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Become the touches of sweet harmony,
Sit, Jeffica: look, how the floor of heav'n
Is thick inlay'd with patterns of bright gold;
There's not the smallest orb, which thou behold'ft,
But in his motion like an angel fings,

Still quiring to the young-ey'd cherubims;
Such harmony is in immortal founds ! (31)
But whilft this muddy vefture of decay
Doth grofly clofe us in, we cannot hear it.
Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn;
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear,
And draw her home with mufick.

Jef. I'm never merry, when I hear fweet mufick. [Mufick. Lor. The reafon is, your fpirits are attentive ; For do but note a wild and wanton herd, Or race of youthful and unhandled colts, Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud, (Which is the hot condition of their blood) If they perchance but hear a trumpet found, Or any air of mufick touch their ears, You fhall perceive them make a mutual ftand; Their favage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze,

By the sweet power of mufick. Therefore, the poet Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, ftones, and floods $ Since nought fo stockish, hard and full of rage,

(31) Such barmony is in immortal fouls;] But the harmony here defcribed is that of the fpheres, fo much celebrated by the ancients. He fays, the fmalleft orb fings like an angel; and then fubjoins, fich barmony is in immortal fouls: but the harmony of angels is not here meant, but of the orbs. Nor are we to think, that here the poet alludes to the notion, that each orb has its intelligence or angel to direct it; for then with no propriety could he fay, the orb fung like an angel: he should rather have laid, the angel in the orb fung. We must therefore correct the line thus ;

Such barmony is in immortal founds: i. e. in the mufick of the spheres. Mr. Warburton.

Macrobius, I remember, accounts for our not hearing that mufick, which is produc'd by the conftant volubility of the heavens, from the organs in the human ear not being capable, thro' their ftraitness, of admitting fo vehement a found. Muficam perpetua cæli volubilitate rafcentem ideo claro non fentimus auditu, quia major fonus eft quam us bumanarum aurium recipiatur anguftiis.

But

But mufick for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no mufick in himself,

Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treafons, ftratagems, and fpoils;
The motions of his fpirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus :

Let no fuch man be trufted.

Mark the mufick.

Enter Portia and Neriffa.

Por. That light we fee, is burning in my hall :
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So fhines a good deed in a naughty world.

Ner. When the moon fhone, we did not fee the candle.
Por. So doth the greater glory dim the less;
A substitute shines brightly as a King,
Until a King be by; and then his state
Empties itfelf, as doth an inland brook
Into the main of waters. Mufick, hark!
Ner. It is the mufick, madam, of your house.
Por. Nothing is good, 1 fee, without refpect:
Methinks, it founds much fweeter than by day.

[Mufick.

Ner. Silence beftows the virtue on it, madam.
Por. The crow doth fing as fweetly as the lark,
When neither is attended; and, I think,
The nightingale, if the fhould fing by day,
When every goofe is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.

How many things by feason feafon'd are
To their right praife, and true perfection ?
Peace! how the moon fleeps with Endimion,
And would not be awaked!

Lor. That is the voice,

Or I am much deceiv'd, of Portia.

[Mufick ceafes.

Por. He knows me, as the blind man knows the cuckow,

By the bad voice.

Lor. Dear Lady, welcome home.

Por. We have been praying for our husbands healths, Which speed, we hope, the better for our words. Are they return'd ?

Lor. Madam, they are not yet;

But

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Give order to my fervants, that they take
No note at all of our being abfent hence;

Nor you, Lorenzo; Jeffica, nor you. [A Tucket founds. Lor. Your husband is at hand, I hear his trumpet: We are no tell-tales, madam, fear you not.

Por. This night, methinks, is but the day-light fick; It looks a little paler; 'tis a day,

Such as the day is when the fun is hid.

Enter Baffanio, Antonio, Gratiano, and their followers.
Baff. We fhould hold day with the Antipodes,
If you would walk in abfence of the fun.

Por. Let me give light, but let me not be light;
For a light wife doth make a heavy husband;
And never be Bassanio fo from me;

But God fort all you're welcome home, my lord.
Baff. I thank you, madam: give welcome to my friend;
This is the man, this is Antonio,

To whom I am fo infinitely bound.

Por. You should in all sense be much bound to him ; For, as I hear, he was much bound for you.

Anth. No more than I am well acquitted of. Por. Sir, you are very welcome to our house; It must appear in other ways than words ; Therefore I fcant this breathing courtesy.

Gra. By yonder moon, I fwear, you do me wrong;

In faith I gave it to the judge's clerk. [To Neriffa.
Would he were gelt that had it, for my part,
Since you do take it, love, fo much at heart.
Por. A quarrel, ho, already! what's the matter?
Gra. About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring,
That she did give me, whofe poefy was
For all the world like cutler's poetry
Upon a knife; Love me, and leave me not.
Ner. What talk you of the poefy, or the value?
You swore to me, when I did give it you,
That you would wear it till your hour of death,

And

And that it should lye with you in your grave:
Tho' not for me, yet for your vehement oaths,
You should have been refpective, and have kept it.
Gave it a judge's clerk! but well I know,

The clerk will ne'er wear hair on's face, that had it.
Gra. He will, an if he live to be a man.

Ner. Ay, if a woman live to be a man.
Gra. Now, by this hand, I gave it to a youth,
A kind of boy, a little scrubbed boy,
No higher than thyfelf, the judge's clerk;
A prating boy, that begg'd it as a fee:

I could not for my heart deny it him.

Por. You were to blame, I must be plain with you,
To part fo flightly with your wife's first gift;
A thing ftuck on with oaths upon your finger,
And riveted with faith unto your flesh.

I gave my love a ring, and made him fwear
Never to part with it; and here he stands,
I dare be fworn for him, he would not leave it,
Nor pluck it from his finger, for the wealth
That the world mafters. Now, in faith, Gratiano,
You give your wife too unkind a cause of grief;
An 'twere to me, I fhould be mad at it.

Baff. Why, I were beft to cut my left hand off,
And fwear I loft the ring defending it.

Gra. My lord Baffanio gave his ring away Unto the judge that begg'd it, and, indeed, Deferv'd it too; and then the boy, his clerk, That took fome pains in writing, he begg'd mine; And neither man, nor maiter, would take ought But the two rings.

Por. What ring gave you, my Lord?

Not that, I hope, which you receiv'd of me.
Baff. If I could add a lie unto a fault,

I would deny it, but you fee my finger
Hath not the ring upon it, it is gone.

Por. Even fo void is your false heart of truth.
By heav'n, I will ne'er come in your bed

Until I fee the ring.

Ner. Nor I in

yours,

[Afide.

'Till I again fee mine

If

Baff. Sweet Portia,

you

If you did know to whom I gave the ring,
did know for whom I gave the ring,
And would conceive for what I gave the ring,
And how unwillingly I left the ring,

When nought would be accepted but the ring,
You would abate the ftrength of your displeasure.
Por. If you had known the virtue of the ring,
Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,
Or your own honour to retain the ring.
You would not then have parted with the ring.
What man is there fo much unreasonable,
If you had pleas'd to have defended it
With any terms of zeal, wanted the modesty
To urge the thing held as a ceremony?
Neriffa teaches me what to believe;

I'll die for't, but fome woman had the ring.

Ba. No, by mine honour, madam, by my foul, No woman had it, but a Civil Doctor,

Who did refuse three thousand ducats of me,
And begg'd the ring; the which I did deny him,
And fuffer'd him to go difpleas'd away;

Ev'n he, that did uphold the very life

Of my dear friend. What should I say, sweet Lady ? I was enforc'd to send it after him;

I was befet with shame and courtesy ;

My honour would not let ingratitude

So much befmear it. Pardon me, good Lady,
And by these bleffed candles of the night,

Had you been there, I think, you would have begg'd
The ring of me, to give the worthy Doctor.

Por. Let not that Doctor e'er come near my house,

Since he hath got the jewel that I lov'd,

And that which you did fwear to keep for me;
I will become as liberal as you ;

I'll not deny him any thing I have,

No, not my body, nor my husband's bed;
Know him I fhall, I am well fure of it.

Lye not a night from home; watch me, like Argus:

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