Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
Act 1 - Scene 2
Belmont. A room in PORTIA’S house.
Portia : By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of
[p]this great
world.
Nerissa : You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in
[p]the same
abundance as your good fortunes are: and
[p]yet, for aught I see, they
are as sick that surfeit
[p]with too much as they that starve with
nothing. It
[p]is no mean happiness therefore, to be seated in
the
[p]mean: superfluity comes sooner by white hairs,
but
[p]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
[p]do, chapels had
been churches and poor men's
[p]cottages princes' palaces. It is a
good divine that
[p]follows his own instructions: I can easier
teach
[p]twenty what were good to be done, than be one of
the
[p]twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may
[p]devise
laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps
[p]o'er a cold decree: such
a hare is madness the
[p]youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good
counsel the
[p]cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion
to
[p]choose me a husband. O me, the word 'choose!' I may
[p]neither
choose whom I would nor refuse whom I
[p]dislike; so is the will of a
living daughter curbed
[p]by the will of a dead father. Is it not
hard,
[p]Nerissa, that I cannot choose one nor refuse none?
Nerissa : Your father was ever virtuous; and holy men at their
[p]death have
good inspirations: therefore the lottery,
[p]that he hath devised in
these three chests of gold,
[p]silver and lead, whereof who chooses
his meaning
[p]chooses you, will, no doubt, never be chosen by
any
[p]rightly but one who shall rightly love. But what
[p]warmth is
there in your affection towards any of
[p]these princely suitors that
are already come?
Portia : I pray thee, over-name them; and as thou namest
[p]them, I will
describe them; and, according to my
[p]description, level at my
affection.
Nerissa : First, there is the Neapolitan prince.
Portia : Ay, that's a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but
[p]talk of his
horse; and he makes it a great
[p]appropriation to his own good parts,
that he can
[p]shoe him himself. I am much afeard my lady
his
[p]mother played false with a smith.
Nerissa : Then there is the County Palatine.
Portia : He doth nothing but frown, as who should say 'If you
[p]will not have
me, choose:' he hears merry tales and
[p]smiles not: I fear he will
prove the weeping
[p]philosopher when he grows old, being so full
of
[p]unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather be
[p]married to a
death's-head with a bone in his mouth
[p]than to either of these. God
defend me from these
[p]two!
Nerissa : How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon?
Portia : God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man.
[p]In truth, I
know it is a sin to be a mocker: but,
[p]he! why, he hath a horse
better than the
[p]Neapolitan's, a better bad habit of frowning
than
[p]the Count Palatine; he is every man in no man; if
a
[p]throstle sing, he falls straight a capering: he will
[p]fence
with his own shadow: if I should marry him, I
[p]should marry twenty
husbands. If he would despise me
[p]I would forgive him, for if he
love me to madness, I
[p]shall never requite him.
Nerissa : What say you, then, to Falconbridge, the young baron
[p]of England?
Portia : You know I say nothing to him, for he understands
[p]not me, nor I
him: he hath neither Latin, French,
[p]nor Italian, and you will come
into the court and
[p]swear that I have a poor pennyworth in the
English.
[p]He is a proper man's picture, but, alas, who
can
[p]converse with a dumb-show? How oddly he is suited!
[p]I think
he bought his doublet in Italy, his round
[p]hose in France, his
bonnet in Germany and his
[p]behavior every where.
Nerissa : What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour?
Portia : That he hath a neighbourly charity in him, for he
[p]borrowed a box of
the ear of the Englishman and
[p]swore he would pay him again when he
was able: I
[p]think the Frenchman became his surety and
sealed
[p]under for another.
Nerissa : How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony's nephew?
Portia : Very vilely in the morning, when he is sober, and
[p]most vilely in
the afternoon, when he is drunk: when
[p]he is best, he is a little
worse than a man, and
[p]when he is worst, he is little better than a
beast:
[p]and the worst fall that ever fell, I hope I shall
[p]make
shift to go without him.
Nerissa : If he should offer to choose, and choose the right
[p]casket, you
should refuse to perform your father's
[p]will, if you should refuse
to accept him.
Portia : Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee, set a
[p]deep glass of
rhenish wine on the contrary casket,
[p]for if the devil be within and
that temptation
[p]without, I know he will choose it. I will do
any
[p]thing, Nerissa, ere I'll be married to a sponge.
Nerissa : You need not fear, lady, the having any of these
[p]lords: they have
acquainted me with their
[p]determinations; which is, indeed, to
return to their
[p]home and to trouble you with no more suit,
unless
[p]you may be won by some other sort than your
father's
[p]imposition depending on the caskets.
Portia : If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as
[p]chaste as Diana,
unless I be obtained by the manner
[p]of my father's will. I am glad
this parcel of wooers
[p]are so reasonable, for there is not one among
them
[p]but I dote on his very absence, and I pray God grant
[p]them a
fair departure.
Nerissa : Do you not remember, lady, in your father's time, a
[p]Venetian, a
scholar and a soldier, that came hither
[p]in company of the Marquis
of Montferrat?
Portia : Yes, yes, it was Bassanio; as I think, he was so called.
Nerissa : True, madam: he, of all the men that ever my foolish
[p]eyes looked
upon, was the best deserving a fair lady.
Portia : I remember him well, and I remember him worthy of
[p]thy
praise.
[p][Enter a Serving-man]
[p]How now! what news?
Servant : The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take
[p]their leave: and
there is a forerunner come from a
[p]fifth, the Prince of Morocco, who
brings word the
[p]prince his master will be here to-night.
Portia : If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good a
[p]heart as I can bid
the other four farewell, I should
[p]be glad of his approach: if he
have the condition
[p]of a saint and the complexion of a devil, I
had
[p]rather he should shrive me than wive me. Come,
[p]Nerissa.
Sirrah, go before.
[p]Whiles we shut the gates
[p]upon one wooer,
another knocks at the door.
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