Tub. But Antonio is certainly undone.

Shy. Nay, that's true, that's very true: Go, Tubal, fee me an officer, bespeak him a fortnight before : I will have the heart of him, if he forfeit; for were he out of Venice, I can make what merchandize I will: Go, go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue; go, good Tubal; at our synagogue, Tubal.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Belmont. A Room in Portia's House.
Enter BassANIO, PORTIA, GRATIANO, NERISSA, and

Attendants. The caskets are set out.
Por. I pray you, tarry; pause a day or two,
Before you hazard; for, in choosing wrong,
I lose your company; therefore, forbear a while:
There's something tells me, (but it is not love)
I would not lose you; and you know yourself,
Hate counsels not in such a quality:
But lest you should not understand me well,
(And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought)
I would detain you here some month or two,
Before you venture for me.

I could teach you
How to choose right, but then I am forsworn;
So will I never be: so may you miss me;

4to. 1569: “The Turkeys doth move when there is any perill prepared to him that weareth it.” P. 51, b.

But Leah (if we may believe Thomas Nicols, sometimes of Jesus College in Cambridge, in his Lapidary, &c.) might have presented Shylock with his turquoise for a better reason; as this stone' “ is likewise said to take away all enmity, and to reconcile. man and wife.”

Other superstitious qualities are imputed to it, all of which were either monitory or preservative to the wearer.

The same quality was supposed to be resident in coral. So, in The Three Ladies of London, 1584:

“ You may say jet will take up a straw, amber will make

one fat,
“ Coral will look pale when you be sick, and chrystal will

stanch blood.”
Thus, Holinshed, speaking of the death of King John: “And
when the King suspected them (the pears) to be poisoned indeed,
by reason that such precious stones as he had about him cast forth
a certain sweat as it were bewraeing the poison,” &c. Steevens.

8

But if you do, you 'll make me wish a sin,
That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes,
They have o’er-look'd me, and divided me;
One half of me is yours, the other half yours,
Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours,
And so all yours:? O! these naughty times
Put bars between the owners and their rights;
And so, though yours, not yours.—Prove it so,
Let fortune go to hell for it—not 1.9
I speak too long; but 'tis to peize the time;'
To eke it, and to draw it out in length,
To stay you from election.
Bass.

Let me choose;
For, as I am, I live upon the rack.

Por. Upon the rack, Bassanio? then confess What treason there is mingled with your love.

Bass. None, but that ugly treason of mistrust,

7 And so all yours:] The latter word is here used as a dissyllable. In the next line but one below, where the same word occurs twice, our author, with his usual license, employs one as a word of two syllables, and the other as a monosyllable. Malone.

8 And so, though yours, not yours.- Prove it so,] It may be more grammatically read:

And so though yours I'm not yours. Johnson. 9 Let fortune go to hell for it, -not 1.] The meaning is, “If the worst I fear should happen, and it should prove in the event, that I, who am justly yours by the free donation I have made you of myself, should yet not be yours in consequence of an unlucky choice, let fortune go to hell for robbing you of your just due, not I for violating my oath.” Heath.

to peize the time ;] Thus the old copies. To peize is from peser, Fr. So, in King Richard III:

“Lest leaden slumber peize me down to-morrow.” To peize the time, therefore, is to retard it by hanging weights upon it. The modern editors read, without authority-piece.

Steevens. To peize, is to weigh, or balancc; and figuratively, to keep in suspense, to delay.

So, in Sir P. Sydney's Apology for Poetry :-"not speaking words as they changeably fall from the mouth, but peyzing each sillable.” Henley.

The true and simple meaning I believe to be poise, perhaps the word was, in those days, pronounced as it is here spelt, peize.

Amer. Edit.

1

Which makes me fear the enjoying of my love:
There may as well be amity and life
'Tween snow and fire, as treason and my love.

Por. Ay, but, I fear, you speak upon the rack,
Where men enforced do speak any thing.

Bass. Promise me life, and I'll confess the truth.
Por. Well then, confess, and live.
Bass.

Confess, and love,
Had been the very sum of my confession:
O happy torment, when my torturer
Doth teach me answers for deliverance!
But let me to my fortune and the caskets.

Por. Away then: I am lock'd in one of them;
If

you do love me, you will find me out.-
Nerissa, and the rest, stand all aloof.-
Let musick sound, while he doth make his choice;
Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,
Fading in musick: that the comparison
May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream,
And wat'ry death-bed for him: He may win;
And what is musick then? then musick is
Even as the flourish when true subjects bow
To a new-crowned monarch: such it is,
As are those dulcet sounds in break of day,
That creep into the dreaming bridegroom's ear,
And summon him to marriage. Now he goes,
With no less presence, but with much more love,
Than young Alcides, when he did redeem
The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy
To the sea-monster:3 I stand for sacrifice,
The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives,
With bleared visages, come forth to view
The issue of the exploit. Go, Hercules!

2 With no less presence,] With the same dignity of mien.

Fohnsun. 3 To the sea-monster :) See Ovid, Metamorph. Lib. XI, ver. 199, et seqq. Shakspeare, however, I believe, had read an account of this adventure in The Destruction of Troy:-“ Laomedon cast his eyes all bewept on him, [Hercules] and was all abashed to see his greatness and his beauty.” See B. I, p. 221, edit. 1617. Malone.

Live thou, I live:— With much much more dismay
I view the fight, than thou that mak’st the fray.*
Musick, whilst BASSANIO comments on the caskets to

himself.

SONG.
1. Tell me where is fancys bred,

Or in the heart, or in the head?

How begot, how nourished? Reply.

2. It is engender'd in the eyes,

With gazing fed; and fancy dies
In the cradle where it lies:

Let us all ring fancy's knell;
I'll begin it,Ding dong, bell.

All. Ding, dong, bell.
Bass.-So may the outward shows7 be least them.

selves;
The world is still deceiv'd with ornament.
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,
But, being season'd with a gracious voice, 8
Obscures the show of evil? In religion,
What damned error, but some sober brow
Will bless it, and approve it' with a text,
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?
4 Live thou, I live :-With much much more dismay

I view the fight, than thou that mak’st the fray.) One of the quartos [Roberts's] reads:

Live then, I live with much more dismay

To view the fight, than &c. The folio, 1623, thus:

Live thou, I live with much more dismay

I view the fight, than &c.
Heyes's quarto gives the present reading. Fohnson.

- fancy -] i. e. Love. So, in A Middsummer-Night's Dream :

“ Than sighs and tears, poor fancy's followers.” Steevens.

· Reply.] The words, reply, reply, were in all the late editions, except Sir T. Hanmer's, put as verse in the song'; but in all the old copies stand as a marginal direction. Johnson.

7 So may the outward shows -] He begins abruptly; the first part of the argument has passed in his mind. Johnson.

-gracious voice,] Pleasing; winning favour. Johnson.

5

6

There is no vice so simple, but assumes
Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.
How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false
As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins
The beards of Hercules, and frowning Mars;
Who, inward search’d, have livers white as milk?
And these assume but valour's excrement, 2
To render them redoubted. Look on beauty,
And you shall see 'tis purchased by the weight;S
Which therein works a miracle in nature,
Making them lightest that wear most of it:*
So are those crispeds snaky golden locks,
Which make such wanton gambols with the wind,
Upon supposed fairness, often known
To be the dowry of a second head,
The scull that bred them, in the sepulchre.
Thus ornament is but the guiled shore?

2

3

approve it-] i. e. justify it. So, in Antony and Cleopatra :

I am full sorry “ That he approves the common liar, fame.” Steevens. 1 There is no vice -] The old copies read-voice. The emendation was made by the editor of the second folio. Malone.

valour's excrement,] i. e. what a little higher is called the beard of Hercules. So, “pedler's excrement,” in The Winter's Tale Malone.

by the weight;] That is, artificial beauty is purchased so; as, false hair, &c. Steevens.

4 Making them lightest that wear most of it:] Lightest is here used in a wanton sense. So afterwards :

“Let me be light, but let me not seem light.” Malone.

crisped - ] i. e. curled. So, in The Philosopher's Satires, by Robert Anton:

“ Her face as beauteous as the crisped morn.” Steevens.

in the sepulchre.] See a note on Timon of Athens, Act IV, sc. iii. Shakspeare has likewise satirized this yet prevail ing fashion in Love's Labour's Lost. Steevens.

the guiled shore - ] i. e. the treacherous shore. The Pilgrim, by Beaumont and Fletcher:

“ Or only a fair show to guile his mischiefs." I should not have thought the word wanted explanation, but that some of our modern editors have rejected it, and read gilded. Guiled is the reading of all the ancient copies. Shakspeare in

5

6

7

So, in