In a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not vendi[Exeunt GRATIA. and LOREN

ble.

Ant. Is that any thing now?

Bass. Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of noth ing, 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 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,
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,
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,
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,
Lie all unlock'd to your occasions.

Bass. In my school-days, when I had lost one
shaft,

I shot his fellow of the selfsame flight

The selfsame way with more advised watch,

To find the other forth; and by adventuring both,

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

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,

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,
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
I did receive fair speechless messages:
Her name is Portia; nothing undervalued
To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia.

Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth;
For the four winds blow in from every coast
Renowned suitors: and her sunny locks

Prest is prompt, ready, from an old French word. Thus, un The Faerie Queene, B. iv. Can. 8, stan. 41:

"Who as he gan the same to him aread,

Loe! hard behind his backe his foe was prest,
With dreadful weapon aymed at his head."

And again, B. vi. Can. 7, stan. 19:

"The whyles his salvage Page, that wont be prest,
Was wandred in the wood another way,

To doe some thing, that seemed to him best."

H

Hang on her temples like a golden fleece;
Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strand,
And many Jasons come in quest of her.
O, my Antonio! had I but the means
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 know'st that all my fortunes are at

sea;

Neither have I money, nor commodity

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,
Where money is; and I no question make,
To have it of my trust, or for my sake.

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 small happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean: superfluity comes sooner by white hairs,' but competency lives longer.

Por. Good sentences, and well pronounc'd.

That is, superfluity sooner acquires white hairs; becomes old We still say, how did he come by it?

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 o'er 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 whom 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.

2

Ner. First, there is the Neapolitan prince.
Por. Ay, that's a colt,3 indeed, for he doth noth-

The Neapolitans, in the time of Shakespeare, were eminently skilled in all that belongs to horsemanship.

3 Colt is used for a witless, heady, gay youngster; whence the phrase used for an old man too juvenile, that he still retains his colt's tooth.

ing but talk of his horse; and he makes it a great appropriation to his own good parts, that he can shoe him himself: I am much afraid, my lady his mother play'd false with a smith.

4

Ner. Then, is there the county Palatine.

Por. He doth nothing but frown; as who should say, "An if you will not have me, choose." He hears merry tales, and smiles not: I fear he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old, being so full of unmannerly sadness in his youth I had rather be married to a death's head with a bone in his mouth, than to either of these. God defend me from these two!

Ner. How say you by the French lord, Monsieur

le Bon?

Por. God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker: But he! why, he hath a horse better than the Neapolitan's; a better bad habit of frowning than the count Palatine: he is every man in no man: if a throstle sing, he falls straight a-capering; he will fence with his own shadow: If I should marry him, I should marry twenty husbands. If he would despise me, I would forgive him; for if he love me to madness, I shall never requite him.

Ner. What say you then to Faulconbridge, the young baron of England?

Por. You know I say nothing to him; for he understands not me, nor I him: he hath nejther Latin, French, nor Italian; and you will come into

5

4 This may be an allusion to the Count Albertus Alasco a Polish Palatine, who was in London in 1583.

"A satire on the ignorance of young English travellers in Shakespeare's time." So says Warburton: whereupon Knight justly remarks that "authors are not much in the habit of satirizing themselves; and yet, according to Farmer and his school Shakespeare knew neither Latin, French nor Italian.'"

t.