Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
Act 1 - Scene 1
Venice. A street.
Antonio : In sooth, I know not why I am so sad:
[p]It wearies me; you say it
wearies you;
[p]But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
[p]What
stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
[p]I am to learn;
[p]And such
a want-wit sadness makes of me,
[p]That I have much ado to know
myself.
Salarino : Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
[p]There, where your argosies with
portly sail,
[p]Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood,
[p]Or,
as it were, the pageants of the sea,
[p]Do overpeer the petty
traffickers,
[p]That curtsy to them, do them reverence,
[p]As they fly
by them with their woven wings.
Salanio : Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth,
[p]The better part of my
affections would
[p]Be with my hopes abroad. I should be
still
[p]Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind,
[p]Peering
in maps for ports and piers and roads;
[p]And every object that might
make me fear
[p]Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt
[p]Would make
me sad.
Salarino : My wind cooling my broth
[p]Would blow me to an ague, when I
thought
[p]What harm a wind too great at sea might do.
[p]I should not
see the sandy hour-glass run,
[p]But I should think of shallows and of
flats,
[p]And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand,
[p]Vailing her
high-top lower than her ribs
[p]To kiss her burial. Should I go to
church
[p]And see the holy edifice of stone,
[p]And not bethink me
straight of dangerous rocks,
[p]Which touching but my gentle vessel's
side,
[p]Would scatter all her spices on the stream,
[p]Enrobe the
roaring waters with my silks,
[p]And, in a word, but even now worth
this,
[p]And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought
[p]To think
on this, and shall I lack the thought
[p]That such a thing bechanced
would make me sad?
[p]But tell not me; I know, Antonio
[p]Is sad to
think upon his merchandise.
Antonio : Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for it,
[p]My ventures are not in
one bottom trusted,
[p]Nor to one place; nor is my whole
estate
[p]Upon the fortune of this present year:
[p]Therefore my
merchandise makes me not sad.
Salarino : Why, then you are in love.
Antonio : Fie, fie!
Salarino : Not in love neither? Then let us say you are sad,
[p]Because you are
not merry: and 'twere as easy
[p]For you to laugh and leap and say you
are merry,
[p]Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed
Janus,
[p]Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time:
[p]Some that
will evermore peep through their eyes
[p]And laugh like parrots at a
bag-piper,
[p]And other of such vinegar aspect
[p]That they'll not
show their teeth in way of smile,
[p]Though Nestor swear the jest be
laughable.
Salanio : Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman,
[p]Gratiano and Lorenzo.
Fare ye well:
[p]We leave you now with better company.
Salarino : I would have stay'd till I had made you merry,
[p]If worthier friends
had not prevented me.
Antonio : Your worth is very dear in my regard.
[p]I take it, your own business
calls on you
[p]And you embrace the occasion to depart.
Salarino : Good morrow, my good lords.
Bassanio : Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? say, when?
[p]You grow
exceeding strange: must it be so?
Salarino : We'll make our leisures to attend on yours.
Lorenzo : My Lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio,
[p]We two will leave
you: but at dinner-time,
[p]I pray you, have in mind where we must
meet.
Bassanio : I will not fail you.
Gratiano : You look not well, Signior Antonio;
[p]You have too much respect upon
the world:
[p]They lose it that do buy it with much care:
[p]Believe
me, you are marvellously changed.
Antonio : I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;
[p]A stage where every
man must play a part,
[p]And mine a sad one.
Gratiano : Let me play the fool:
[p]With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles
come,
[p]And let my liver rather heat with wine
[p]Than my heart cool
with mortifying groans.
[p]Why should a man, whose blood is warm
within,
[p]Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?
[p]Sleep when he
wakes and creep into the jaundice
[p]By being peevish? I tell thee
what, Antonio--
[p]I love thee, and it is my love that
speaks--
[p]There are a sort of men whose visages
[p]Do cream and
mantle like a standing pond,
[p]And do a wilful stillness
entertain,
[p]With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion
[p]Of wisdom,
gravity, profound conceit,
[p]As who should say 'I am Sir
Oracle,
[p]And when I ope my lips let no dog bark!'
[p]O my Antonio, I
do know of these
[p]That therefore only are reputed wise
[p]For saying
nothing; when, I am very sure,
[p]If they should speak, would almost
damn those ears,
[p]Which, hearing them, would call their brothers
fools.
[p]I'll tell thee more of this another time:
[p]But fish not,
with this melancholy bait,
[p]For this fool gudgeon, this
opinion.
[p]Come, good Lorenzo. Fare ye well awhile:
[p]I'll end my
exhortation after dinner.
Lorenzo : Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time:
[p]I must be one of
these same dumb wise men,
[p]For Gratiano never lets me speak.
Gratiano : Well, keep me company but two years moe,
[p]Thou shalt not know the
sound of thine own tongue.
Antonio : Farewell: I'll grow a talker for this gear.
Gratiano : Thanks, i' faith, for silence is only commendable
[p]In a neat's
tongue dried and a maid not vendible.
Antonio : Is that any thing now?
Bassanio : Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more
[p]than any man in
all Venice. His reasons are as two
[p]grains of wheat hid in two
bushels of chaff: you
[p]shall seek all day ere you find them, and
when you
[p]have them, they are not worth the search.
Antonio : Well, tell me now what lady is the same
[p]To whom you swore a secret
pilgrimage,
[p]That you to-day promised to tell me of?
Bassanio : 'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,
[p]How much I have disabled mine
estate,
[p]By something showing a more swelling port
[p]Than my faint
means would grant continuance:
[p]Nor do I now make moan to be
abridged
[p]From such a noble rate; but my chief care
[p]Is to come
fairly off from the great debts
[p]Wherein my time something too
prodigal
[p]Hath left me gaged. To you, Antonio,
[p]I owe the most, in
money and in love,
[p]And from your love I have a warranty
[p]To
unburden all my plots and purposes
[p]How to get clear of all the
debts I owe.
Antonio : I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it;
[p]And if it stand, as you
yourself still do,
[p]Within the eye of honour, be assured,
[p]My
purse, my person, my extremest means,
[p]Lie all unlock'd to your
occasions.
Bassanio : In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft,
[p]I shot his fellow of
the self-same flight
[p]The self-same way with more advised
watch,
[p]To find the other forth, and by adventuring both
[p]I oft
found both: I urge this childhood proof,
[p]Because what follows is
pure innocence.
[p]I owe you much, and, like a wilful youth,
[p]That
which I owe is lost; but if you please
[p]To shoot another arrow that
self way
[p]Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,
[p]As I
will watch the aim, or to find both
[p]Or bring your latter hazard
back again
[p]And thankfully rest debtor for the first.
Antonio : You know me well, and herein spend but time
[p]To wind about my love
with circumstance;
[p]And out of doubt you do me now more wrong
[p]In
making question of my uttermost
[p]Than if you had made waste of all I
have:
[p]Then do but say to me what I should do
[p]That in your
knowledge may by me be done,
[p]And I am prest unto it: therefore,
speak.
Bassanio : In Belmont is a lady richly left;
[p]And she is fair, and, fairer than
that word,
[p]Of wondrous virtues: sometimes from her eyes
[p]I did
receive fair speechless messages:
[p]Her name is Portia, nothing
undervalued
[p]To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia:
[p]Nor is the wide
world ignorant of her worth,
[p]For the four winds blow in from every
coast
[p]Renowned suitors, and her sunny locks
[p]Hang on her temples
like a golden fleece;
[p]Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos'
strand,
[p]And many Jasons come in quest of her.
[p]O my Antonio, had
I but the means
[p]To hold a rival place with one of them,
[p]I have a
mind presages me such thrift,
[p]That I should questionless be
fortunate!
Antonio : Thou know'st that all my fortunes are at sea;
[p]Neither have I money
nor commodity
[p]To raise a present sum: therefore go forth;
[p]Try
what my credit can in Venice do:
[p]That shall be rack'd, even to the
uttermost,
[p]To furnish thee to Belmont, to fair Portia.
[p]Go,
presently inquire, and so will I,
[p]Where money is, and I no question
make
[p]To have it of my trust or for my sake.
Next: Act 1 - Scene 2
