The arden shakespeare co.., p.374
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works, page 374
JESSICA In such a night
Medea gathered the enchanted herbs
That did renew old Aeson.
LORENZO In such a night
Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew,
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And with an unthrift love did run from Venice,
As far as Belmont.
JESSICA In such a night
Did young Lorenzo swear he loved her well,
Stealing her soul with many vows of faith,
And ne’er a true one.
LORENZO In such a night
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Did pretty Jessica (like a little shrew)
Slander her love, and he forgave it her.
JESSICA I would out-night you did nobody come:
But hark, I hear the footing of a man.
Enter STEPHANO (a messenger).
LORENZO Who comes so fast in silence of the night?
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STEPHANO A friend!
LORENZO
A friend! what friend? your name I pray you friend?
STEPHANO Stephano is my name, and I bring word
My mistress will before the break of day
Be here at Belmont, – she doth stray about
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By holy crosses where she kneels and prays
For happy wedlock hours.
LORENZO Who comes with her?
STEPHANO None but a holy hermit and her maid:
I pray you is my master yet return’d?
LORENZO
He is not, nor we have not heard from him, –
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But go we in (I pray thee Jessica),
And ceremoniously let us prepare
Some welcome for the mistress of the house.
Enter LAUNCELOT, the clown.
LAUNCELOT Sola, sola! wo ha, ho! sola, sola!
LORENZO Who calls?
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LAUNCELOT Sola! did you see Master Lorenzo?
Master Lorenzo, sola, sola!
LORENZO Leave hollowing man, – here!
LAUNCELOT Sola! where, where?
LORENZO Here!
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LAUNCELOT Tell him there’s a post come from my
master, with his horn full of good news, – my master
will be here ere morning. Exit.
LORENZO
Sweet soul let’s in, and there expect their coming.
And yet no matter: why should we go in?
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My friend Stephano, signify (I pray you)
Within the house, your mistress is at hand,
And bring your music forth into the air.
Exit Stephano.
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
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Creep in our ears – soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony:
Sit Jessica, – look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patens of bright gold,
There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st
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But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-ey’d cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls,
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it:
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Enter musicians.
Come ho! and wake Diana with a hymn,
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress’ ear,
And draw her home with music. [Music.]
JESSICA I am never merry when I hear sweet music.
LORENZO The reason is your spirits are attentive:
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For do but note a wild and wanton herd
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts
Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud,
Which is the hot condition of their blood, –
If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
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Or any air of music touch their ears,
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their savage eyes turn’d to a modest gaze,
By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods,
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Since naught so stockish, hard, and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature, –
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils,
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The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted: – mark the music.
Enter PORTIA and NERISSA.
PORTIA That light we see is burning in my hall:
How far that little candle throws his beams!
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So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
NERISSA
When the moon shone we did not see the candle.
PORTIA So doth the greater glory dim the less, –
A substitute shines brightly as a king
Until a king be by, and then his state
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Empties itself, as doth an inland brook
Into the main of waters: – music – hark!
NERISSA It is your music (madam) of the house.
PORTIA Nothing is good (I see) without respect, –
Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.
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NERISSA Silence bestows that virtue on it madam.
PORTIA The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark
When neither is attended: and I think
The nightingale if she should sing by day
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
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No better a musician than the wren!
How many things by season, season’d are
To their right praise, and true perfection!
Peace! – how the moon sleeps with Endymion,
And would not be awak’d! [Music ceases.]
LORENZO That is the voice,
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Or I am much deceiv’d, of Portia.
PORTIA
He knows me as the blind man knows the cuckoo –
By the bad voice!
LORENZO Dear lady welcome home!
PORTIA
We have bin praying for our husbands’ welfare,
Which speed (we hope) the better for our words:
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Are they return’d?
LORENZO Madam, they are not yet:
But there is come a messenger before
To signify their coming.
PORTIA Go in Nerissa.
Give order to my servants, that they take
No note at all of our being absent hence, –
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Nor you Lorenzo, – Jessica nor you. [A tucket sounds.]
LORENZO
Your husband is at hand, I hear his trumpet, –
We are no tell-tales madam, fear you not.
PORTIA This night methinks is but the daylight sick,
It looks a little paler, – ’tis a day,
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Such as the day is when the sun is hid.
Enter BASSANIO, ANTONIO, GRATIANO
and their followers.
BASSANIO We should hold day with the Antipodes,
If you would walk in absence of the sun.
PORTIA Let me give light, but let me not be light,
For a light wife doth make a heavy husband,
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And never be Bassanio so for me, –
But God sort all: you are welcome home my lord.
BASSANIO
I thank you madam, – give welcome to my friend, –
This is the man, this is Antonio,
To whom I am so infinitely bound.
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PORTIA You should in all sense be much bound to him,
For (as I hear) he was much bound for you.
ANTONIO No more than I am well acquitted of.
PORTIA Sir, you are very welcome to our house:
It must appear in other ways than words,
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Therefore I scant this breathing courtesy.
GRATIANO [to Nerissa]
By yonder moon I swear you do me wrong,
In faith I gave it to the judge’s clerk, –
Would he were gelt that had it for my part,
Since you do take it (love) so much at heart.
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PORTIA A quarrel ho, already! what’s the matter?
GRATIANO About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring
That she did give me, whose posy was
For all the world like cutler’s poetry
Upon a knife, ‘Love me, and leave me not.’
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NERISSA What talk you of the posy or the value?
You swore to me when I did give it you,
That you would wear it till your hour of death,
And that it should lie with you in your grave, –
Though not for me, yet for your vehement oaths,
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You should have been respective and have kept it.
Gave it a judge’s clerk! no – God’s my judge –
The clerk will ne’er wear hair on’s face that had it.
GRATIANO He will, and if he live to be a man.
NERISSA Ay, if a woman live to be a man.
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GRATIANO Now (by this hand) I gave it to a youth,
A kind of boy, a little scrubbed boy,
No higher than thyself, the judge’s clerk,
A prating boy that begg’d it as a fee, –
I could not for my heart deny it him.
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PORTIA
You were to blame, – I must be plain with you, –
To part so slightly with your wife’s first gift,
A thing stuck on with oaths upon your finger,
And so riveted with faith unto your flesh.
I gave my love a ring, and made him swear
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Never to part with it, and here he stands:
I dare be sworn for him he would not leave it,
Nor pluck it from his finger, for the wealth
That the world masters. Now in faith Gratiano
You give your wife too unkind a cause of grief,
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And ’twere to me I should be mad at it.
BASSANIO [aside]
Why I were best to cut my left hand off,
And swear I lost the ring defending it.
GRATIANO My Lord Bassanio gave his ring away
Unto the judge that begg’d it, and indeed
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Deserv’d it too: and then the boy (his clerk)
That took some pains in writing, he begg’d mine,
And neither man nor master would take aught
But the two rings.
PORTIA What ring gave you my lord?
Not that (I hope) which you receiv’d of me.
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BASSANIO If I could add a lie unto a fault,
I would deny it: but you see my finger
Hath not the ring upon it, it is gone.
PORTIA Even so void is your false heart of truth.
By heaven I will ne’er come in your bed
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Until I see the ring!
NERISSA Nor I in yours
Till I again see mine!
BASSANIO Sweet Portia,
If you did know to whom I gave the ring,
If you did know for whom I gave the ring,
And would conceive for what I gave the ring,
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And how unwillingly I left the ring,
When nought would be accepted but the ring,
You would abate the strength of your displeasure.
PORTIA If you had known the virtue of the ring,
Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,
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Or your own honour to contain the ring,
You would not then have parted with the ring:
What man is there so much unreasonable
(If you had pleas’d to have defended it
With any terms of zeal): – wanted the modesty
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To urge the thing held as a ceremony?
Nerissa teaches me what to believe, –
I’ll die for’t, but some woman had the ring!
BASSANIO No by my honour madam, by my soul
No woman had it, but a civil doctor,
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Which did refuse three thousand ducats of me,
And begg’d the ring, – the which I did deny him,
