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

kinsman,

Bassanio, your most noble

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.
I take it, your own business calls on you,
And you embrace the occasion to depart.
Salar. Good morrow, my good lords.

Bass. Good seigniors 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 SALAR. and SALAN.
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, seignior Antonio.
You have too much respect upon the world.
They lose it, that do buy it with much care.
Believe me, you are marvellously changed.

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.
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?

Sleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice

1

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;
And do a wilful stillness entertain,
With purpose to be dressed in an opinion
Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit;
As who should say, am sir Oracle,
And, when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!
O, my Antonio, I do know of these,
That therefore only are reputed wise,
For saying nothing; who, I am very sure,
If they should speak, would almost damn those ears,
Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools.
I'll tell thee more of this another time;

But fish not, with this melancholy bait,
For this fool's gudgeon, this opinion.-

Come, good Lorenzo.-Fare ye well, awhile;
I'll end my exhortation after dinner.

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 more,
Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue.
Ant. Farewell. I'll grow a talker for this gear.1
Gra. Thanks, i'faith; for silence is only com-
mendable

In a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not vendible.
[Exeunt GRA. and LOR.

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

1 Gear usually signifies matter, subject, or business in general. It is here, perhaps, a colloquial expression of no very determined import. It occurs again in this play, Act ii. Sc. 2: "If Fortune be a woman, she's a good wench for this gear."

To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,
That you to-day promised 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 abridged
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 gaged. To you, Antonio,
I owe the most in money, and in love;
And from your love I have a warranty
To unburden 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 honor, be assured,

My purse, my person, my extremest means,

Lie all unlocked 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,
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 prest1 unto it; therefore, speak.
Bass. In Belmont is a lady richly left,
And she is fair, and fairer than that word,
Of wondrous virtues. Sometimes2 from her
I did receive fair speechless messages.
Her name is Portia ; nothing undervalued
To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia.

eyes

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

[Exeunt.

SCENE II. Belmont. A Room in Portia's House.

Enter PORTIA and NERISSA.

Por. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world.

Ner. You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same abundance as your good fortunes are ;

1 Prest, that is, ready; from the old French word of the same orthography, now pret.

2 Formerly.

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 degree; 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 curbed 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.

Por. Ay, that's a colt, indeed, for he doth nothing 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 played false with a smith.