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- $Unique_ID{SSP00608}
- $Title{The Merchant of Venice: Act II, Scene V}
- $Author{Shakespeare, William}
- $Subject{}
- $Log{Dramatis Personae*00600.txt}
-
- Portions copyright (c) CMC ReSearch, Inc., 1989
-
- The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
-
- THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
-
-
- ACT II
- ................................................................................
-
-
- SCENE V: The same. Before SHYLOCK'S house.
- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-
- {Enter SHYLOCK and LAUNCELOT.}
-
- SHYLOCK: Well, thou shalt see, thy eyes shall be thy judge,
- The difference of old Shylock and Bassanio:--
- What, Jessica!--thou shalt not gormandise,
- As thou hast done with me:--What, Jessica!--
- And sleep and snore, and rend apparel out;--
- Why, Jessica, I say!
-
- LAUNCELOT: Why, Jessica!
-
- SHYLOCK: Who bids thee call? I do not bid thee call.
-
- LAUNCELOT: Your worship was wont to tell me that
- I could do nothing without bidding.
-
- {Enter Jessica.}
-
- JESSICA: Call you? what is your will? 10
-
- SHYLOCK: I am bid forth to supper, Jessica:
- There are my keys. But wherefore should I go?
- I am not bid for love; they flatter me:
- But yet I'll go in hate, to feed upon
- The prodigal Christian. Jessica, my girl,
- Look to my house. I am right loath to go:
- There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest,
- For I did dream of money-bags to-night.
-
- LAUNCELOT: I beseech you, sir, go: my young master doth expect
- your reproach. 20
-
- SHYLOCK: So do I his.
-
- LAUNCELOT: An they have conspired together, I will not say you
- shall see a masque; but if you do, then it was not
- for nothing that my nose fell a-bleeding on
- Black-Monday last at six o'clock i' the morning,
- falling out that year on Ash-Wednesday was four
- year, in the afternoon.
-
- SHYLOCK: What, are there masques? Hear you me, Jessica:
- Lock up my doors; and when you hear the drum
- And the vile squealing of the wry-neck'd fife, 30
- Clamber not you up to the casements then,
- Nor thrust your head into the public street
- To gaze on Christian fools with varnish'd faces,
- But stop my house's ears, I mean my casements:
- Let not the sound of shallow foppery enter
- My sober house. By Jacob's staff, I swear,
- I have no mind of feasting forth to-night:
- But I will go. Go you before me, sirrah;
- Say I will come.
-
- LAUNCELOT: I will go before, sir. Mistress, look out at 40
- window, for all this, There will come a Christian
- boy, will be worth a Jewess' eye.
-
- [Exit.]
-
- SHYLOCK: What says that fool of Hagar's offspring, ha?
-
-
- JESSICA: His words were 'Farewell mistress;' nothing else.
-
- SHYLOCK: The patch is kind enough, but a huge feeder;
- Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by day
- More than the wild-cat: drones hive not with me;
- Therefore I part with him, and part with him
- To one that would have him help to waste
- His borrow'd purse. Well, Jessica, go in; 50
- Perhaps I will return immediately:
- Do as I bid you; shut doors after you:
- Fast bind, fast find;
- A proverb never stale in thrifty mind.
-
- [Exit.]
-
- JESSICA: Farewell; and if my fortune be not crost,
- I have a father, you a daughter, lost.
-
- [Exit.]
-