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

My lord and lady, it is now our time,

       That have stood by and seen our wishes prosper,

       To cry, good joy. Good joy, my lord and lady!

       GRATIANO.

       My Lord Bassanio, and my gentle lady,

       I wish you all the joy that you can wish;

       For I am sure you can wish none from me;

       And when your honours mean to solemnize

       The bargain of your faith, I do beseech you

       Even at that time I may be married too.

       BASSANIO.

       With all my heart, so thou canst get a wife.

       GRATIANO.

       I thank your lordship, you have got me one.

       My eyes, my lord, can look as swift as yours:

       You saw the mistress, I beheld the maid;

       You lov’d, I lov’d; for intermission

       No more pertains to me, my lord, than you.

       Your fortune stood upon the caskets there,

       And so did mine too, as the matter falls;

       For wooing here until I sweat again,

       And swearing till my very roof was dry

       With oaths of love, at last, if promise last,

       I got a promise of this fair one here

       To have her love, provided that your fortune

       Achiev’d her mistress.

       PORTIA.

       Is this true, Nerissa?

       NERISSA.

       Madam, it is, so you stand pleas’d withal.

       BASSANIO.

       And do you, Gratiano, mean good faith?

       GRATIANO.

       Yes, faith, my lord.

       BASSANIO.

       Our feast shall be much honour’d in your marriage.

       GRATIANO. We’ll play with them the first boy for a thousand ducats.

       NERISSA.

       What! and stake down?

       GRATIANO.

       No; we shall ne’er win at that sport, and stake down.

       But who comes here? Lorenzo and his infidel?

       What, and my old Venetian friend, Salanio!

       [Enter LORENZO, JESSICA, and SALANIO.]

       BASSANIO.

       Lorenzo and Salanio, welcome hither,

       If that the youth of my new interest here

       Have power to bid you welcome. By your leave,

       I bid my very friends and countrymen,

       Sweet Portia, welcome.

       PORTIA.

       So do I, my lord;

       They are entirely welcome.

       LORENZO.

       I thank your honour. For my part, my lord,

       My purpose was not to have seen you here;

       But meeting with Salanio by the way,

       He did entreat me, past all saying nay,

       To come with him along.

       SALANIO.

       I did, my lord,

       And I have reason for it. Signior Antonio

       Commends him to you.

       [Gives BASSANIO a letter]

       BASSANIO.

       Ere I ope his letter,

       I pray you tell me how my good friend doth.

       SALANIO.

       Not sick, my lord, unless it be in mind;

       Nor well, unless in mind; his letter there

       Will show you his estate.

       GRATIANO.

       Nerissa, cheer yon stranger; bid her welcome.

       Your hand, Salanio. What’s the news from Venice?

       How doth that royal merchant, good Antonio?

       I know he will be glad of our success:

       We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece.

       SALANIO.

       I would you had won the fleece that he hath lost.

       PORTIA.

       There are some shrewd contents in yon same paper.

       That steal the colour from Bassanio’s cheek:

       Some dear friend dead, else nothing in the world

       Could turn so much the constitution

       Of any constant man. What, worse and worse!

       With leave, Bassanio: I am half yourself,

       And I must freely have the half of anything

       That this same paper brings you.

       BASSANIO.

       O sweet Portia!

       Here are a few of the unpleasant’st words

       That ever blotted paper. Gentle lady,

       When I did first impart my love to you,

       I freely told you all the wealth I had

       Ran in my veins, I was a gentleman;

       And then I told you true. And yet, dear lady,

       Rating myself at nothing, you shall see

       How much I was a braggart. When I told you

       My state was nothing, I should then have told you

       That I was worse than nothing; for indeed

       I have engag’d myself to a dear friend,

       Engag’d my friend to his mere enemy,

       To feed my means. Here is a letter, lady,

       The paper as the body of my friend,

       And every word in it a gaping wound

       Issuing life-blood. But is it true, Salanio?

       Hath all his ventures fail’d? What, not one hit?

       From Tripolis, from Mexico, and England,

       From Lisbon, Barbary, and India?

       And not one vessel scape the dreadful touch

       Of merchant-marring rocks?

       SALANIO.

       Not one, my lord.

       Besides, it should appear that, if he had

       The present money to discharge the Jew,

       He would not take it. Never did I know

       A creature that did bear the shape of man,

       So keen and greedy to confound a man.

       He plies the duke at morning and at night,

       And doth impeach the freedom of the state,

       If they deny him justice. Twenty merchants,

       The duke himself, and the magnificoes

       Of greatest port, have all persuaded with him;

       But none can drive him from the envious plea

       Of forfeiture, of justice, and his bond.

       JESSICA.

       When I was with him, I have heard him swear

       To Tubal and to Chus, his countrymen,

       That he would