned suitors; and her sunny locks | |
| Hang on her temples like a golden fleece; | |
| Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos’ Strond, | |
| And many Jasons come in quest of her. | |
| O my Antonio! had I but the means | 175 |
| 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 knowest that all my fortunes are at sea; | |
| Neither have I money, nor commodity | 180 |
| To raise a present sum: therefore go forth; | |
| Try what my credit can in Venice do: | |
| That shall be rack’d, even to the uttermost, | |
| To furnish thee to Belmont, to fair Portia. | |
| Go, presently inquire, and so will I, | 185 |
| Where money is, and I no question make | |
| To have it of my trust or for my sake. [Exeunt. | |
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