Act III
Scene I
Venice. A street.
Enter Salanio and Salarino. | |
Salanio | Now, what news on the Rialto? |
Salarino | Why, yet it lives there uncheck’d that Antonio hath a ship of rich lading wrecked on the narrow seas; the Goodwins, I think they call the place; a very dangerous flat and fatal, where the carcasses of many a tall ship lie buried, as they say, if my gossip Report be an honest woman of her word. |
Salanio | I would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever knapped ginger or made her neighbours believe she wept for the death of a third husband. But it is true, without any slips of prolixity or crossing the plain highway of talk, that the good Antonio, the honest Antonio,—O that I had a title good enough to keep his name company!— |
Salarino | Come, the full stop. |
Salanio | Ha! what sayest thou? Why, the end is, he hath lost a ship. |
Salarino | I would it might prove the end of his losses. |
Salanio | Let me isay “amen” betimes, lest the devil cross my prayer, for here he comes in the likeness of a Jew. |
Enter Shylock. | |
How now, Shylock! what news among the merchants? | |
Shylock | You know, none so well, none so well as you, of my daughter’s flight. |
Salarino | That’s certain: I, for my part, knew the tailor that made the wings she flew withal. |
Salanio | And Shylock, for his own part, knew the bird was fledged; and then it is the complexion of them all to leave the dam. |
Shylock | She is damned for it. |
Salanio | That’s certain, if the devil may be her judge. |
Shylock | My own flesh and blood to rebel! |
Salanio | Out upon it, old carrion! rebels it at these years? |
Shylock | I say, my daughter is my flesh and blood. |
Salarino | There is more difference between thy flesh and hers than between jet and ivory; more between your bloods than there is between red wine and rhenish. But tell us, do you hear whether Antonio have had any loss at sea or no? |
Shylock | There I have another bad match: a bankrupt, a prodigal, who dare scarce show his head on the Rialto; a beggar, that was used to come so smug upon the mart; let him look to his bond: he was wont to call me usurer; let him look to his bond: he was wont to lend money for a Christian courtesy; let him look to his bond. |
Salarino | Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his flesh: what’s that good for? |
Shylock | To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction. |
Enter a Servant. | |
Servant | Gentlemen, my master Antonio is at his house and desires to speak with you both. |
Salarino | We have been up and down to seek him. |
Enter Tubal. | |
Salanio | Here comes another of the tribe: a third cannot be matched, unless the devil himself turn Jew. Exeunt Salanio, Salarino, and Servant. |
Shylock | How now, Tubal! what news from Genoa? hast thou found my daughter? |
Tubal | I often came where I did hear of her, but cannot find her. |
Shylock | Why, there, there, there, there! a diamond gone, cost me two thousand ducats in Frankfort! The curse never fell upon our nation till now; I never felt it till now: two thousand ducats in that; and other precious, precious jewels. I would my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear! would she were hearsed at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin! No news of them? Why, so: and I know not what’s spent in the search: why, thou loss upon loss! the thief gone with so much, and so much to find the thief; and no satisfaction, no revenge: nor no in luck stirring but what lights on my shoulders; no sighs but of my breathing; no tears but of my shedding. |
Tubal | Yes, other men have ill luck too: Antonio, as I heard in Genoa,— |
Shylock | What, what, what? ill luck, ill luck? |
Tubal | Hath an argosy cast away, coming from Tripolis. |
Shylock | I thank God, I thank God. Is’t true, is’t true? |
Tubal | I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wreck. |
Shylock | I thank thee, good Tubal: good news, good news! ha, ha! where? in Genoa? |
Tubal | Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, in one night fourscore ducats. |
Shylock | Thou stickest a dagger in me: I shall never see my gold again: fourscore ducats at a sitting! fourscore ducats! |
Tubal | There came divers of Antonio’s creditors in my company to Venice, that swear he cannot choose but break. |
Shylock | I am very glad of it: I’ll plague him; I’ll torture him: I am glad of it. |
Tubal | One of them showed me a ring that he had of your daughter for a monkey. |
Shylock | Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal: it was my turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor: I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys. |
Tubal | But Antonio is certainly undone. |
Shylock | Nay, that’s true, that’s very true. Go, Tubal, fee me an officer; bespeak him a fortnight before. I will have the heart of him, if he forfeit; for, were he out of Venice, I can make what merchandise I will. Go, go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue; go, good Tubal; at our synagogue, Tubal. Exeunt. |
Scene II
Belmont. A room in Portia’s house.
Enter Bassanio, Portia, Gratiano, Nerissa, and Attendants. | |
Portia |
I pray you, tarry: pause a day or two
|
Bassanio |
Let me choose
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Portia |
Upon the rack, Bassanio! then confess
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Bassanio |
None but that ugly treason of mistrust,
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Portia |
Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack,
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Bassanio | Promise me life, and I’ll confess the truth. |
Portia | Well then, confess and live. |
Bassanio |
“Confess” and “love”
|
Portia |
Away, then! I am lock’d in one of them:
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Music, whilst Bassanio comments on the caskets to himself. | |
Song. | |
|
|
All | Ding, dong, bell. |
Bassanio |
So may the outward shows be least themselves:
|
Portia |
Aside. How all the other passions fleet to air,
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Bassanio |
What find I here? Opening the leaden casket.
A gentle scroll. Fair lady, by your leave;
|
Portia |
You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,
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Bassanio |
Madam, you have bereft me of all words,
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Nerissa |
My lord and lady, it is now our time,
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Gratiano |
My lord Bassanio and my gentle lady,
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Bassanio | With all my heart, so thou canst get a wife. |
Gratiano |
I thank your lordship, you have got me one.
|
Portia | Is this true, Nerissa? |
Nerissa | Madam, it is, so you stand pleased withal. |
Bassanio | And do you, Gratiano, mean good faith? |
Gratiano | Yes, faith, my lord. |
Bassanio | Our feast shall be much honour’d in your marriage. |
Gratiano | We’ll play with them the first boy for a thousand ducats. |
Nerissa | What, and stake down? |
Gratiano |
No; we shall ne’er win at that sport, and stake down.
|
Enter Lorenzo, Jessica, and Salerio, a Messenger from Venice. | |
Bassanio |
Lorenzo and Salerio, welcome hither;
|
Portia |
So do I, my lord:
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Lorenzo |
I thank your honour. For my part, my lord,
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Salerio |
I did, my lord;
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Bassanio |
Ere I ope his letter,
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Salerio |
Not sick, my lord, unless it be in mind;
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Gratiano |
Nerissa, cheer yon stranger; bid her welcome.
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Salerio | I would you had won the fleece that he hath lost. |
Portia |
There are some shrewd contents in yon same paper,
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Bassanio |
O sweet Portia,
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Salerio |
Not one, my lord.
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Jessica |
When I was with him I have heard him swear
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Portia | Is it your dear friend that is thus in trouble? |
Bassanio |
The dearest friend to me, the kindest man,
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Portia | What sum owes he the Jew? |
Bassanio | For me three thousand ducats. |
Portia |
What, no more?
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Bassanio |
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Portia | O love, dispatch all business, and be gone! |
Bassanio |
Since I have your good leave to go away,
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Scene III
Venice. A street.
Enter Shylock, Salarino, Antonio, and Gaoler. | |
Shylock |
Gaoler, look to him: tell not me of mercy;
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Antonio | Hear me yet, good Shylock. |
Shylock |
I’ll have my bond; speak not against my bond:
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Antonio | I pray thee, hear me speak. |
Shylock |
I’ll have my bond; I will not hear thee speak:
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Salarino |
It is the most impenetrable cur
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Antonio |
Let him alone:
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Salarino |
I am sure the duke
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Antonio |
The duke cannot deny the course of law:
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Scene IV
Belmont. A room in Portia’s house.
Enter Portia, Nerissa, Lorenzo, Jessica, and Balthasar. | |
Lorenzo |
Madam, although I speak it in your presence,
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Portia |
I never did repent for doing good,
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Lorenzo |
Madam, with all my heart;
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Portia |
My people do already know my mind,
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Lorenzo | Fair thoughts and happy hours attend on you! |
Jessica | I wish your ladyship all heart’s content. |
Portia |
I thank you for your wish, and am well pleased
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Balthasar | Madam, I go with all convenient speed. Exit. |
Portia |
Come on, Nerissa; I have work in hand
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Nerissa | Shall they see us? |
Portia |
They shall, Nerissa; but in such a habit,
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Nerissa | Why, shall we turn to men? |
Portia |
Fie, what a question’s that,
|
Scene V
The same. A garden.
Enter Launcelot and Jessica. | |
Launcelot | Yes, truly; for, look you, the sins of the father are to be laid upon the children: therefore, I promise ye, 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 I think you are damned. There is but one hope in it that can do you any good; and that is but a kind of bastard hope neither. |
Jessica | And what hope is that, I pray thee? |
Launcelot | Marry, you may partly hope that your father got you not, that you are not the Jew’s daughter. |
Jessica | That were a kind of bastard hope, indeed: so the sins of my mother should be visited upon me. |
Launcelot | Truly then I fear you are damned both by father and mother: thus when I shun Scylla, your father, I fall into Charybdis, your mother: well, you are gone both ways. |
Jessica | I shall be saved by my husband; he hath made me a Christian. |
Launcelot | Truly, the more to blame he: we were Christians enow before; e’en as many as could well live, one by another. This making 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. | |
Jessica | I’ll tell my husband, Launcelot, what you say: here he comes. |
Lorenzo | I shall grow jealous of you shortly, Launcelot, if you thus get my wife into corners. |
Jessica | 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. |
Lorenzo | 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. |
Launcelot | It is much that the Moor should be more than reason: but if she be less than an honest woman, she is indeed more than I took her for. |
Lorenzo | 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. |
Launcelot | That is done, sir; they have all stomachs. |
Lorenzo | Goodly Lord, what a wit-snapper are you! then bid them prepare dinner. |
Launcelot | That is done too, sir; only “cover” is the word. |
Lorenzo | Will you cover then, sir? |
Launcelot | Not so, sir, neither; I know my duty. |
Lorenzo | Yet more quarrelling with occasion! Wilt thou show the whole wealth of thy wit in an instant? I pray tree, 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. |
Launcelot | 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. |
Lorenzo |
O dear discretion, how his words are suited!
|
Jessica |
Past all expressing. It is very meet
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Lorenzo |
Even such a husband
|
Jessica | Nay, but ask my opinion too of that. |
Lorenzo | I will anon: first, let us go to dinner. |
Jessica | Nay, let me praise you while I have a stomach. |
Lorenzo |
No, pray thee, let it serve for table-talk;
|
Jessica | Well, I’ll set you forth. Exeunt. |