So let me find thee still. Take this same letter,
And use thou all the endeavour of a man
In speed to Padua: see thou render this
Into my cousin’s hand, Doctor Bellario;
And, look, what notes and garments he doth give thee,
Bring them, I pray thee, with imagined speed
Unto the tranect, 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 killed them;
And twenty of these puny lies I’ll tell,
That men shall swear I have discontinued school
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!
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 V. 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 ye, 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 damned. 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 damned 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 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: 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 is 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 tree, 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 cheerest 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;
For, having such a blessing in his lady,
He finds the joys of heaven here on earth;
And if on earth he do not mean it, then
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
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.
Lorenzo
No, pray thee, let it serve for table-talk;
’ Then, howso’er thou speak’st, ’mong other things
I shall digest it.
Jessica
Well, I’ll set you forth.
Exeunt
ACT IV
SCENE I. VENICE. A COURT OF JUSTICE.
Enter the Duke, the Magnificoes, Antonio, Bassanio, Gratiano, Salanio, 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
From any dram of mercy.
Antonio
I have heard
Your grace hath ta’en great pains to qualify
His rigorous course; but since he s
tands obdurate
And that no lawful means can carry me
Out of his envy’s reach, I do oppose
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.
Salanio
He is ready at the door: he comes, my lord.
Enter Shylock
Duke
Make room, and let him stand before our face.
Shylock, the world thinks, and I think so too,
That thou but lead’st this fashion of thy malice
To the last hour of act; and then ’tis thought
Thou’lt show thy mercy and remorse more strange
Than is thy strange apparent cruelty;
And where thou now exact’st 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,
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
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;
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
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 pleased to give ten thousand ducats
To have it baned? 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’ the nose,
Cannot contain their urine: for affection,
Mistress 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 render’d,
Why he cannot abide a gaping pig;
Why he, a harmless necessary cat;
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 lodged hate and a certain loathing
I bear Antonio, that I follow thus
A losing suit against him. Are you answer’d?
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.
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:
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 bleat for the lamb;
You may as well forbid the mountain pines
To wag their high tops and to make no noise,
When they are fretten with the gusts of heaven;
You may as well do anything most hard,
As seek to soften that — than which what’s harder?—
His Jewish heart: therefore, I do beseech you,
Make no more 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.
Shylock
What judgment shall I dread, doing
Were in six parts and every part a ducat,
I would not draw them; I would have my bond.
Duke
How shalt thou hope for mercy, rendering none?
Shylock
What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong?
You have among you many a purchased slave,
Which, like your asses and your dogs and mules,
You use in abject and in slavish parts,
Because you bought them: shall I say to you,
Let them be free, marry them to your heirs?
Why sweat they under burthens? let their beds
Be made as soft as yours and let their palates
Be season’d with such viands? You will answer
‘The slaves are ours:’ so do I answer you:
The pound of flesh, which I demand of him,
Is dearly bought; ’tis mine and I will have it.
If you deny me, fie upon your law!
There is no force in the decrees of Venice.
I stand for judgment: answer; shall I have it?
Duke
Upon my power I may dismiss this court,
Unless Bellario, a learned doctor,
Whom I have sent for to determine this,
Come here to-day.
Salanio
My lord, here stays without
A messenger with letters from the doctor,
New come from Padua.
Duke
Bring us the letter; call the messenger.
Bassanio
Good cheer, Antonio! What, man, courage yet!
The Jew shall have my flesh, blood, bones and all,
Ere thou shalt lose for me one drop of blood.
Antonio
I am a tainted wether of the flock,
Meetest for death: the weakest kind of fruit
Drops earliest to the ground; and so let me
You cannot better be employ’d, Bassanio,
Than to live still and write mine epitaph.
Enter Nerissa, dressed like a lawyer’s clerk
Duke
Came you from Padua, from Bellario?
Nerissa
From both, my lord. Bellario greets your grace.
Presenting a letter
Bassanio
Why dost thou whet thy knife so earnestly?
Shylock
To cut the forfeiture from that bankrupt there.
Gratiano
Not on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew,
Thou makest thy knife keen; but no metal can,
No, not the hangman’s axe, bear half the keenness
Of thy sharp envy. Can no prayers pierce thee?
Shylock
No, none that thou hast wit enough to make.
Gratiano
O, be thou damn’d, inexecrable dog!
And for thy life let justice be accused.
Thou almost makest me waver in my faith
To hold opinion with Pythagoras,
That souls of animals infuse themselves
Into the trunks of men: thy currish spirit
Govern’d a wolf, who, hang’d for human slaughter,
Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,
And, whilst thou lay’st in thy unhallow’d dam,
Infused itself in thee; for thy desires
Are wolvish, bloody, starved and ravenous.
Shylock
Till thou c
anst rail the seal from off my bond,
Thou but offend’st thy lungs to speak so loud:
Repair thy wit, good youth, or it will fall
To cureless ruin. I stand here for law.
Duke
This letter from Bellario doth commend
A young and learned doctor to our court.
Where is he?
Nerissa
He attendeth here hard by,
To know your answer, whether you’ll admit him.
Duke
With all my heart. Some three or four of you
Go give him courteous conduct to this place.
Meantime the court shall hear Bellario’s letter.
Clerk
[Reads] Your grace shall understand that at the receipt of your letter I am very sick: but in the instant that your messenger came, in loving visitation was with me a young doctor of Rome; his name is Balthasar. I acquainted him with the cause in controversy between the Jew and Antonio the merchant: we turned o’er many books together: he is furnished with my opinion; which, bettered with his own learning, the greatness whereof I cannot enough commend, comes with him, at my importunity, to fill up your grace’s request in my stead. I beseech you, let his lack of years be no impediment to let him lack a reverend estimation; for I never knew so young a body with so old a head. I leave him to your gracious acceptance, whose trial shall better publish his commendation.
Duke
You hear the learn’d Bellario, what he writes:
And here, I take it, is the doctor come.
Enter Portia, dressed like a doctor of laws
Give me your hand. Come you from old Bellario?
Portia
I did, my lord.
Duke
You are welcome: take your place.
Are you acquainted with the difference
That holds this present question in the court?
Portia
I am informed thoroughly of the cause.
Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew?
Duke
Antonio and old Shylock, both stand forth.
Portia
Is your name Shylock?
Shylock
Shylock is my name.
Portia
Of a strange nature is the suit you follow;
Yet in such rule that the Venetian law
Cannot impugn you as you do proceed.
You stand within his danger, do you not?
Antonio
Ay, so he says.
Portia
Do you confess the bond?
Antonio
I do.
Portia
Then must the Jew be merciful.
Shylock
On what compulsion must I? tell me that.
Portia
The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
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