With oaths of love, at last, (if promise last)
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I got a promise of this fair one here
To have her love, provided that your fortune
Achiev’d her mistress.
PORTIA Is this true Nerissa?
NERISSA Madam it is, so you stand pleas’d withal.
BASSANIO And do you Gratiano mean good faith?
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GRATIANO Yes – faith my lord.
BASSANIO
Our feast shall be much honoured in your marriage.
GRATIANO We’ll play with them the first boy for a thousand ducats.
NERISSA What! and stake down?
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GRATIANO
No, we shall ne’er win at that sport and stake down.
But who comes here? Lorenzo and his infidel!
What! and my old Venetian friend Salerio?
Enter LORENZO, JESSICA and SALERIO
(a messenger from Venice).
BASSANIO Lorenzo and Salerio, welcome hither,
If that the youth of my new int’rest here
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Have power to bid you welcome: – by your leave
I bid my very friends and countrymen
(Sweet Portia) welcome.
PORTIA So do I my lord,
They are entirely welcome.
LORENZO I thank your honour, – for my part my lord
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My purpose was not to have seen you here,
But meeting with Salerio by the way
He did entreat me (past all saying nay)
To come with him along.
SALERIO I did my lord,
And I have reason for it, – Signior Antonio
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Commends him to you. [Gives Bassanio a letter.]
BASSANIO Ere I ope his letter
I pray you tell me how my good friend doth.
SALERIO Not sick my lord, unless it be in mind,
Nor well, unless in mind: his letter there
Will show you his estate. [Bassanio opens the letter.]
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GRATIANO
Nerissa, cheer yond stranger, bid her welcome.
Your hand Salerio, – what’s the news from Venice?
How doth that royal merchant good Antonio?
I know he will be glad of our success,
We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece.
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SALERIO
I would you had won the fleece that he hath lost.
PORTIA
There are some shrewd contents in yond same paper
That steals the colour from Bassanio’s cheek, –
Some dear friend dead, else nothing in the world
Could turn so much the constitution
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Of any constant man: what worse and worse?
With leave Bassanio, I am half yourself,
And I must freely have the half of anything
That this same paper brings you.
BASSANIO O sweet Portia,
Here are a few of the unpleasant’st words
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That ever blotted paper! Gentle lady
When I did first impart my love to you,
I freely told you all the wealth I had
Ran in my veins, – I was a gentleman, –
And then I told you true: and yet dear lady
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Rating myself at nothing, you shall see
How much I was a braggart, – when I told you
My state was nothing, I should then have told you
That I was worse than nothing; for indeed
I have engag’d myself to a dear friend,
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Engag’d my friend to his mere enemy
To feed my means. Here is a letter lady,
The paper as the body of my friend,
And every word in it a gaping wound
Issuing life-blood. But is it true Salerio?
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Hath all his ventures fail’d? what not one hit?
From Tripolis, from Mexico and England,
From Lisbon, Barbary, and India,
And not one vessel scape the dreadful touch
Of merchant-marring rocks?
SALERIO Not one my lord.
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Besides, it should appear, that if he had
The present money to discharge the Jew,
He would not take it: never did I know
A creature that did bear the shape of man
So keen and greedy to confound a man.
275
He plies the duke at morning and at night,
And doth impeach the freedom of the state
If they deny him justice. Twenty merchants,
The duke himself, and the magnificoes
Of greatest port have all persuaded with him,
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But none can drive him from the envious plea
Of forfeiture, of justice, and his bond.
JESSICA When I was with him, I have heard him swear
To Tubal and to Chus, his countrymen,
That he would rather have Antonio’s flesh
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Than twenty times the value of the sum
That he did owe him: and I know my lord,
If law, authority, and power deny not,
It will go hard with poor Antonio.
PORTIA Is it your dear friend that is thus in trouble?
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BASSANIO The dearest friend to me, the kindest man,
The best-condition’d and unwearied spirit
In doing courtesies: and one in whom
The ancient Roman honour more appears
Than any that draws breath in Italy.
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PORTIA What sum owes he the Jew?
BASSANIO For me three thousand ducats.
PORTIA What no more?
Pay him six thousand, and deface the bond:
Double six thousand, and then treble that,
Before a friend of this description
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Shall lose a hair through Bassanio’s fault.
First go with me to church, and call me wife,
And then away to Venice to your friend:
For never shall you lie by Portia’s side
With an unquiet soul. You shall have gold
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To pay the petty debt twenty times over.
When it is paid, bring your true friend along, –
My maid Nerissa, and myself meantime
Will live as maids and widows; – come away!
For you shall hence upon your wedding day:
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Bid your friends welcome, show a merry cheer, –
Since you are dear bought, I will love you dear.
But let me hear the letter of your friend.
BASSANIO [Reads.] Sweet Bassanio, my ships have all
miscarried, my creditors grow cruel, my estate is very low,
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my bond to the Jew is forfeit, and (since in paying it, it is
impossible I should live), all debts are clear’d between you
and I, if I might but see you at my death: notwithstanding,
use your pleasure, – if your love do not persuade you to
come, let not my letter.
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PORTIA O love! – dispatch all business and be gone!
BASSANIO Since I have your good leave to go away,
I will make haste; but till I come again,
No bed shall e’er be guilty of my stay,
Nor rest be interposer ’twixt us twain. Exeunt.
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3.3 Enter SHYLOCK the Jew, SOLANIO,
ANTONIO and the gaoler.
SHYLOCK Gaoler, look to him, – tell not me of mercy, –
This is the fool that lent out money gratis.
Gaoler, look to him.
ANTONIO Hear me yet good Shylock.
SHYLOCK
I’ll have
my bond, speak not against my bond, –
I have sworn an oath, that I will have my bond:
5
Thou call’dst me dog before thou hadst a cause,
But since I am a dog, beware my fangs, –
The duke shall grant me justice, – I do wonder
(Thou naughty gaoler) that thou art so fond
To come abroad with him at his request.
10
ANTONIO I pray thee hear me speak.
SHYLOCK I’ll have my bond. I will not hear thee speak,
I’ll have my bond, and therefore speak no more.
I’ll not be made a soft and dull-ey’d fool,
To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield
15
To Christian intercessors: follow not, –
I’ll have no speaking, I will have my bond. Exit.
SOLANIO It is the most impenetrable cur
That ever kept with men.
ANTONIO Let him alone,
I’ll follow him no more with bootless prayers.
20
He seeks my life, his reason well I know;
I oft deliver’d from his forfeitures
Many that have at times made moan to me,
Therefore he hates me.
SOLANIO I am sure the duke
Will never grant this forfeiture to hold.
25
ANTONIO The duke cannot deny the course of law:
For the commodity that strangers have
With us in Venice, if it be denied,
Will much impeach the justice of the state,
Since that the trade and profit of the city
30
Consisteth of all nations. Therefore go, –
These griefs and losses have so bated me
That I shall hardly spare a pound of flesh
To-morrow, to my bloody creditor.
Well gaoler, on, – pray God Bassanio come
35
To see me pay his debt, and then I care not. Exeunt.
3.4 Enter PORTIA, NERISSA, LORENZO, JESSICA
and BALTHAZAR (a man of Portia’s).
LORENZO
Madam, although I speak it in your presence,
You have a noble and a true conceit
Of god-like amity, which appears most strongly
In bearing thus the absence of your lord.
But if you knew to whom you show this honour,
5
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,
10
Nor shall not now: for in companions
That do converse and waste the time together,
Whose souls do bear an egall yoke of love,
There must be needs a like proportion
Of lineaments, of manners, and of spirit;
15
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,
20
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,
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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, –
30
There is a monast’ry 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,
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I shall obey you in all 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.
40
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 Balthazar,
45
As I have ever found thee honest-true,
So let me find thee still: take this same letter,
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 370