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There may as well be amity and league "Tween snow and fire, as2 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.

[Curtain drawn from before 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.—

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60

With bleared visages, come forth to view
The issue of th' exploit. Go, Hercules!
Live thou, I live: -with much much more
dismay

I view the fight than thou that mak'st the fray.]

Music, and the following Song, whilst BASSANIO comments on the caskets to himself.

Tell me where is fancy bred,
Or in the heart or in the head?
How begot, how nourished?
Reply, reply.

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.

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Bass. So may the outward shows be least

themselves:

The world is still deceiv'd with ornament.
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,
But, being season'd with a gracious voice,
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? so
[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 excrements

To render them redoubted! Look on beauty, And you shall see 't is purchas'd by the