Peering in maps for ports and piers and roads ;' Would make me sad. SALARINO. 10 My wind cooling my broth Would blow me to an ague, when I thought And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand," To kiss her burial. Should I go to church And see the holy edifice of stone, And not bethink me straight 13 of dangerous rocks, And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought That such a thing bechanc'd would make me sad? Is sad to think upon his merchandise. ANTONIO. Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for it, My ventures are not in one bottom '5 trusted, Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate SALARINO. Fie, fie! Not in love neither? Then let us say you are sad, That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile, 17 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, 20 If worthier friends had not prevented 2o 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 : SALARINO. 21 must it be so? 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 22 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. With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come, Than my heart cool with mortifying groans. As who should say And when I ope my lips let no dog bark!" That therefore only are reputed wise For saying nothing, who, I am very sure, If they should speak, would almost damn those ears But fish not, with this melancholy bait, Come, good Lorenzo. Fare ye well awhile : LORENZO. Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time: For Gratiano never lets me speak. GRATIANO. Well, keep me company but two years moe,31 Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue. ΑΝΤΟΝΙΟ. Farewell: I'll grow a talker for this gear.32 GRATIANO. Thanks, i' faith, for silence is only commendable In a neat's tongue dried. [Exeunt GRATIANO and LORENZO. ANTONIO. Is that any thing now? BASSANIO. Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search. ANTONIO. Well, tell me now what lady is the same To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage, That you to-day promised to tell me of? BASSANIO. 'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio, How much I have disabled mine estate, 34 By something 33 showing a more swelling port To unburden all my plots and purposes How to get clear of all the debts I owe. ANTONIO. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it; My purse, my person, my extremest means, BASSANIO. In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft I shot his fellow of the self-same flight 39 The self-same way, with more advised 4° watch, To find the other forth," and by adventuring both I owe you much, and like a wilful 43 youth, To shoot another arrow that self 44 way Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt, As I will watch the aim, or to find both Or bring your latter hazard back again And thankfully rest debtor for the first. ANTONIO. You know me well, and herein spend but time To wind about my love with circumstance; 45 And out of doubt you do me now more wrong In making question of my uttermost 46 Than if you had made waste of all I have: BASSANIO. In Belmont is a lady richly left; 48 Renowned suitors, and her sunny locks Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strand, 52 O my Antonio, had I but the means ANTONIO. Thou know'st that all my fortunes are at sea; To raise a present sum: therefore go forth; SCENE II. Belmont. A room in PORTIA'S house. Enter PORTIA and NERISSA. [Exeunt. PORTIA. By my troth,' Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world. NERISSA. You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same abundance as your good fortunes are: and yet, for aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing. It is no mean happiness therefore, to be seated in the mean: superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer. PORTIA. Good sentences and well pronounced. NERISSA. They would be better, if well followed. PORTIA. If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree: such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel the cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to choose me a husband. O me, the word "choose!" I may neither choose whom I would nor refuse whom I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one nor refuse none? 2 NERISSA. Your father was ever virtuous: and holy men at their |