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 it true, is it true?
TUBAL.
I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wrack.
SHYLOCK.
I thank thee, good Tubal. Good news, good news! ha, ha!
Where? in Genoa?
TUBAL. Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, one night, fourscore ducats.
SHYLOCK. Thou stick’st 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, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue; go, good Tubal; at our synagogue, Tubal.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE 2. Belmont. A room in PORTIA’s house.
[Enter BASSANIO, PORTIA, GRATIANO, NERISSA, and Attendants.]
PORTIA.
I pray you tarry; pause a day or two
Before you hazard; for, in choosing wrong,
I lose your company; therefore forbear a while.
There’s something tells me, but it is not love,
I would not lose you; and you know yourself
Hate counsels not in such a quality.
But lest you should not understand me well,—
And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought,—
I would detain you here some month or two
Before you venture for me. I could teach you
How to choose right, but then I am forsworn;
So will I never be; so may you miss me;
But if you do, you’ll make me wish a sin,
That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes,
They have o’erlook’d me and divided me:
One half of me is yours, the other half yours,
Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours,
And so all yours. O! these naughty times
Puts bars between the owners and their rights;
And so, though yours, not yours. Prove it so,
Let fortune go to hell for it, not I.
I speak too long, but ‘tis to peise the time,
To eke it, and to draw it out in length,
To stay you from election.
BASSANIO.
Let me choose;
For as I am, I live upon the rack.
PORTIA.
Upon the rack, Bassanio! Then confess
What treason there is mingled with your love.
BASSANIO.
None but that ugly treason of mistrust,
Which makes me fear th’ enjoying of my love:
There may as well be amity and life
‘Tween snow and fire as treason and my love.
PORTIA.
Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack,
Where men enforced do speak anything.
BASSANIO.
Promise me life, and I’ll confess the truth.
PORTIA.
Well then, confess and live.
BASSANIO.
‘Confess’ and ‘love’
Had been the very sum of my confession:
O happy torment, when my torturer
Doth teach me answers for deliverance!
But let me to my fortune and the caskets.
PORTIA.
Away, then! I am lock’d in one of them:
If you do love me, you will find me out.
Nerissa and the rest, stand all aloof;
Let music sound while he doth make his choice;
Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,
Fading in music: that the comparison
May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream
And watery deathbed for him. He may win;
And what is music then? Then music is
Even as the flourish when true subjects bow
To a new-crowned monarch; such it is
As are those dulcet sounds in break of day
That creep into the dreaming bridegroom’s ear
And summon him to marriage. Now he goes,
With no less presence, but with much more love,
Than young Alcides when he did redeem
The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy
To the sea-monster: I stand for sacrifice;
The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives,
With bleared visages come forth to view
The issue of th’ exploit. Go, Hercules!
Live thou, I live. With much much more dismay
I view the fight than thou that mak’st the fray.
[A Song, whilst BASSANIO comments on the caskets to himself.]
Tell me where is fancy bred,
Or in the heart or in the head,
How begot, how nourished?
Reply, reply.
It is engend’red in the eyes,
With gazing fed; and fancy dies
In the cradle where it lies.
Let us all ring fancy’s knell:
I’ll begin it.—Ding, dong, bell.
[ALL.] Ding, dong, bell.
BASSANIO.
So may the outward