I should not see the sandy hour-glass run, To kiss her burial. Should I go to church, And see the holy edifice of stone, And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks? And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought Is sad to think upon his merchandize. Ant. Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for it, Ant. Fye, fye! Salun. 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 : 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. Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO. Salan. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman, Gratiano, and Lorenzo: Fare you well; We leave you now with better company. Salar. I would have staid till I had made you merry, If worthier friends had not prevented me. Ant. Your worth is very dear in my regard. Ander-The name of the ship. JOHNSON. This gives a very picturesque image of the countenance in laughing when the eyes are all shut. WARBURTON. [5] Because such are apt enough to show their teeth in anger. WARBURTON. I take it, your own business calls on you, Bass. Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? Say, You grow exceeding strange : Must it be so? Salar. We'll make our leisures to attend on yours. [Exe. 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; Ant. I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; Gra. Let me play the fool :" With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come; Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the jaundice I love thee, and it is my love that speaks ;- If they should speak, would almost damn those ears, [6] Alluding to the common comparison of human life to a stage-play. So that he desires his may be the fool's or buioon's part, which was a constant character in the old forces; from whence came the phrase, to play the fool. WARBURTON. I'll tell thee more of this another time: But fish not, with this melancholy bait, Come, good Lorenzo :-Fare ye well, a while; Lor. Well, we will leave you then till dinner time : Gra. Well, keep me company but two years more, Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue. 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 GRA. and LOREN. Ant. Is that any thing 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. Ant. Well; tell me now, what lady is this same Bass. 'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio, 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, [7] The humour of this consists in its being an allusion to the practice of the puritan preachers of those times; who being generally long and tedious, were often forced to put off that part of their sermon called the cxhortation, till after dinner. WARBURTON. 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, 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 : Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth; Which makes her seat of Belmont, Colchos' strand, 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 ; To furnish thee to Belmont, to fair Portia. Where money is; and I no question make, SCENE II. [Exeunt. 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 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, 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 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 :-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 love. But what warmth is there in your affection towards any of these princely suitors that are already come? Por. I pray thee, 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. |