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 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, | 120 |
That you to-day promis’d to tell me of?
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; | 125 |
Nor do I now make moan to be abridg’d
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 gag’d. To you, Antonio, | 130 |
I owe the most, in money and in love;
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; | 135 |
And if it stand, as you yourself still do,
Within the eye of honour, be assur’d
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, | 140 |
I shot his fellow of the self-same flight
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. | 145 |
I owe you much; and, like a wilful youth,
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, | 150 |
Or bring your latter hazard back again
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 | 155 |
In making question of my uttermost
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. | 160 |
Bassanio
In Belmont is a lady richly left,
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 undervalu’d | 165 |
To Cato’s daughter, Brutus’ Portia.
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, | 170 |
Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos’ strond,
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 | 175 |
That I should questionless be fortunate.
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; | 180 |
That shall be rack’d, even to the uttermost,
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. | 185 |
[Exeunt.]
Scene II
Belmont. Portia’s house.
[Enter PORTIA with her waiting-woman, NERISSA.]
Portia
By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world.
Nerissa
| You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same abundance as your good fortunes are; and yet, for aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing. It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer. | 5 |
Portia
| Good sentences, and well pronounc’d. | 10 |
Nerissa
They would be better, if well followed.
Portia
|
If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions; I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done than to be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o’er a
|