William Shakespeare - Ultimate Collection: Complete Plays & Poetry in One Volume. William Shakespeare

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?

       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 threaten’st than dost promise aught,

       Thy plainness moves me more than eloquence,

       And here choose I: joy be the consequence!

       PORTIA.

       [Aside] How all the other passions fleet to air,

       As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embrac’d despair,

       And shuddering 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!

       BASSANIO.

       What find I here? [Opening the leaden casket.]

       Fair Portia’s counterfeit! What demigod

       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 t’ 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 underprizing it, so far this shadow

       Doth limp behind the substance. Here’s the scroll,

       The continent and summary of my fortune.

       ‘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 to where your lady is

       And claim her with a loving kiss.’

       A gentle scroll. Fair lady, by your leave; {Kissing her.]

       I come by note, to give and to receive.

       Like one of two contending in a prize,

       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.

       PORTIA.

       You see me, 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 something 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’s. 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.

       BASSANIO.

       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

       As, after some oration fairly spoke

       By a beloved prince, there doth appear

       Among the buzzing pleased multitude;

       Where every something, being blent together,

       Turns to a wild of nothing, save of joy,

       Express’d and not express’d. But when this ring

       Parts from this finger, then parts life from hence:

       O! then be bold to say Bassanio’s dead.