That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile, Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO. Salan. Here comes kinsman, Bassanio, your most noble Gratiano, and Lorenzo. Fare you well ; If worthier friends had not prevented me. Bass. Good seigniors both, when shall we laugh! You grow exceeding strange. Must it be so? We two will leave you; but, at dinner-time, Gra. You look not well, seignior Antonio. 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. Sleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice 1 By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio,— Do cream and mantle, like a standing pond; But fish not, with this melancholy bait, Come, good Lorenzo.-Fare ye well, awhile; Lor. Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time. Gra. Well, keep me company but two years more, In a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not vendible. Ant. Is that any thing now? 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, Ant. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it; 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, Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt, 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, eyes Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth; 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, [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. |