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Bring them, I pray thee, with imagin'd speed3
Unto the tranect4, to the common ferry
Which trades to Venice:-waste no time in words,
But get thee gone: I shall be there before thee.
Balth. Madam, I go with all convenient speed.

[Exit.

. Por. Come on, Nerissa; I have work in hand, That you yet know not of: we'll see our husbands, Before they think of us.

Ner.

Shall they see us? Por. They shall, Nerissa; but in such a habit, That they shall think we are accomplished With what we lack. I'll hold thee any wager, When we are both accouter'd like young men, I'll prove the prettier fellow of the two,

And wear my dagger with the braver grace:
And speak, between the change of man and boy,
With a reed voice; and turn two mincing steps
Into a manly stride; and speak of frays,
Like a fine bragging youth: and tell quaint lies,
How honourable ladies sought my love,
Which I denying, they fell sick and died;
I could not do withal5:-then I'll repent,

3 i. e. with the celerity of imagination. So in the Chorus preceding the third act of K. Henry V.:

Thus with imagin'd wing our swift scene flies.' Again in Hamlet: 'Swift as meditation.' We still say, 'as swift as thought.

4 This word can only be illustrated at present by conjecture. It evidently implies the name of a place where the passage-boat set out, and is in some way derived from Tranáre, Ital. To pass or swim over: perhaps, therefore, Tranetto signified a little fording place or ferry, and hence the English word Tranect, but no other instance of its use has yet occurred. Rowe substituted traject, but the old copies concur in reading tranect, and there is therefore no pretence for change.

s Some of the commentators had strained this innocent phrase to a wanton meaning. Mr. Gifford, in a note on Jonson's Silent Woman, p. 470, has clearly shown, by ample illustration, that it signified nothing more than 'I could not help it.' So in the Morte Arthur, 'None of them will say well of you, nor none of them will doe battle for you, and that shall be great slaunder for you in this court. Alas! said the queen, I cannot doe withall. Part III. c. 108. In The Little French Lawyer, Dinant, who is reproached by Clerimont for not silencing the music, which endangered his safety, replies:

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'I cannot do withal;

I have spoke and spoke; I am betrayed and lost too."

And wish, for all that, that I had not kill'd them: And twenty of these puny lies I'll tell,

That men shall swear, I have discontinued school Above a twelvemonth:- I have within my mind A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks, Which I will practise.

Ner.

Why, shall we turn to men? Por. Fye; what a question's that,

If thou wert near a lewd interpreter?
But come, I'll tell thee all my whole device
When I am in my coach, which stays for us
At the park gate; and therefore haste away,
For we must measure twenty miles to-day.

[Exeunt.

SCENE V. The same. A Garden.

Enter LAUNCELOT and JESSICA.

Laun. Yes, truly: for, look you, the sins of the father are to be laid upon the children; therefore, I promise you, I fear you. I was always plain with you, and so now I speak my agitation of the matter: Therefore, be of good cheer; for, truly, think, you are damn'd. There is but one hope

I

in it that can do you any good; and that is but a kind of bastard hope neither.

Jes. And what hope is that, I pray thee?

Laun. Marry, you may partly hope that your father got you not, that you are not the Jew's daughter.

Jes. That were a kind of bastard hope, indeed; so the sins of my mother should be visited upon me. Laun. Truly then I fear you are damn'd both by father and mother; thus when I shun Scylla, your

1 So in K. Richard II.

"The king is sickly, weak, and melancholy,
And his physicians fear him mightily.'

father, I fall into Charybdis, your mother2: well, you are gone both ways.

Jes. I shall be saved by my husband; he hath made me a Christian.

Laun. Truly, the more to blame he; we were Christians enough before; e'en as many as could well live, one by another: This making of Christians will raise the price of hogs; if we grow all to be pork-eaters, we shall not shortly have a rasher on the coals for money.

Enter LORENZO.

Jes. I'll tell my husband, Launcelot, what you say; here he comes.

Lor. I shall grow jealous of you shortly, .Launcelot, if you thus get my wife into corners.

Jes. Nay, you need not fear us, Lorenzo; Launcelot and I are out: he tells me flatly, there is no mercy for me in heaven, because I am a Jew's daughter and he says you are no good member of the commonwealth; for, in converting Jews to Christians, you raise the price of pork.

Lor. I shall answer that better to the commonwealth, than you can the getting up of the negro's belly: the Moor is with child by you, Launcelot. Laun. It is much, that the Moor should be more3 than reason: but if she be less than an honest woman, she is, indeed, more than I took her for.

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2 Alluding to the well known line:

'Incidis in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim.'

The author of which was unknown to Erasmus, but was pointed out by Galcottus Martius. It is in the Alexandreis of Philip Gaultier, who flourished at the commencement of the 13th century. Nothing is more frequent than this proverb in our old English writers.

Milton's quibbling epigram has the same kind of humour to boast of

"Galli ex concubitu gravidam te, Pontia, Mori,
Quis bene moratam morigeramque neget."

So in The Fair Maid of the West, 1631:

And for you Moors thus much I mean to say,
I'll see if more I eat the more I-may.'

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Lor. How every fool can play upon the word! I think, the best grace of wit will shortly turn into silence; and discourse grow commendable in none only, but parrots.-Go in, sirrah; bid them prepare for dinner.

Laun. That is done, sir; they have all stomachs. Lor. Goodly lord, what a wit-snapper are you! then bid them prepare dinner.

Laun. That is done too, sir; only, cover is the word.

Lor. Will you cover then, sir?

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Laun. Not so, sir, neither; I know my duty.
Lor. Yet more quarrelling with occasion! Wilt
thou show the whole wealth of thy wit in an
instant? I pray thee, understand a plain man in
his plain meaning: go to thy fellows; bid them
cover the table, serve in the meat, and we will
come in to dinner.

Laun. For the table, sir, it shall be served in:
for the meat, sir, it shall be covered: for your
coming in to dinner, sir, why, let it be as humours
and conceits shall govern.
[Exit LAUNCELOT.
Lor. O dear discretion, how his words are suited1!
The fool hath planted in his memory
An army of good words: And I do know
A many fools, that stand in better place,
Garnish'd like him, that for a tricksy word
Defy the matter. How cheer'st thou, Jessica?
And now, good sweet, say thy opinion,
How dost thou like the lord Bassanio's wife?
Jes. Past all expressing: It is very meet,
The lord Bassanio live an upright life;
For, having such a blessing in his lady,
He finds the joys of heaven here on earth;
And, if on earth he do not mean it, it
Is reason he should never come to heaven.
Why, if two gods should play some heavenly match,

4 i. e, suited or fitted to each other, arranged.

And on the wager lay two .earthly women,

And Portia one, there must be something else Pawn'd with the other; for the poor rude world Hath not her fellow.

Lor.

Even such a husband Hast thou of me, as she is for a wife.

Jes. Nay, but ask my opinion too of that. Lor. I will anon; first let us go to dinner. Jes. Nay, let me praise you, while I have a stomach, Lor. No, pray thee let it serve for table-talk; Then, howsoe'er thou speak'st, 'mong other things I shall digest it.

Jes.

'Well, I'll set you forth. [Exeunt.

ACT IV.

SCENE I. Venice. A Court of Justice.

Enter the Duke, the Magnificoes; ANTONIO, BASSANIO, GRATIANO, SALARINO, SALANIO, and others. Duke. What, is Antonio here?

Ant. Ready, so please your grace.

Duke. I am sorry for thee; thou art come to answer A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch Uncapable of pity, void and empty From any dram of mercy.

Ant.

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I have heard,

Your grace hath ta'em great pains to qualify

His rigorous course; but since he stands obdurate,
And that no lawful means can carry me

Out of his envy's1 reach, I do oppose
My patience to his fury; and am arm'd
To suffer, with a quietness of spirit,
The very tyranny and rage of his.

Envy in this place means hatred or malice. So in God's Revenge against Murder, 1621:

he never looks on her (his wife) with affection, but envy.

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