And use thou all th’endeavour of a man
In speed to Padua, see thou render this
Into my cousin’s hand (Doctor Bellario),
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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.
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BALTHAZAR 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,
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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,
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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,
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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
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Above 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!
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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.
3.5 Enter LAUNCELOT the clown 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 o’ good cheer, for truly I think you are
5
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
10
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
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father), I fall into Charybdis (your mother); well, you
are gone both ways.
JESSICA I shall be sav’d by my husband, – he hath made
me a Christian!
LAUNCELOT Truly the more to blame he, we were
20
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.
Enter LORENZO.
JESSICA I’ll tell my husband (Launcelot) what you say,
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– here he comes!
LORENZO I shall grow jealous of you shortly Launcelot,
if you thus get my wife into corners!
JESSICA Nay, you need not fear us Lorenzo, Launcelot
and I are out, – he tells me flatly there’s no mercy for
30
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
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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,
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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
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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
50
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
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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 serv’d in, – for
the meat sir, it shall be cover’d, – for your coming in to
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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
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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?
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JESSICA 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,
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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
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Hath not her fellow.
LORENZO Even such a husband
Hast thou of me, as she is for a wife.
JESSICA Nay, but ask my opinion too of that.
LORENZO I will anon, – first let us go to dinner.
JESSICA Nay, let me praise you while I have a stomach.
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LORENZO No pray thee, let it serve for table-talk,
Then howsome’er thou speak’st, ‘mong other things
I shall digest it.
JESSICA Well, I’ll set you forth. Exeunt.
4.1 Enter the DUKE, the magnificoes, ANTONIO,
BASSANIO and GRATIANO, SALERIO and others.
DUKE What, is Antonio here?
ANTONIO 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
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From any dram of mercy.
ANTONIO 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
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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.
SALERIO
He is ready at the door, – he comes my lord.
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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
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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 human gentleness and love,
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Forgive a moiety of the principal,
Glancing an eye of pity on his losses
That have of late so huddled on his back,
Enow to press a royal merchant down,
And pluck commiseration of his state
30
From brassy bosoms and rough hearts of flint,
From stubborn Turks, and Tartars never train’d
To offices of tender courtesy:
We all expect a gentle answer Jew!
SHYLOCK
I have possess’d your grace of what I purpose,
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And by our holy Sabbath have I sworn
To have the due and forfeit of my bond, –
If you deny it, let the danger light
Upon your charter and your city’s freedom!
You’ll ask me why I rather choose to have
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A weight of carrion flesh, than to receive
Three thousand ducats: I’ll not answer that!
But say it is my humour, – is it answer’d?
What if my house be troubled with a rat,
And I be pleas’d to give ten thousand ducats
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To have it ban’d? what, are you answer’d yet?
Some men there are love not a gaping pig!
Some that are mad if they behold a cat!
And others when the bagpipe sings i’th’ nose,
Cannot contain their urine – for affection
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(Master of passion) sways it to the mood
Of what it likes or loathes, – now for your answer:
As there is no firm reason to be rend’red
Why he cannot abide a gaping pig,
Why he a harmless necessary cat,
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Why he a woollen bagpipe, but of force
Must yield to such inevitable shame,
As to offend himself being offended:
So can I give no reason, nor I will not,
More than a lodg’d hate, and a certain loathing
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I bear Antonio, that I follow thus
A losing suit against him! – are you answered?
BASSANIO This is no answer thou unfeeling man,
To excuse the current of thy cruelty.
SHYLOCK
I am not bound to please thee with my answers!
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BASSANIO Do all men kill the things they do not love?
SHYLOCK Hates any man the thing he would not kill?
BASSANIO Every offence is not a hate at first!
SHYLOCK
What! wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice?
ANTONIO I pray you think you question with the Jew, –
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You may as well go stand upon the beach
And bid the main flood bate his usual height,
You may as well use question with the wolf,
Why he hath made the ewe bleak for the lamb:
You may as well forbid the mountain pines
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To wag their high tops, and to make no noise
When they are fretten with the gusts of heaven:
You may as well do any thing most hard
As seek to soften that – than which what’s harder? –
His Jewish heart! Therefore (I do beseech you)
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Make no moe offers, use no farther means,
But with all brief and plain conveniency
Let me have judgment, and the Jew his will!
BASSANIO For thy three thousand ducats here is six!
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 371