William Shakespeare - William Shakespeare The Complete Works (37 plays, 160 sonnets and 5 Poetry Books With Active Table of Contents)

Tub. Yes, other men have ill luck too. Antonio, as I heard in Genoa—

Shy. What, what, what? ill luck, ill luck?

Tub. Hath an argosy cast away, coming from Tripolis.

Shy. I thank God, I thank God. Is it true, is it true?

Tub. I spoke with some of the sailors that escap’d the wrack.

Shy. I thank thee, good Tubal, good news, good news! Ha, ha! [Heard] in Genoa?

Tub. Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, one night fourscore ducats.

Shy. Thou stick’st a dagger in me. I shall never see my gold again. Fourscore ducats at a sitting, fourscore ducats!

Tub. There came divers of Antonio’s creditors in my company to Venice that swear he cannot choose but break.

Shy. I am very glad of it. I’ll plague him, I’ll torture him. I am glad of it.

Tub. One of them show’d me a ring that he had of your daughter for a monkey.

Shy. Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal. It was my turkis, I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor. I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.

Tub. But Antonio is certainly undone.

Shy. 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.

¶

Enter Bassanio, Portia, Gratiano, [Nerissa,] and all their Trains.

Por.

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. Beshrow 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 peize the time,

To eche it, and to draw it out in length,

To stay you from election.

Bass.

Let me choose,

For as I am, I live upon the rack.

Por.

Upon the rack, Bassanio! then confess

What treason there is mingled with your love.

Bass.

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.

Por.

Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack,

Where men enforced do speak any thing.

Bass.

Promise me life, and I’ll confess the truth.

Por.

Well then, confess and live.

Bass.

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.

Por.

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.

[Here music.]

A song, the 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?

[All.]

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.

Bass.

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 valor’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 then, 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 paleness moves me more than eloquence,

And here choose I. Joy be the consequence!

Por. [Aside.]

How all the other passions fleet to air,

As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embrac’d despair,

And shudd’ring fear, and green-eyed 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.

Bass.

What find I here?

[Opening the leaden casket.]

Fair Portia’s counterfeit! What demigod

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