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

“Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.”

And well said too; for who shall go about

To cozen fortune, and be honorable

Without the stamp of merit? Let none presume

To wear an undeserved dignity.

O that estates, degrees, and offices

Were not deriv’d corruptly, and that clear honor

Were purchas’d by the merit of the wearer!

How many then should cover that stand bare?

How many be commanded that command?

How much low peasantry would then be gleaned

From the true seed of honor? and how much honor

Pick’d from the chaff and ruin of the times

To be new varnish’d? Well, but to my choice:

“Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.”

I will assume desert. Give me a key for this,

And instantly unlock my fortunes here.

[He unlocks the silver casket.]

Por.

Too long a pause for that which you find there.

Ar.

What’s here? the portrait of a blinking idiot,

Presenting me a schedule! I will read it.

How much unlike art thou to Portia!

How much unlike my hopes and my deservings!

“Who chooseth me shall have as much as he deserves”!

Did I deserve no more than a fool’s head?

Is that my prize? Are my deserts no better?

Por.

To offend and judge are distinct offices,

And of opposed natures.

Ar.

What is here?

[Reads.]

“The fire seven times tried this:

Seven times tried that judgment is,

That did never choose amiss.

Some there be that shadows kiss,

Such have but a shadow’s bliss.

There be fools alive, iwis,

Silver’d o’er, and so was this.

Take what wife you will to bed,

I will ever be your head.

So be gone, you are sped.”

Still more fool I shall appear

By the time I linger here.

With one fool’s head I came to woo,

But I go away with two.

Sweet, adieu. I’ll keep my oath,

Patiently to bear my wroth.

[Exit with his Train.]

Por.

Thus hath the candle sing’d the moth.

O, these deliberate fools, when they do choose,

They have the wisdom by their wit to lose.

Ner.

The ancient saying is no heresy,

Hanging and wiving goes by destiny.

Por.

Come draw the curtain, Nerissa.

Enter Messenger.

Mess.

Where is my lady?

Por.

Here; what would my lord?

Mess.

Madam, there is alighted at your gate

A young Venetian, one that comes before

To signify th’ approaching of his lord,

From whom he bringeth sensible regreets:

To wit (besides commends and courteous breath),

Gifts of rich value. Yet I have not seen

So likely an embassador of love.

A day in April never came so sweet,

To show how costly summer was at hand,

As this fore-spurrer comes before his lord.

Por.

No more, I pray thee. I am half afeard

Thou wilt say anon he is some kin to thee,

Thou spend’st such high-day wit in praising him.

Come, come, Nerissa, for I long to see

Quick Cupid’s post that comes so mannerly.

Ner.

Bassanio, Lord Love, if thy will it be!

Exeunt.

¶

[Enter] Solanio and Salerio.

Sol. Now what news on the Rialto?

Sal. Why, yet it lives there uncheck’d that Antonio hath a ship of rich lading wrack’d on the Narrow Seas; the Goodwins I think they call the place, a very dangerous flat, and fatal, where the carcasses of many a tall ship lie buried, as they say, if my gossip Report be an honest woman of her word.

Sol. I would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever knapp’d ginger or made her neighbors believe she wept for the death of a third husband. But it is true, without any slips of prolixity, or crossing the plain highway of talk, that the good Antonio, the honest Antonio—O that I had a title good enough to keep his name company!—

Sal. Come, the full stop.

Sol. Ha, what sayest thou? Why, the end is, he hath lost a ship.

Sal. I would it might prove the end of his losses.

Sol. Let me say amen betimes, lest the devil cross my prayer, for here he comes in the likeness of a Jew.

Enter Shylock.

How now, Shylock, what news among the merchants?

Shy. You knew, none so well, none so well as you, of my daughter’s flight.

Sal. That’s certain. I for my part knew the tailor that made the wings she flew withal.

Sol. And Shylock for his own part knew the bird was flidge, and then it is the complexion of them all to leave the dam.

Shy. She is damn’d for it.

Sal. That’s certain, if the devil may be her judge.

Shy. My own flesh and blood to rebel!

Sol. Out upon it, old carrion, rebels it at these years?

Shy. I say, my daughter is my flesh and my blood.

Sal. There is more difference between thy flesh and hers than between jet and ivory, more between your bloods than there is between red wine and Rhenish. But tell us, do you hear whether Antonio have had any loss at sea or no?

Shy. There I have another bad match. A bank-rout, a prodigal, who dare scarce show his head on the Rialto; a beggar, that was us’d to come so smug upon the mart: let him look to his bond. He was wont to call me usurer, let him look to his bond. He was wont to lend money for a Christian cur’sy, let him look to his bond.

Sal. Why, I am sure if he forfeit thou wilt not take his flesh. What’s that good for?

Shy. To bait fish withal—if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgrac’d me, and hind’red me half a million, laugh’d at my losses, mock’d at my gains, scorn’d my nation, thwarted my bargains, cool’d 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, heal’d by the same means, warm’d and cool’d 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 [Serving]man from Antonio.

[Serv.] Gentlemen, my master Antonio is at his house, and desires to speak with you both.

Sal. We have been up and down to seek him.

Enter Tubal.

Sol. Here comes another of the tribe; a third cannot be match’d, unless the devil himself turn Jew.

Exeunt Gentlemen [Solanio and Salerio, with Servingman].

Shy. How now, Tubal, what news from Genoa? Hast thou found my daughter?

Tub. I often came where I did hear of her, but cannot find her.

Shy. Why, there, there, there, there! A diamond gone, cost me two thousand ducats in Frankford! 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 hears’d 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 a’ my shoulders, no sighs but a’ my breathing, no tears but a’ my shedding.