THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. William Shakespeare

Fare you well; I’ll grow a talker for this gear.

       GRATIANO.

       Thanks, i’ faith, for silence is only commendable

       In a neat’s tongue dried, and a maid not vendible.

       [Exeunt GRATIANO and LORENZO.]

       ANTONIO.

       Is that anything now?

       BASSANIO. 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.

       ANTONIO.

       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?

       BASSANIO.

       ‘Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,

       How much I have disabled mine estate

       By something showing a more swelling port

       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.

       ANTONIO.

       I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it;

       And if it stand, as you yourself still do,

       Within the eye of honour, be assur’d

       My purse, my person, my extremest means,

       Lie all unlock’d to your occasions.

       BASSANIO.

       In my schooldays, when I had lost one shaft,

       I shot his fellow of the selfsame flight

       The selfsame way, with more advised watch,

       To find the other forth; and by adventuring both

       I oft found both. I urge this childhood proof,

       Because what follows is pure innocence.

       I owe you much; and, like a wilful youth,

       That which I owe is lost; but if you please

       To shoot another arrow that self way

       Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,

       As I will watch the aim, or to find both,

       Or bring your latter hazard back again

       And thankfully rest debtor for the first.

       ANTONIO.

       You know me well, and herein spend but time

       To wind about my love with circumstance;

       And out of doubt you do me now more wrong

       In making question of my uttermost

       Than if you had made waste of all I have.

       Then do but say to me what I should do

       That in your knowledge may by me be done,

       And I am prest unto it; therefore, speak.

       BASSANIO.

       In Belmont is a lady richly left,

       And she is fair and, fairer than that word,

       Of wondrous virtues. Sometimes from her eyes

       I did receive fair speechless messages:

       Her name is Portia—nothing undervalu’d

       To Cato’s daughter, Brutus’ Portia:

       Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth,

       For the four winds blow in from every coast

       Renowned suitors, and her sunny locks

       Hang on her temples like a golden fleece;

       Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos’ strond,

       And many Jasons come in quest of her.

       O my Antonio! had I but the means

       To hold a rival place with one of them,

       I have a mind presages me such thrift

       That I should questionless be fortunate.

       ANTONIO.

       Thou know’st that all my fortunes are at sea;

       Neither have I money nor commodity

       To raise a present sum; therefore go forth,

       Try what my credit can in Venice do;

       That shall be rack’d, even to the uttermost,

       To furnish thee to Belmont to fair Portia.

       Go presently inquire, and so will I,

       Where money is; and I no question make

       To have it of my trust or for my sake.

       [Exeunt]

      SCENE 2. Belmont. A room in PORTIA’S house

       [Enter PORTIA and NERISSA.]

       PORTIA. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world.

       NERISSA. 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 come sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.

       PORTIA.

       Good sentences, and well pronounced.

       NERISSA.

       They would be better, if well followed.

       PORTIA. 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 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 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 daughter curb’d by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refuse none?

       NERISSA. Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their death have good inspirations; therefore the lott’ry 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?

       PORTIA. I pray thee over-name them; and as thou namest them, I will describe them; and according to my description, level at my affection.

       NERISSA.

       First, there is the Neapolitan prince.

       PORTIA. 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 afeard my lady his mother play’d false with a smith.

       NERISSA.

       Then is there the County Palatine.