William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

SCENE 4. Belmont. A room in PORTIA’s house.

[Enter PORTIA, NERISSA, LORENZO, JESSICA, and BALTHASAR.]

LORENZO.

Madam, although I speak it in your presence,

You have a noble and a true conceit

Of godlike amity, which appears most strongly

In bearing thus the absence of your lord.

But if you knew to whom you show this honour,

How true a gentleman you send relief,

How dear a lover of my lord your husband,

I know you would be prouder of the work

Than customary bounty can enforce you.

PORTIA.

I never did repent for doing good,

Nor shall not now; for in companions

That do converse and waste the time together,

Whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love,

There must be needs a like proportion

Of lineaments, of manners, and of spirit,

Which makes me think that this Antonio,

Being the bosom lover of my lord,

Must needs be like my lord. If it be so,

How little is the cost I have bestowed

In purchasing the semblance of my soul

From out the state of hellish cruelty!

This comes too near the praising of myself;

Therefore, no more of it; hear other things.

Lorenzo, I commit into your hands

The husbandry and manage of my house

Until my lord’s return; for mine own part,

I have toward heaven breath’d a secret vow

To live in prayer and contemplation,

Only attended by Nerissa here,

Until her husband and my lord’s return.

There is a monastery two miles off,

And there we will abide. I do desire you

Not to deny this imposition,

The which my love and some necessity

Now lays upon you.

LORENZO.

Madam, with all my heart

I shall obey you in an fair commands.

PORTIA.

My people do already know my mind,

And will acknowledge you and Jessica

In place of Lord Bassanio and myself.

So fare you well till we shall meet again.

LORENZO.

Fair thoughts and happy hours attend on you!

JESSICA.

I wish your ladyship all heart’s content.

PORTIA.

I thank you for your wish, and am well pleas’d

To wish it back on you. Fare you well, Jessica.

[Exeunt JESSICA and LORENZO.]

Now, Balthasar,

As I have ever found thee honest-true,

So let me find thee still. Take this same letter,

And use thou all th’ endeavour of a man

In speed to Padua; see thou render this

Into my cousin’s hands, Doctor Bellario;

And look what notes and garments he doth give thee,

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.

BALTHASAR.

Madam, I go with all convenient speed.

[Exit.]

PORTIA.

Come on, Nerissa, I have work in hand

That you yet know not of; we’ll see our husbands

Before they think of us.

NERISSA.

Shall they see us?

PORTIA.

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 accoutred 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 honourable 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 discontinu’d school

About a twelvemonth. I have within my mind

A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks,

Which I will practise.

NERISSA.

Why, shall we turn to men?

PORTIA.

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.]

SCENE 5. The same. A garden.

[Enter LAUNCELOT and JESSICA.]

LAUNCELOT. 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 of 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.

JESSICA.

And what hope is that, I pray thee?

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

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

LAUNCELOT.

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.

JESSICA.

I shall be saved by my husband; he hath made me a Christian.

LAUNCELOT. 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-eaters, we shall not shortly have a rasher on the coals for money.

JESSICA.

I’ll tell my husband, Launcelot, what you say; here he comes.

[Enter LORENZO.]

LORENZO. I shall grow jealous of you shortly, Launcelot, if you thus get my wife into corners.

JESSICA. Nay, you need nor 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.

LORENZO. 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.

LAUNCELOT. 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.

LORENZO. 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.

LAUNCELOT.

That is done, sir; they have all stomachs.

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

LAUNCELOT.

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

LORENZO.

Will you cover, then, sir?

LAUNCELOT.

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

LORENZO. 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.

LAUNCELOT. For the table, sir, it shall be served in; for the meat, sir, it shall be covered; for your coming in to dinner, sir, why, let it be as humours and conceits shall govern.

[Exit.]

LORENZO.

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?

JESSICA.

Past all expressing. It is very meet

The Lord Bassanio live an upright life,