THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

Act 1 Scene 2

(Enter Portia with Nerissa, her waiting-woman)
l1l	Portia	 By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of
l2l		this great world.
l3l	Nerissa	You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries
l4l		were in the same abundance as your good fortunes
l5l		are# and yet, for aught I see, they are as sick that
l6l		surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing.
l7l		It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the
l8l		mean. Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but
l9l		competency lives longer.
l10l	Portia	Good sentences, and well pronounced.
l11l	Nerissa	They would be better if well followed.
l12l	Portia	If to do were as easy as to know what were good
l13l		to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s
l14l		cottages princes’ palaces. It is a good divine that follows
l15l		his own instructions. I can easier teach twenty what
l16l		were good to be done than to be one of the twenty to
l17l		follow mine own teaching. The brain may devise laws
l18l		for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o’er a cold decree.
l19l		Such a hare is madness, the youth, to skip o’er the
l20l		meshes of good counsel, the cripple. But this reasoning
l21l		is not in the fashion to choose me a husband. O me,
l22l		the word “choose”! I may neither choose who I would
l23l		nor refuse who I dislike# so is the will of a living
l24l		daughter curbed by the will of a dead father. Is it not
l25l		hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one nor refuse
l26l		none?
l27l	Nerissa	Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men at
l28l		their death have good inspirations# therefore the lottery
l29l		that he hath devised in these three chests of gold, silver,
l30l		and lead, whereof who chooses his meaning chooses
l31l		you, will no doubt never be chosen by any rightly but
l32l		one who you shall rightly love. But what warmth is
l33l		there in your affection towards any of these princely
l34l		suitors that are already come?
l35l	Portia	I pray thee overname them, and as thou namest
l36l		them I will describe them# and according to my
l37l		description, level at my affection.
l38l	Nerissa	First there is the Neapolitan prince.
l39l	Portia	Ay, that’s a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but
l40l		talk of his horse, and he makes it a great appropriation
l41l		to his own good parts that he can shoe him himself. I
l42l		am much afeard my lady his mother played false with
l43l		a smith.
l44l	Nerissa	Then is there the County Palatine.
l45l	Portia	He doth nothing but frown, as who should say
l46l		“An you will not have me, choose”. He hears merry
l47l		tales and smiles not. I fear he will prove the weeping
l48l		philosopher when he grows old, being so full of
l49l		unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather be
l50l		married to a death’s-head with a bone in his mouth
l51l		than to either of these. God defend me from these two!
l52l	Nerissa	How say you by the French lord, Monsieur le
l53l		Bon?
l54l	Portia	God made him, and therefore let him pass for a
l55l		man. In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker, but
l56l		he—why, he hath a horse better than the Neapolitan’s,
l57l		a better bad habit of frowning than the Count Palatine.
l58l		He is every man in no man. If a throstle sing, he falls
l59l		straight a-cap’ring. He will fence with his own shadow.
l60l		If I should marry him, I should marry twenty husbands.
l61l		If he would despise me, I would forgive him, for if he
l62l		love me to madness, I shall never requite him.
l63l	Nerissa	What say you then to Falconbridge, the young
l64l		baron of England?
l65l	Portia	You know I say nothing to him, for he understands
l66l		not me, nor I him. He hath neither Latin,
l67l		French, nor Italian, and you will come into the court
l68l		and swear that I have a poor pennyworth in the
l69l		English. He is a proper man’s picture, but alas, who
l70l		can converse with a dumb show? How oddly he is
l71l		suited! I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round
l72l		hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his
l73l		behaviour everywhere.
l74l	Nerissa	What think you of the Scottish lord, his
l75l		neighbour?
l76l	Portia	That he hath a neighbourly charity in him, for
l77l		he borrowed a box of the ear of the Englishman and
l78l		swore he would pay him again when he was able. I
l79l		think the Frenchman became his surety, and sealed
l80l		under for another.
l81l	Nerissa	How like you the young German, the Duke of
l82l		Saxony’s nephew?
l83l	Portia	Very vilely in the morning when he is sober, and
l84l		most vilely in the afternoon when he is drunk. When
l85l		he is best he is a little worse than a man, and when
l86l		he is worst he is little better than a beast. An the worst
l87l		fall that ever fell, I hope I shall make shift to go without
l88l		him.
l89l	Nerissa	If he should offer to choose, and choose the right
l90l		casket, you should refuse to perform your father’s will
l91l		if you should refuse to accept him.
l92l	Portia	Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee set a
l93l		deep glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket# for
l94l		if the devil be within and that temptation without, I
l95l		know he will choose it. I will do anything, Nerissa, ere
l96l		I will be married to a sponge.
l97l	Nerissa	You need not fear, lady, the having any of these
l98l		lords. They have acquainted me with their determinations,
l99l		which is indeed to return to their home and
l100l		to trouble you with no more suit unless you may be
l101l		won by some other sort than your father’s imposition
l102l		depending on the caskets.
l103l	Portia	If I live to be as old as Sibylla I will die as chaste
l104l		as Diana unless I be obtained by the manner of my
l105l		father’s will. I am glad this parcel of wooers are so
l106l		reasonable, for there is not one among them but I dote
l107l		on his very absence# and I pray God grant them a fair
l108l		departure.
l109l	Nerissa	Do you not remember, lady, in your father’s
l110l		time, a Venetian, a scholar and a soldier, that came
l111l		hither in company of the Marquis of Montferrat?
l112l	Portia	Yes, yes, it was Bassanio—as I think, so was he
l113l		called.
l114l	Nerissa	True, madam. He of all the men that ever my
l115l		foolish eyes looked upon was the best deserving a fair
l116l		lady.
l117l	Portia	I remember him well, and I remember him worthy
l118l		of thy praise.
		(Enter a Servingman)
l119l		How now, what news?
l120l	Servingman	The four strangers seek for you, madam, to
l121l		take their leave, and there is a forerunner come from
l122l		a fifth, the Prince of Morocco, who brings word the
l123l		Prince his master will be here tonight.
l124l	Portia	If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good heart
l125l		as I can bid the other four farewell, I should be glad
l126l		of his approach. If he have the condition of a saint and
l127l		the complexion of a devil, I had rather he should shrive
l128l		me than wive me.
l129l		Come, Nerissa.
		(To the Servingman)
		 Sirrah, go before.
l130l		Whiles we shut the gate upon one wooer,
l131l		Another knocks at the door.
		(Exeunt)