I lose your company; therefore, forbear a while:
There's something tells me (but it is not love),
I would not lose you; and you know yourself,
Hate counsels not in such a quality:

But lest you should not understand me well
(And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought),
I would detain you here some month or two,
Before you venture for me. I could teach you
How to choose right, but then I am forsworn ;
So will I never be so may you miss me;
But if you do, you'll make me wish a sin,
That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes,
They have o'erlook'd me, and divided me ;
One half of me is yours, the other half yours-
Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours
And so all yours! O, these naughty times
Put bars between the owners and their rights!
And so, though yours, not yours.—Prove it so :
I speak too long; but 'tis to peize the time;3
To eke it, and to draw it out in length,
To stay you from election.

Bass.

Let me choose; For, as I am, I live upon the rack.

Por. Upon the rack, Bassanio! then confess What treason there is mingled with your love.

Bass. None, but that ugly treason of mistrust, Which makes me fear the enjoying of my love: There may as well be amity and life

'Tween snow and fire, as treason and my love.

Por. Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack, Where men enforced do speak anything.

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.

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.—

Let music sound, while he doth make his choice;
Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,
Fading in music: that the comparison

May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream,
And watery death-bed for him: he may win;
And what is music then? then music is
Even as the flourish when true subjects bow
To a new-crowned monarch: such it is,
As are those dulcet sounds in break of day,
That creep into the dreaming bridegroom's ear,
And summon him to marriage.-Now he goes,
With no less presence, but with much more love,
Than young Alcides, when he did redeem
The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy
To the sea-monster: I stand for sacrifice,
The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives,
With bleared visages, come forth to view
The issue of the exploit. Go, Hercules!
Live thou, I live:—with much much more dismay
I view the fight, than thou that mak'st the fray.

Music, whilst BASSANIO comments on the Caskets to himself.

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'fatal' error, but some sober brow Will bless it, and approve it with a text, Hiding the grossness with fair ornament? 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 excrement, To render them redoubted! Look on beauty, And you shall see 'tis purchas'd by the weight; Which therein works a miracle in nature, Making them lightest that wear most of it: So are those crisped snaky golden locks, Which make such wanton gambols with the wind, Upon supposed fairness, often known

To be the dowry of a second head,

The skull that bred them in the sepulchre.

Thus ornament is but the guiled shore

To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf
Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,

The seeming truth which cunning times put on
To entrap the wisest. Therefore, thou gaudy gold,
Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee:

Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge
"Tween man and man. But thou, thou meagre lead,
Which rather threat'nest than dost promise aught,
Thy plainness moves me more than eloquence,5
And here choose I-joy be the consequence !
Por. How all the other passions fleet to air,

As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embrac'd despair,
And shudd'ring fear, and green-ey'd jealousy!
O love, be moderate, allay thy ecstasy,
In measure rain thy joy, scant this excess !
I feel too much thy blessing; make it less,
For fear I surfeit !

Bass.

What find I here?

[Opening the leaden casket.

Fair Portia's counterfeit! What demi-god
Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes?
Or whether, riding on the balls of mine,
Seem they in motion? Here are sever'd lips,
Parted with sugar breath; so sweet a bar

Should sunder such sweet friends. Here in her hairs
The painter plays the spider; and hath woven
A golden mesh to entrap the hearts of men,
Faster than gnats in cobwebs: but her eyes-
How could he see to do them? having made one,
Methinks it should have power to steal both his,
And leave itself unfurnish'd. Yet look, how far
The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow
In underprising it, so far this shadow

Doth limp behind the substance.—Here's the scroll,
The continent and summary of my fortune.

[Reads.]

'You that choose not by the view,
Chance as fair, and choose as true!
Since this fortune falls to you,
Be content, and seek no new.

If you be well pleas'd with this,
And hold your fortune for your bliss,

Turn you where your lady is,

And claim her with a loving kiss.'

A gentle scroll.-Fair lady, by your leave:

I come by note, to give and to receive.
Like one of two contending in a prize,

[Kissing her.

That thinks he hath done well in people's eyes,
Hearing applause and universal shout,

Giddy in spirit, still gazing in a doubt
Whether those peals of praise be his or no ;
So, thrice fair lady, stand I, even so;
As doubtful whether what I see be true,
Until confirm'd, sign'd, ratified by you.

Por. You see, my Lord Bassanio, where I stand,
Such as I am though, for myself alone,

I would not be ambitious in my wish,

To wish myself much better; yet, for you,

I would be trebled twenty times myself;

A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich;
That only to stand high in your account,

I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends,
Exceed account: but the full sum of me
Is sum of nothing; which, to term in gross,
Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractis'd:
Happy in this, she is not yet so old

But she may learn; happier than this,
She is not bred so dull but she can learn ;
Happiest of all, is, that her gentle spirit
Commits itself to yours to be directed,
As from her lord, her governor, her king.
Myself, and what is mine, to you and yours
Is now converted but now I was the lord
Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,
Queen o'er myself; and even now, but now,
This house, these servants, and this same myself,
Are yours, my lord :—I give them with this ring;
Which when you part from, lose, or give away,
Let it presage the ruin of your love,

And be my vantage to exclaim on you.

Bass. Madam, you have bereft me of all words,
Only my blood speaks to you in my veins :
And there is such confusion in my powers,