Enter Bassanio, Lorenzo, and Gratiano. Salan. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman, Gratiano, and Lorenzo: Fare you well; merry, If worthier friends had not prevented me. Bass. Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? You grow exceeding strange: Must it be so? We two will leave you: but, at dinner-time, Gra. You look not well, signior Antonio; Ant. I hold the world but as the world, Gra tiano; A stage, where every man must play a part, Gra. Let me play the fool: Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the jaundice There are a sort of men, whose visages If they should speak, would almost damn those ears, Which, hearing them, would call their brothers, fools. I'll tell thee more of this another time: Come, good Lorenzo:-Fare ye well, a while; Lor. Well, we will leave you then till dinnertime: I must be one of these same dumb wise men, Gra. Well, keep me company but two years more, Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue. Ant. Farewell: I'll grow a talker for this gear. Gra. Thanks, i'faith; for silence is only com mendable In a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not vendible. [Exeunt Gratiano and Lorenzo. Ant. Is that any thing now? Bass. 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. Ant. Well; tell me now, what lady is this same (1) Obstinate silence. To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage, Ant. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it; Bass. In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft, I shot his fellow of the self-same flight The self-same way, with more advised watch, Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt, Ant. You know me well; and herein spend but time, To wind about my love with circumstance; Than if you had made waste of all I have: Then do but say to me what I should do, Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth; Ant. Thou know'st, that all my fortunes are a' sca; Nor have I money, nor commodity To raise a present sum: therefore Where money is; and I no question make, To have it of my trust, or for my sake. [Exeun.. SCENE II.-Belmont. A room in Portia's house. Enter Portia and Nerissa. Por. By my troth, Nerissa, iny 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 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. Por. Good sentences, and well pronounced. 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: 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 over 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 curb'd by the will of a dead father:-Is it not hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refuse none? 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, 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, 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, that he can shoe him himself: I am much afraid, my lady, his (1) A heady, gay youngster. |