Since you have shore With shears his thread of silk. Tongue, not a word! Come, trusty sword; Come, blade, my breast imbrue; And, farewell, friends; Thus, Thisby ends. Adieu, adieu, adieu. $50 [Stabs herself.] [Dies.] The. Moonshine and Lion are left to bury [355 the dead. Dem. Ay, and Wall too. [Bot. Starting up.] No, I assure you; the wall is down that parted their fathers. Will it please you to see the epilogue, or to hear a Bergomask dance between two of our company? [361 The. No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no excuse. Never excuse; for when the players are all dead, there need none to be blamed. Marry, if he that writ it had played Pyramus and hang'd himself in Thisbe's gar- [305 ter, it would have been a fine tragedy; and so it is, truly; and very notably discharg'd. But, come, your Bergomask; let your epilogue alone. [A dance.] 371 The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve. Enter ROBIN GOODFELLOW. Robin. Now the hungry lion roars, 376 [Exeunt. And the wolf behowls the moon; Whilst the heavy ploughman snores, 380 All with weary task fordone. Now the wasted brands do glow, Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud, Puts the wretch that lies in woe In remembrance of a shroud. 385 Now it is the time of night That the graves, all gaping wide, Every one lets forth his sprite, In the church-way paths to glide. And we fairies, that do run By the triple Hecate's team From the presence of the sun, Following darkness like a dream, Now are frolic. Not a mouse Shall disturb this hallowed house. I am sent with broom before, To sweep the dust behind the door. Enter OBERON and TITANIA with their train. Obe. Through the house give glimmering light By the dead and drowsy fire, Every elf and fairy sprite Hop as light as bird from brier; Sing, and dance it trippingly. 400 405 Tita. First, rehearse your song by rote, Obe. Now, until the break of day, 410 415 420 And each several chamber bless, Trip away; make no stay; 426 430 [Exeunt [Oberon, Titania, and train]. Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue, So, good night unto you all. 435 440 445 [Exit.] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE On July 22, 1598, James Roberts entered The Marchaunt of Venyce or otherwise called the Jewe of Venyce in the Stationers' Register, and in the same year the play was named in Meres's list. These two references fix a later limit for the date of the play; but no evidence equally strong has been found for an earlier. An entry in Henslowe's Diary notes the first production of "the Venesyon comodey" on August 25, 1594, in the theatre in which Shakespeare's company was then acting; and this has been interpreted as referring to The Merchant of Venice. But the frequency of plots from Italian sources makes the identification precarious. In 1594 Dr. Roderigo Lopez, a prominent Jewish physician, was hanged in London on a charge of treason and conspiracy to murder Queen Elizabeth and the Portuguese pretender, Antonio Perez. It has been supposed that the present play was produced about this time in order to take advantage of the popular excitement stirred up by the enemies of Lopez against Jews; and a slight corroboration of this theory has been found in the occurrence of the name Antonio as that of the intended victim in both the history and the drama. But the maturity exhibited in the workmanship of the play has made scholars reluctant to accept so early a date, and it is probably not earlier than 1596. Though registered in 1598, the comedy did not appear till 1600, when two quartos were published, one by James Roberts, the other by Thomas Heyes, both, apparently, printed by Roberts. The text of the First Folio is taken from Heyes's edition. Opinion is divided as to the comparative merits of Roberts's and Heyes's quartos. Though differing but slightly, they seem to be printed from independent transcripts of the same copy of the original manuscript, so that neither can claim a superior authority throughout. The present text is the result of an attempt to reach as nearly as possible their original from a comparison of the readings in each case of variation. It seems likely that Shakespeare's immediate source was a lost play of whose existence we are aware from a passage in Gosson's School of Abuse (1579), in which he speaks of the prose play of the Jew shown at the Bull, "representing the greediness of worldly chusers, and bloody mindes of Usurers." This is plausibly interpreted as indicating a play combining the story of the caskets with that of the pound of flesh. The connection of a ballad of uncertain date on the cruelty of "Gernutus the Jew" with Shakespeare's play is slight and doubtful in the extreme. Our author or his immediate predecessor, however, in all probability did have access to the first novel of the fourth day in Ser Giovanni Fiorentino's Il Pecorone (1378), which combines the stories of the bond and the rings, and names Belmont as the lady's residence. In the fourteenth tale of Masuccio di Salerno (fl. ca. 1470) a young man elopes with a miser's daughter who carries off her father's jewels; but the resemblance to the story of Jessica and Lorenzo is not strong enough to prove a connection. The only other document of importance as a possible immediate source is a declamation in The Orator by Alexander Silvayn, translated into English, and printed in 1596. After a summary of the story of the bond, Silvayn gives speeches by the Jew and the merchant, and the former of these may well have supplied hints for some of Shylock's lines. Besides the story of the caskets, however, both the underplots of Jessica and of Nerissa are absent from all of these extant versions of the story of the bond. Yet, so long as the play mentioned by Gosson remains undiscovered, it is impossible to say how much of the elaborate construction of The Merchant of Venice is due to Shakespeare, and how much to his unknown predecessor. The constituent elements of the plot, when taken apart, are found to belong to several very old and widespread traditions. The story of the pound of flesh occurs in Oriental legend, in the Dolopathos, the Gesta Romanorum, the Cursor Mundi, and elsewhere. The story of the caskets appears in the romance of Barlaam and Josaphat, in the Speculum Historiale of Vincent of Beauvais, and in the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine; while somewhat similar tales on the deceptiveness of appearances are still more widespread. Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of Justice, Gaoler, Servants to Portia, and other attendants. SCENE: Partly at Venice and partly at Belmont, the seat of Portia.] ACT I [SCENE I. Venice. A street.] Enter ANTONIO, SALARINO, and SALANIO. Ant. In sooth, I know not why I am so sad. And such a want-wit sadness makes of me, Salar. Your mind is tossing on the ocean, 15 The better part of my affections would 20 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. And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper, That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile, Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable. 55 Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO. Salan. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman, Gratiano, and Lorenzo. Fare ye well; If worthier friends had not prevented me. 90 By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio ears 95 nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in [116 two bushels of chaff; you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search. Ant. Well, tell me now what lady is the same To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage, That you to-day promis'd to tell me of? 120 Bass. "T is not unknown to you, Antonio, How much I have disabled mine estate By something showing a more swelling port 124 Than my faint means would grant continuance. Nor do I now make moan to be abridg'd From such a noble rate; but my chief care Is to come fairly off from the great debts Wherein my time something too prodigal Hath left me gag'd. To you, Antonio, I owe the most, in money and in love, And from your love I have a warranty To unburden all my plots and purposes How to get clear of all the debts I owe. Ant. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it; And if it stand, as you yourself still do, 13 135 Bass. In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft, I shot his fellow of the self-same flight 140 To find the other forth, and by adventuring both I oft found both. I urge this childhood proof, I owe you much, and, like a wilful youth, 245 150 Ant. You know me well, and herein spend but time 156 160 To wind about my love with circumstance; SCENE II. [Belmont. A room in Portia's house.] Enter PORTIA with her waiting-woman, NERISSA. Por. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world. Ner. 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 [s 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. 10 Por. Good sentences and well pronounc'd. Ner. They would be better, if well followed. Por. 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; [15 can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than to 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 [20 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 who I would nor refuse who I dislike; so is the will of a living [25 daughter curb'd by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one nor refuse none? 29 Ner. Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their death have good inspirations; therefore the lottery that he hath devised in these three chests of gold, silver, and lead, whereof who chooses his meaning chooses you, will, no doubt, never be chosen by any rightly [35 but one who you shall rightly love. But what warmth is there in your affection towards any of these princely suitors that are already come? Por. I pray thee, over-name them; and as thou namest them, I will describe them; and, [40 according to my description, level at my affection. Ner. First, there is the Neapolitan prince. Por. Ay, that's a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of his horse; and he makes it a great appropriation to his own good parts, [45 that he can shoe him himself. I am much afeard my lady his mother played false with a smith. Ner. Then there is the County Palatine. Por. He doth nothing but frown, as who [ should say, "If you will not have me, choose." He hears merry tales and smiles not. I fear he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old, being so full of unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather be married to a [ death's-head with a bone in his mouth than to either of these. God defend me from these two! Ner. How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon ? Por. God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker; but, he! why, he hath a horse better than the Neapolitan's, a better bad habit of frowning than the Count Palatine. He is every man in no man. If a throstle sing, he falls straight a capering. He will fence with [ his own shadow. If I should marry him, I should marry twenty husbands. If he would despise me, I would forgive him, for if he love me to madness, I shall never requite him. Ner. What say you, then, to Falconbridge, the young baron of England? Por. You know I say nothing to him, for he understands not me, nor I him. He hath neither Latin, French, nor Italian, and you will come into the court and swear that I have a [75 poor pennyworth in the English. He is a proper man's picture, but, alas, who can converse with a dumb-show? How oddly he is suited! I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and [ his behaviour everywhere. Ner. What think you of the Scottish lord his neighbour? Por. That he hath a neighbourly charity in [ him, for he borrowed a box of the ear of the Englishman and swore he would pay him again when he was able. I think the Frenchman became his surety and seal'd under for another. Ner. How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony's nephew? Por. Very vilely in the morning, when he is sober, and most vilely in the afternoon, when he is drunk. When he is best, he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast. An the worst fall [95 that ever fell, I hope I shall make shift to go without him. Ner. If he should offer to choose, and choose the right casket, you should refuse to perform your father's will, if you should refuse to [101 accept him. Por. Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee, set a deep glass of rhenish wine on the contrary casket, for if the devil be within and that temptation without, I know he will_[108 choose it. I will do anything, Nerissa, ere I'll be married to a sponge. Ner. You need not fear, lady, the having any of these lords. They have acquainted me with their determinations; which is, in- [110 deed, to return to their home and to trouble you with no more suit, unless you may be won by some other sort than your father's imposition depending on the caskets. |