The Merchant of Venice
revenge. He hath disgrac’d me and hind’red me half a million, laugh’d
at my losses, mock’d at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my
bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies. And what’s his
reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt
with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same
means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian
is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not
laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we
not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in
that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a
Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian
example? Why, revenge! The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it
shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
Enter a man from Antonio.
SERVANT.
Gentlemen, my master Antonio is at his house, and desires to speak with
you both.
SALARINO.
We have been up and down to seek him.
Enter Tubal.
SOLANIO.
Here comes another of the tribe; a third cannot be match’d, unless the
devil himself turn Jew.
[_Exeunt Solanio, Salarino and the Servant._]
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 Frankfort! 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 wrack.
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.
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._]
SCENE II. Belmont. A room in Portia’s house.
Enter Bassanio, Portia, Gratiano, Nerissa and all their trains.
PORTIA.
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’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
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 peise the time,
To eche 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.
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”
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 lock’d 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 swan-like end,
Fading in music. That the comparison
May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream
And wat’ry death-bed 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 bleared 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.
A song, whilst Bassanio comments on the caskets to himself.
_Tell me where is fancy bred,
Or in the heart or in the head?
How begot, how nourished?
Reply, reply.
It is engend’red 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.
So may the outward shows be least themselves.
The world is still deceiv’d with ornament.
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt
But, being season’d 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?
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 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 purchas’d by the weight,
Which therein works a miracle in nature,
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,
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
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 threaten’st than dost promise aught,
Thy palenness moves me more than eloquence,
And here choose I, joy be the consequence!
PORTIA.
[_Aside._] How all the other passions fleet to air,
As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embrac’d despair,
And shudd’ring fear, and green-ey’d jealousy.
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.
What find I here? [_Opening the leaden casket_.]
Fair Portia’s counterfeit! What demi-god
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
The painter plays the spider, and hath woven
A golden mesh t’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
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.
_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 pleas’d with this,
And hold your fortune for your bliss,
Turn to where your lady is,
And claim her with a loving kiss._
A gentle scroll. Fair lady, by your leave, [_Kissing her_.]
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 confirm’d, sign’d, 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 unlesson’d girl, unschool’d, unpractis’d;
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
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,
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!
NERISSA.
My lord and lady, it is now our time,