Complete Plays, The
Page 299
They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die:
I’ll wink and couch: no man their works must eye.
Lies down upon his face
Sir Hugh Evans
Where’s Bede? Go you, and where you find a maid
That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said,
Raise up the organs of her fantasy;
Sleep she as sound as careless infancy:
But those as sleep and think not on their sins,
Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides and shins.
Mistress Quickly
About, about;
Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out:
Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room:
That it may stand till the perpetual doom,
In state as wholesome as in state ’tis fit,
Worthy the owner, and the owner it.
The several chairs of order look you scour
With juice of balm and every precious flower:
Each fair instalment, coat, and several crest,
With loyal blazon, evermore be blest!
And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,
Like to the Garter’s compass, in a ring:
The expressure that it bears, green let it be,
More fertile-fresh than all the field to see;
And ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense’ write
In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue and white;
Let sapphire, pearl and rich embroidery,
Buckled below fair knighthood’s bending knee:
Fairies use flowers for their charactery.
Away; disperse: but till ’tis one o’clock,
Our dance of custom round about the oak
Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget.
Sir Hugh Evans
Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set
And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be,
To guide our measure round about the tree.
But, stay; I smell a man of middle-earth.
Falstaff
Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he transform me to a piece of cheese!
Pistol
Vile worm, thou wast o’erlook’d even in thy birth.
Mistress Quickly
With trial-fire touch me his finger-end:
If he be chaste, the flame will back descend
And turn him to no pain; but if he start,
It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.
Pistol
A trial, come.
Sir Hugh Evans
Come, will this wood take fire?
They burn him with their tapers
Falstaff
Oh, Oh, Oh!
Mistress Quickly
Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!
About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme;
And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.
Song.
Fie on sinful fantasy!
Fie on lust and luxury!
Lust is but a bloody fire,
Kindled with unchaste desire,
Fed in heart, whose flames aspire
As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.
Pinch him, fairies, mutually;
Pinch him for his villany;
Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,
Till candles and starlight and moonshine be out.
During this song they pinch Falstaff. Doctor Caius comes one way, and steals away a boy in green; Slender another way, and takes off a boy in white; and Fenton comes and steals away Ann Page. A noise of hunting is heard within. All the Fairies run away. Falstaff pulls off his buck’s head, and rises
Enter Page, Ford, Mistress Page, and Mistress Ford
Page
Nay, do not fly; I think we have watch’d you now
Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn?
Mistress Page
I pray you, come, hold up the jest no higher
Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives?
See you these, husband? do not these fair yokes
Become the forest better than the town?
Ford
Now, sir, who’s a cuckold now? Master Brook, Falstaff’s a knave, a cuckoldly knave; here are his horns, Master Brook: and, Master Brook, he hath enjoyed nothing of Ford’s but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds of money, which must be paid to Master Brook; his horses are arrested for it, Master Brook.
Mistress Ford
Sir John, we have had ill luck; we could never meet. I will never take you for my love again; but I will always count you my deer.
Falstaff
I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.
Ford
Ay, and an ox too: both the proofs are extant.
Falstaff
And these are not fairies? I was three or four times in the thought they were not fairies: and yet the guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my powers, drove the grossness of the foppery into a received belief, in despite of the teeth of all rhyme and reason, that they were fairies. See now how wit may be made a Jack-a-Lent, when ’tis upon ill employment!
Sir Hugh Evans
Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires, and fairies will not pinse you.
Ford
Well said, fairy Hugh.
Sir Hugh Evans
And leave your jealousies too, I pray you.
Ford
I will never mistrust my wife again till thou art able to woo her in good English.
Falstaff
Have I laid my brain in the sun and dried it, that it wants matter to prevent so gross o’erreaching as this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? shall I have a coxcomb of frize? ’Tis time I were choked with a piece of toasted cheese.
Sir Hugh Evans
Seese is not good to give putter; your belly is all putter.
Falstaff
‘seese’ and ‘putter’! have I lived to stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of English? This is enough to be the decay of lust and late-walking through the realm.
Mistress Page
Why Sir John, do you think, though we would have the virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders and have given ourselves without scruple to hell, that ever the devil could have made you our delight?
Ford
What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax?
Mistress Page
A puffed man?
Page
Old, cold, withered and of intolerable entrails?
Ford
And one that is as slanderous as Satan?
Page
And as poor as Job?
Ford
And as wicked as his wife?
Sir Hugh Evans
And given to fornications, and to taverns and sack and wine and metheglins, and to drinkings and swearings and starings, pribbles and prabbles?
Falstaff
Well, I am your theme: you have the start of me; I am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel; ignorance itself is a plummet o’er me: use me as you will.
Ford
Marry, sir, we’ll bring you to Windsor, to one Master Brook, that you have cozened of money, to whom you should have been a pander: over and above that you have suffered, I think to repay that money will be a biting affliction.
Page
Yet be cheerful, knight: thou shalt eat a posset to-night at my house; where I will desire thee to laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee: tell her Master Slender hath married her daughter.
Mistress Page
[Aside] Doctors doubt that: if Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius’ wife.
Enter Slender
Slender
Whoa ho! ho, father Page!
Page
Son, how now! how now, son! have you dispatched?
Slender
Dispatched! I’ll make the best in Gloucestershire know on’t; would I were hanged, la, else.
Page<
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Of what, son?
Slender
I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page, and she’s a great lubberly boy. If it had not been i’ the church, I would have swinged him, or he should have swinged me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir!— and ’tis a postmaster’s boy.
Page
Upon my life, then, you took the wrong.
Slender
What need you tell me that? I think so, when I took a boy for a girl. If I had been married to him, for all he was in woman’s apparel, I would not have had him.
Page
Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how you should know my daughter by her garments?
Slender
I went to her in white, and cried ’mum,’ and she cried ‘budget,’ as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was not Anne, but a postmaster’s boy.
Mistress Page
Good George, be not angry: I knew of your purpose; turned my daughter into green; and, indeed, she is now with the doctor at the deanery, and there married.
Enter Doctor Caius
Doctor Caius
Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened: I ha’ married un garcon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy; it is not Anne Page: by gar, I am cozened.
Mistress Page
Why, did you take her in green?
Doctor Caius
Ay, by gar, and ’tis a boy: by gar, I’ll raise all Windsor.
Exit
Ford
This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne?
Page
My heart misgives me: here comes Master Fenton.
Enter Fenton and Anne Page
How now, Master Fenton!
Anne Page
Pardon, good father! good my mother, pardon!
Page
Now, mistress, how chance you went not with Master Slender?
Mistress Page
Why went you not with master doctor, maid?
Fenton
You do amaze her: hear the truth of it.
You would have married her most shamefully,
Where there was no proportion held in love.
The truth is, she and I, long since contracted,
Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us.
The offence is holy that she hath committed;
And this deceit loses the name of craft,
Of disobedience, or unduteous title,
Since therein she doth evitate and shun
A thousand irreligious cursed hours,
Which forced marriage would have brought upon her.
Ford
Stand not amazed; here is no remedy:
In love the heavens themselves do guide the state;
Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.
Falstaff
I am glad, though you have ta’en a special stand to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced.
Page
Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy!
What cannot be eschew’d must be embraced.
Falstaff
When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chased.
Mistress Page
Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton,
Heaven give you many, many merry days!
Good husband, let us every one go home,
And laugh this sport o’er by a country fire;
Sir John and all.
Ford
Let it be so. Sir John,
To Master Brook you yet shall hold your word
For he tonight shall lie with Mistress Ford.
Exeunt
The Merchant of Venice
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY
ACT I
SCENE I. VENICE. A STREET.
SCENE II: BELMONT. A ROOM IN PORTIA’S HOUSE.
SCENE III. VENICE. A PUBLIC PLACE.
ACT II
SCENE I. BELMONT. A ROOM IN PORTIA’S HOUSE.
SCENE II. VENICE. A STREET.
SCENE III. THE SAME. A ROOM IN SHYLOCK’S HOUSE.
SCENE IV. THE SAME. A STREET.
SCENE V. THE SAME. BEFORE SHYLOCK’S HOUSE.
SCENE VI. THE SAME.
SCENE VII. BELMONT. A ROOM IN PORTIA’S HOUSE.
SCENE VIII. VENICE. A STREET.
SCENE IX. BELMONT. A ROOM IN PORTIA’S HOUSE.
ACT III
SCENE I. VENICE. A STREET.
SCENE II. BELMONT. A ROOM IN PORTIA’S HOUSE.
SCENE III. VENICE. A STREET.
SCENE IV. BELMONT. A ROOM IN PORTIA’S HOUSE.
SCENE V. THE SAME. A GARDEN.
ACT IV
SCENE I. VENICE. A COURT OF JUSTICE.
SCENE II. THE SAME. A STREET.
ACT V
SCENE I. BELMONT. AVENUE TO PORTIA’S HOUSE.
CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY
The Duke of Venice.
The Prince of Arragon and The Prince of Morocco, suitors to Portia.
Antonio, a merchant.
Bassanio, his friend.
Salanio, Salarino, and Gratiano, friends to Antonio and Bassanio.
Lorenzo, in love with Jessica.
Shylock, a rich Jew.
Tubal, a Jew, his friend.
Launcelot Gobbo, a clown, servant to Shylock.
Old Gobbo, father to Launcelot.
Leonardo, servant to Bassanio.
Balthasar and Stephano, servants to Portia.
Portia, a rich heiress.
Nerissa, her waiting-maid.
Jessica, daughter to Shylock.
Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of Justice, Gaoler, Servants, and other Attendants.
ACT I
SCENE I. VENICE. A STREET.
Enter Antonio, Salarino, and Salanio
Antonio
In sooth, I know not why I am so sad:
It wearies me; you say it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff ’tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn;
And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself.
Salarino
Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
There, where your argosies with portly sail,
Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood,
Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea,
Do overpeer the petty traffickers,
That curtsy to them, do them reverence,
As they fly by them with their woven wings.
Salanio
Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth,
The better part of my affections would
Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still
Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind,
Peering in maps for ports and piers and roads;
And every object that might make me fear
Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt
Would make me sad.
Salarino
My wind cooling my broth
Would blow me to an ague, when I thought
What harm a wind too great at sea might do.
I should not see the sandy hour-glass run,
But I should think of shallows and of flats,
And see my wealthy Andrew dock’d in sand,
Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs
To kiss her burial. Should I go to church
And see the holy edifice of stone,
And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks,
Which touching but my gentle vessel’s side,
Would scatter all her spices on the stream,
Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks,
And, in a word, but even now worth this,
And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought
To think on this, and shall I lack the thought
That such a thing bechanced would make me sad?
But t
ell not me; I know, Antonio
Is sad to think upon his merchandise.
Antonio
Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for it,
My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,
Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate
Upon the fortune of this present year:
Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad.
Salarino
Why, then you are in love.
Antonio
Fie, fie!
Salarino
Not in love neither? Then let us say you are sad,
Because you are not merry: and ’twere as easy
For you to laugh and leap and say you are merry,
Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus,
Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time:
Some that will evermore peep through their eyes
And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper,
And other of such vinegar aspect
That they’ll not show their teeth in way of smile,
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.
Enter Bassanio, Lorenzo, and Gratiano
Salanio
Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman,
Gratiano and Lorenzo. Fare ye well:
We leave you now with better company.
Salarino
I would have stay’d till I had made you merry,
If worthier friends had not prevented me.
Antonio
Your worth is very dear in my regard.
I take it, your own business calls on you
And you embrace the occasion to depart.
Salarino
Good morrow, my good lords.
Bassanio
Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? say, when?
You grow exceeding strange: must it be so?
Salarino
We’ll make our leisures to attend on yours.
Exeunt Salarino and Salanio
Lorenzo
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.
Bassanio
I will not fail you.
Gratiano
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 changed.
Antonio
I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;
A stage where every man must play a part,
And mine a sad one.
Gratiano
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.