Array The griffin classics - William Shakespeare - Complete Collection

If worthier friends had not prevented me.

Ant.

Your worth is very dear in my regard.

I take it your own business calls on you,

And you embrace th’ occasion to depart.

Sal.

Good morrow, my good lords.

Bass.

Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? say, when?

You grow exceeding strange. Must it be so?

Sal.

We’ll make our leisures to attend on yours.

Exeunt Salerio and Solanio.

Lor.

My Lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio,

We two will leave you, but at dinner-time

I pray you have in mind where we must meet.

Bass.

I will not fail you.

Gra.

You look not well, Signior Antonio,

You have too much respect upon the world.

They lose it that do buy it with much care.

Believe me you are marvellously chang’d.

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,

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come,

And let my liver rather heat with wine

Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.

Why should a man, whose blood is warm within,

Sit like his grandsire cut in alablaster?

Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the jaundies

By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio—

I love thee, and ’tis my love that speaks—

There are a sort of men whose visages

Do cream and mantle like a standing pond,

And do a willful stillness entertain,

With purpose to be dress’d in an opinion

Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit,

As who should say, “I am Sir Oracle,

And when I ope my lips let no dog bark!”

O my Antonio, I do know of these

That therefore only are reputed wise

For saying nothing; when I am very sure

If they should speak, would almost damn those ears

Which hearing them would call their brothers fools.

I’ll tell thee more of this another time;

But fish not with this melancholy bait

For this fool gudgeon, this opinion.

Come, good Lorenzo. Fare ye well a while,

I’ll end my exhortation after dinner.

Lor.

Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time.

I must be one of these same dumb wise men,

For Gratiano never lets me speak.

Gra.

Well, keep me company but two years moe,

Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue.

Ant.

Fare you well! I’ll grow a talker for this gear.

Gra.

Thanks, i’ faith, for silence is only commendable

In a neat’s tongue dried and a maid not vendible.

Exeunt [Gratiano and Lorenzo].

Ant. It is that—any thing now!

Bass. Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff; you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search.

Ant.

Well, tell me now what lady is the same

To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,

That you to-day promis’d to tell me of?

Bass.

’Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,

How much I have disabled mine estate,

By something showing a more swelling port

Than my faint means would grant continuance.

Nor do I now make moan to be abridg’d

From such a noble rate, but my chief care

Is to come fairly off from the great debts

Wherein my time something too prodigal

Hath left me gag’d. To you, Antonio,

I owe the most in money and in love,

And from your love I have a warranty

To unburthen all my plots and purposes

How to get clear of all the debts I owe.

Ant.

I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it,

And if it stand, as you yourself still do,

Within the eye of honor, be assur’d

My purse, my person, my extremest means,

Lie all unlock’d 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

To find the other forth, and by adventuring both

I oft found both. I urge this childhood proof,

Because what follows is pure innocence.

I owe you much, and like a willful youth,

That which I owe is lost, but if you please

To shoot another arrow that self way

Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,

As I will watch the aim, or to find both

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,

And I am prest unto it; therefore speak.

Bass.

In Belmont is a lady richly left,

And she is fair and, fairer than that word,

Of wondrous virtues. Sometimes from her eyes

I did receive fair speechless messages.

Her name is Portia, nothing undervalu’d

To Cato’s daughter, Brutus’ Portia.

Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth,

For the four winds blow in from every coast

Renowned suitors, and her sunny locks

Hang on her temples like a golden fleece,

Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchis’ strond,

And many Jasons come in quest of her.

O my Antonio, had I but the means

To hold a rival place with one of them,

I have a mind presages me such thrift

That I should questionless be fortunate!

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,

Try what my credit can in Venice do.

That shall be rack’d, even to the uttermost,

To furnish thee to Belmont, to fair Portia.

Go presently inquire, and so will I,

Where money is, and I no question make

To have it of my trust, or for my sake.

Exeunt.

¶

Enter Portia with her waiting-woman, Nerissa.

Por. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is a-weary of this great world.

Ner. You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same abundance as your good fortunes are; 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 pronounc’d.

Ner. They would be better if well follow’d.

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 to be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o’er a cold decree—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 who I would, nor refuse who I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curb’d 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 lott’ry that he hath devis’d 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?