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

Bring them, I pray thee, with imagin’d speed

Unto the [traject], to the common ferry

Which trades to Venice. Waste no time in words,

But get thee gone. I shall be there before thee.

Balth.

Madam, I go with all convenient speed.

[Exit.]

Por.

Come on, Nerissa, I have work in hand

That you yet know not of. We’ll see our husbands

Before they think of us.

Ner.

Shall they see us?

Por.

They shall, Nerissa; but in such a habit

That they shall think we are accomplished

With that we lack. I’ll hold thee any wager,

When we are both accoutered like young men,

I’ll prove the prettier fellow of the two,

And wear my dagger with the braver grace,

And speak between the change of man and boy

With a reed voice, and turn two mincing steps

Into a manly stride; and speak of frays

Like a fine bragging youth, and tell quaint lies,

How honorable ladies sought my love,

Which I denying, they fell sick and died.

I could not do withal. Then I’ll repent,

And wish, for all that, that I had not kill’d them;

And twenty of these puny lies I’ll tell,

That men shall swear I have discontinued school

Above a twelvemonth. I have within my mind

A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks,

Which I will practice.

Ner.

Why, shall we turn to men?

Por.

Fie, what a question’s that,

If thou wert near a lewd interpreter!

But come, I’ll tell thee all my whole device

When I am in my coach, which stays for us

At the park-gate; and therefore haste away,

For we must measure twenty miles to-day.

Exeunt.

¶

Enter Clown [Launcelot] and Jessica.

Laun. Yes, truly, for look you, the sins of the father are to be laid upon the children; therefore, I promise you, I fear you. I was always plain with you, and so now I speak my agitation of the matter; therefore be a’ good cheer, for truly I think you are damn’d. There is but one hope in it that can do you any good, and that is but a kind of bastard hope neither.

Jes. And what hope is that, I pray thee?

Laun. Marry, you may partly hope that your father got you not, that you are not the Jew’s daughter.

Jes. That were a kind of bastard hope indeed; so the sins of my mother should be visited upon me.

Laun. Truly then I fear you are damn’d both by father and mother; thus when I shun Scylla, your father, I fall into Charybdis, your mother. Well, you are gone both ways.

Jes. I shall be sav’d by my husband, he hath made me a Christian!

Laun. Truly, the more to blame he; we were Christians enow before, e’en as many as could well live one by another. This making of Christians will raise the price of hogs. If we grow all to be pork- we shall not shortly have a rasher on the coals for money.

Enter Lorenzo.

Jes. I’ll tell my husband, Launcelot, what you say. Here he [comes].

Lor. I shall grow jealious of you shortly, Launcelot, if you thus get my wife into corners!

Jes. Nay, you need not fear us, Lorenzo, Launcelot and I are out. He tells me flatly there’s no mercy for me in heaven because I am a Jew’s daughter; and he says you are no good member of the commonwealth, for in converting Jews to Christians, you raise the price of pork.

Lor. I shall answer that better to the commonwealth than you can the getting up of the Negro’s belly; the Moor is with child by you, Launcelot.

Laun. It is much that the Moor should be more than reason; but if she be less than an honest woman, she is indeed more than I took her for.

Lor. How every fool can play upon the word! I think the best grace of wit will shortly turn into silence, and discourse grow commendable in none only but parrots. Go in, sirrah, bid them prepare for dinner.

Laun. That is done, sir, they have all stomachs!

Lor. Goodly Lord, what a wit-snapper are you! then bid them prepare dinner.

Laun. That is done too, sir, only ‘cover’ is the word.

Lor. Will you cover then, sir?

Laun. Not so, sir, neither, I know my duty.

Lor. Yet more quarrelling with occasion! wilt thou show the whole wealth of thy wit in an instant? I pray thee understand a plain man in his plain meaning: go to thy fellows, bid them cover the table, serve in the meat, and we will come in to dinner.

Laun. For the table, sir, it shall be serv’d in; for the meat, sir, it shall be cover’d; for your coming in to dinner, sir, why, let it be as humors and conceits shall govern.

Exit Clown.

Lor.

O dear discretion, how his words are suited!

The fool hath planted in his memory

An army of good words, and I do know

A many fools, that stand in better place,

Garnish’d like him, that for a tricksy word

Defy the matter. How cheer’st thou, Jessica?

And now, good sweet, say thy opinion,

How dost thou like the Lord Bassanio’s wife?

Jes.

Past all expressing. It is very meet

The Lord Bassanio live an upright life,

For having such a blessing in his lady,

He finds the joys of heaven here on earth,

And if on earth he do not [merit] it,

In reason he should never come to heaven!

Why, if two gods should play some heavenly match,

And on the wager lay two earthly women,

And Portia one, there must be something else

Pawn’d with the other, for the poor rude world

Hath not her fellow.

Lor.

Even such a husband

Hast thou of me as she is for [a] wife.

Jes.

Nay, but ask my opinion too of that.

Lor.

I will anon, first let us go to dinner.

Jes.

Nay, let me praise you while I have a stomach.

Lor.

No, pray thee, let it serve for table-talk;

Then howsome’er thou speak’st, ’mong other things

I shall disgest it.

Jes.

Well, I’ll set you forth.

Exeunt.

¶

Enter the Duke, the Magnificoes, Antonio, Bassanio, [Salerio,] and Gratiano [with others]

Duke.

What, is Antonio here?

Ant.

Ready, so please your Grace.

Duke.

I am sorry for thee. Thou art come to answer

A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch,

Uncapable of pity, void and empty

From any dram of mercy.

Ant.

I have heard

Your Grace hath ta’en great pains to qualify

His rigorous course; but since he stands obdurate,

And that no lawful means can carry me

Out of his envy’s reach, I do oppose

My patience to his fury, and am arm’d

To suffer, with a quietness of spirit,

The very tyranny and rage of his.

Duke.

Go one, and call the Jew into the court.

Sal.

He is ready at the door; he comes, my lord.

Enter Shylock.

Duke.

Make room, and let him stand before our face.

Shylock, the world thinks, and I think so too,

That thou but leadest this fashion of thy malice

To the last hour of act, and then ’tis thought

Thou’lt show thy mercy and remorse more strange

Than is thy strange apparent cruelty;

And where thou now exacts the penalty,

Which is a pound of this poor merchant’s flesh,

Thou wilt not only loose the forfeiture,

But touch’d with humane gentleness and love,