The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice

ACT I SCENE I	Venice. A street.
	Enter ANTONIO, SALARINO, and SALANIO
ANTONIO	In sooth, I know not why I am so sad:
	It wearies me; you say it wearies you;
	But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
	What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,	5
	I am to learn;
	And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
	That I have much ado to know myself.
SALARINO	Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
	There, where your argosies with portly sail,	10
	Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood,
	Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea,
	Do overpeer the petty traffickers,
	That curtsy to them, do them reverence,
	As they fly by them with their woven wings.	15
SALANIO	Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth,
	The better part of my affections would
	Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still
	Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind,
	Peering in maps for ports and piers and roads;	20
	And every object that might make me fear
	Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt
	Would make me sad.
SALARINO	My wind cooling my broth
	Would blow me to an ague, when I thought	25
	What harm a wind too great at sea might do.
	I should not see the sandy hour-glass run,
	But I should think of shallows and of flats,
	And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand,
	Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs	30
	To kiss her burial. Should I go to church
	And see the holy edifice of stone,
	And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks,
	Which touching but my gentle vessel's side,
	Would scatter all her spices on the stream,	35
	Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks,
	And, in a word, but even now worth this,
	And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought
	To think on this, and shall I lack the thought
	That such a thing bechanced would make me sad?	40
	But tell not me; I know, Antonio
	Is sad to think upon his merchandise.
ANTONIO	Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for it,
	My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,
	Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate	45
	Upon the fortune of this present year:
	Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad.
SALARINO	Why, then you are in love.
ANTONIO	Fie, fie!
SALARINO	Not in love neither? Then let us say you are sad,	50
	Because you are not merry: and 'twere as easy
	For you to laugh and leap and say you are merry,
	Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus,
	Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time:
	Some that will evermore peep through their eyes	55
	And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper,
	And other of such vinegar aspect
	That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile,
	Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.
	Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO
SALANIO	Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman,	60
	Gratiano and Lorenzo. Fare ye well:
	We leave you now with better company.
SALARINO	I would have stay'd till I had made you merry,
	If worthier friends had not prevented me.
ANTONIO	Your worth is very dear in my regard.	65
	I take it, your own business calls on you
	And you embrace the occasion to depart.
SALARINO	Good morrow, my good lords.
BASSANIO	Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? say, when?
	You grow exceeding strange: must it be so?	70
SALARINO	We'll make our leisures to attend on yours.
	Exeunt Salarino and Salanio
LORENZO	My Lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio,
	We two will leave you: but at dinner-time,
	I pray you, have in mind where we must meet.
BASSANIO	I will not fail you.	75
GRATIANO	You look not well, Signior Antonio;
	You have too much respect upon the world:
	They lose it that do buy it with much care:
	Believe me, you are marvellously changed.
ANTONIO	I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;	80
	A stage where every man must play a part,
	And mine a sad one.
GRATIANO	Let me play the fool:
	With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come,
	And let my liver rather heat with wine	85
	Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
	Why should a man, whose blood is warm within,
	Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?
	Sleep when he wakes and creep into the jaundice
	By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio--	90
	I love thee, and it is my love that speaks--
	There are a sort of men whose visages
	Do cream and mantle like a standing pond,
	And do a wilful stillness entertain,
	With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion	95
	Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit,
	As who should say 'I am Sir Oracle,
	And when I ope my lips let no dog bark!'
	O my Antonio, I do know of these
	That therefore only are reputed wise	100
	For saying nothing; when, I am very sure,
	If they should speak, would almost damn those ears,
	Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools.
	I'll tell thee more of this another time:
	But fish not, with this melancholy bait,	105
	For this fool gudgeon, this opinion.
	Come, good Lorenzo. Fare ye well awhile:
	I'll end my exhortation after dinner.
LORENZO	Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time:
	I must be one of these same dumb wise men,	110
	For Gratiano never lets me speak.
GRATIANO	Well, keep me company but two years moe,
	Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue.
ANTONIO	Farewell: I'll grow a talker for this gear.
GRATIANO	Thanks, i' faith, for silence is only commendable	115
	In a neat's tongue dried and a maid not vendible.
	Exeunt GRATIANO and LORENZO
ANTONIO	Is that any thing now?
BASSANIO	Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more
	than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two
	grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you	120
	shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you
	have them, they are not worth the search.
ANTONIO	Well, tell me now what lady is the same
	To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,
	That you to-day promised to tell me of?	125
BASSANIO	'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,
	How much I have disabled mine estate,
	By something showing a more swelling port
	Than my faint means would grant continuance:
	Nor do I now make moan to be abridged	130
	From such a noble rate; but my chief care
	Is to come fairly off from the great debts
	Wherein my time something too prodigal
	Hath left me gaged. To you, Antonio,
	I owe the most, in money and in love,	135
	And from your love I have a warranty
	To unburden all my plots and purposes
	How to get clear of all the debts I owe.
ANTONIO	I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it;
	And if it stand, as you yourself still do,	140
	Within the eye of honour, be assured,
	My purse, my person, my extremest means,
	Lie all unlock'd to your occasions.
BASSANIO	In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft,
	I shot his fellow of the self-same flight	145
	The self-same way with more advised watch,
	To find the other forth, and by adventuring both
	I oft found both: I urge this childhood proof,
	Because what follows is pure innocence.
	I owe you much, and, like a wilful youth,	150
	That which I owe is lost; but if you please
	To shoot another arrow that self way
	Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,
	As I will watch the aim, or to find both
	Or bring your latter hazard back again	155
	And thankfully rest debtor for the first.
ANTONIO	You know me well, and herein spend but time
	To wind about my love with circumstance;
	And out of doubt you do me now more wrong
	In making question of my uttermost	160
	Than if you had made waste of all I have:
	Then do but say to me what I should do
	That in your knowledge may by me be done,
	And I am prest unto it: therefore, speak.
BASSANIO	In Belmont is a lady richly left;	165
	And she is fair, and, fairer than that word,
	Of wondrous virtues: sometimes from her eyes
	I did receive fair speechless messages:
	Her name is Portia, nothing undervalued
	To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia:	170
	Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth,
	For the four winds blow in from every coast
	Renowned suitors, and her sunny locks
	Hang on her temples like a golden fleece;
	Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strand,	175
	And many Jasons come in quest of her.
	O my Antonio, had I but the means
	To hold a rival place with one of them,
	I have a mind presages me such thrift,
	That I should questionless be fortunate!	180
ANTONIO	Thou know'st that all my fortunes are at sea;
	Neither have I money nor commodity
	To raise a present sum: therefore go forth;
	Try what my credit can in Venice do:
	That shall be rack'd, even to the uttermost,	185
	To furnish thee to Belmont, to fair Portia.
	Go, presently inquire, and so will I,
	Where money is, and I no question make
	To have it of my trust or for my sake.
	Exeunt