This. "This is old Ninny's tomb. Where for such a Pyramus: I hope she will be brief. is my love?"

Dem. A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which Thisbe, is the better; he for [Thisbe runs off. a man, God warrant us, she for a woman, God bless us.

play'd Pyramus, and hanged himself in
Thisbe's garter, it would have been a fine
tragedy and so it is, truly; and very notably
discharged. But come, your Bergomask: let
your epilogue alone.
[A dance.
The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve:- Obe.
Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time.

I fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn,
As much as we this night have overwatch'd.
This palpable gross play hath well beguil'd
The heavy gait of night.-Sweet friends, to
bed.-

A fortnight hold we this solemnity,

In nightly revels, and new jollity. [Exeunt.
SCENE II.

Salanio, Friends to Antonio and Bassanio. Nerissa, her waiting-maid.

SCENE,-Partly at Venice, and partly at Belmont, the seat of Portia, on the Continent.

Salar. We'll make our leisures to attend on
yours. [Exeunt Salarino and Salanio.
Lor. My lord Bassanio, since you have
found Antonio,

We too will leave you: but, at dinner-time,
I pray you, have in mind where we must meet.
Bass. I will not fail you.

Gra. You look not well, signior Antonio;
You have too much respect upon the world:
They lose it that do buy it with much care:
Believe me, you are marvellously chang'd.
Ant. I hold the world but as the world,
Gratiano;

A stage, where every man must play a part,
And mine a sad one.

Gra.
Let me play the fool:
With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come;
And let my liver rather heat with wine,
Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
Why should a man, whose blood is warm
within,

Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?

To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,
That you to-day promis'd to tell me of?

Bass. 'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,
How much I have disabled mine estate,
By something showing a more swelling port
Than my faint means would grant continuance :
Nor do I now make moan to be abridg'd
From such a noble rate; but my chief care
Is, to come fairly off from the great debts,
Wherein my time, something too prodigal,
Hath left me gaged. To you, Antonio,
I owe the most, in money and in love;
And from your love I have a warranty
To unburthen all my plots and purposes,
How to get clear of all the debts I owe.

Ant. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me
know it;

And if it stand, as you yourself still do,
Within the eye of honour, be assur'd,
My purse, my person, my extremest means,
Lie all unlock'd to your occasions. [one shaft,
Bass. In my school-days, when I had lost

Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the I shot his fellow of the self-same flight

jaundice

The self-same way, with more advised watch, find the other forth; and by adventuring both,

By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio,-To
I love thee, and it is my love that speaks,-
There are a sort of men, whose visages

Do cream and mantle like a standing pond;
And do a wilful stillness entertain,
With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion
Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit;
As who should say, I am Sir Oracle,
And, when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!"
O my Antonio, I do know of these,
That therefore only are reputed wise,
For saying nothing; who, am very sure,
If they should speak, would almost damn
those ears,
[fools.
Which, hearing them, would call their brothers
I'll tell thee more of this another time:
But fish not, with this melancholy bait,
For this fool-gudgeon, this opinion.-
Come, good Lorenzo.-Fare ye well, awhile:
I'll end my exhortation after dinner.

Lor. Well, we will leave you, then, till din-
ner-time:

I must be one of these same dumb wise men,
For Gratiano never lets me speak. [more,
Gra. Well, keep me company but two years
Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own
tongue.
[gear.
Ant. Farewell: I'll grow a talker for this
Gra. Thanks, i' faith; for silence is only
commendable
[vendible.
In a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not
[Exeunt Gratiano and Lorenzo.

Ant. Is that anything now?
Bass. Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of
nothing, more than any man in all Venice.
His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in
two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day
ere you find them; and, when you have them,
they are not worth the search.
[same
Ant. Well; tell me now, what lady is the

I oft found both: I urge this childhood proof,
Because what follows is pure innocence.

I owe you much: and, like a wilful youth,
That which I owe is lost but if you please
To shoot another arrow that self way
Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,
As I will watch the aim, or to find both,
Or bring your latter hazard back again,
And thankfully rest debtor for the first.

Ant. You know me well; and herein spend
but time,

To wind about my love with circumstance;
And out of doubt you do me now more wrong
In making question of my uttermost,
Than if you had made waste of all I have:
Then do but say to me what I should do,
That in your knowledge may by me be done,
And I am prest unto it: therefore, speak.

Bass. In Belmont is a lady richly left,
And she is fair, and, fairer than that word,
Of wondrous virtues: sometimes from her eyes
I did receive fair speechless messages:
Her name is Portia : nothing undervalu'd
To Cato's daughter, Brutus Portia :
Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth;
For the four winds blow in from every coast
Renowned suitors: and her sunny locks
Hang on her temples like a golden fleece;
Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos'
strand,

And many Jasons come in quest of her.
O my Antonio! had I but the means
To hold a rival place with one of them,
I have a mind presages me such thrift,
That I should questionless be fortunate.

Ant. Thou knowest that all my fortunes are
Neither have I money, nor commodity [at sea;
To raise a present sum; therefore go forth,

Scene 2.

Try what my credit can in Venice do:
That shall be rack'd, even to the uttermost,
To furnish thee to Belmont, to fair Portia.
Go, presently enquire, and so will I,
Where money is; and I no question make,
To have it of my trust, or for my sake.

[Exeunt.
SCENE II.-Belmont. A Room in Portia's
Mansion.

Enter Portia and Nerissa.
Por. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body
is aweary of this great world.

should say, "An you will not have me, choose." He hears merry tales, and smiles not: I fear he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old, being so full of unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather be married to a death's head with a bone in his mouth, than to either of these :-God defend me from these two!

Ner. How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon?

Por. God made him, and therefore let him In truth, I know it is a sin to pass for a man. be a mocker: but, he !-why, he hath a horse Ner. You would be, sweet madam, if your better than the Neapolitan's; a better bad miseries were in the same abundance as your habit of frowning than the count Palatine: he good fortunes are: and yet, for aught I see, is every man in no man; if a throstle sing, he they are as sick that surfeit with too much, as falls straight a capering: he will fence with If he would they that starve with nothing: it is no mean his own shadow. If I should marry him, happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean; should marry twenty husbands. superfluity comes sooner by white hairs; but despise me, I would forgive him; for if he love me to madness, I shall never requite him. competency lives longer. Ner. What say you, then, to Faulconbridge, the young baron of England?

Por. Good sentences, and well pronounced. Ner. They would be better, if well followed. Por. You know I say nothing to him; for Por. If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, he understands not me, nor I him he hath and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. It neither Latin, French, nor Italian; and you is a good divine that follows his own in- will come into the court and swear that I have structions: I can easier teach twenty what a poor penny-worth in the English. He is a were good to be done, than be one of the proper man's picture; but, alas, who can conThe verse with a dumb show? How oddly he is twenty to follow mine own teaching. I think he bought his doublet in brain may devise laws for the blood; but a suited! hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree: such a Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in hare is madness, the youth, to skip o'er the Germany, and his behaviour everywhere. meshes of good counsel, the cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to choose me a husband:-O me, the word choose! I may neither choose whom I would, nor refuse whom I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father.-Is it not bard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refuse none?

Ner. What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour?

Por. That he hath a neighbourly charity in him; for he borrowed a box of the ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay him again when he was able: I think the Frenchman became his surety, and sealed under for another.

Ner. How like you the young German, the duke of Saxony's nephew?

Ner. Your father was ever virtuous; and holy men, at their death, have good inspiraPor. Very vilely in the morning, when he is tions: therefore, the lottery, that he hath devised in these three chests, of gold, silver, and sober; and most vilely in the afternoon, when lead (whereof who chooses his meaning, he is drunk: when he is best, he is a little worse An the worst fall that chooses you), will, no doubt, never be chosen than a man; and when he is worst, he is little by any rightly, but one whom you shall rightly better than a beast. love. But what warmth is there in your af-ever fell, I hope I shall make shift to go withfection towards any of these princely suitors out him. that are already come?

Por. I pray thee, over-name them; and as
thou namest them, I will describe them; and,
according to my description, level at my
affection.

Ner. First, there is the Neapolitan prince.
Por. Ay, that's a colt, indeed, for he doth
nothing but talk of his horse; and he makes
it a great appropriation to his own good parts,
I am much
that he can shoe him himself.
afraid, my lady his mother played false with a

smith.

Ner. Then is there the county Palatine.
Por. He doth nothing but frown: as who

Ner. If he should offer to choose, and choose the right casket, you should refuse to perform your father's will, if you should refuse to accept him.

Por. Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee, set a deep glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket; for, if the devil be within, and that temptation without, I know he will I will do anything, Nerissa, ere I choose it. will be married to a sponge.

Ner. You need not fear, lady, the having any of these lords: they have acquainted me with their determinations, which is, indeed, to return to their home, and to trouble you with.