READ STUDY GUIDE: Act I, scenes i–ii |
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Act I, Scene ii:
Belmont. A room in PORTIA'S house
Belmont. A room in PORTIA'S house
| [Enter PORTIA and 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 come sooner by white hairs, but |
| competency lives longer. |
| PORTIA: |
| Good sentences, and well pronounced. |
| 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 cold decree; |
| such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good |
| counsel the cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to |
| choose me a husband. O me, the word 'choose'! I may neither |
| choose who I would nor refuse who I dislike; so is the will of a |
| living daughter curb'd by the will of a dead father. Is it not |
| hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refuse none? |
| NERISSA: |
| Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their death |
| have good inspirations; therefore the lott'ry that he hath |
| devised in these three chests, of gold, silver, and lead, whereof |
| who chooses his meaning chooses you, will no doubt never be |
| chosen by any rightly but one who you shall rightly love. But |
| what warmth is there in your affection towards any of these |
| princely suitors that are already come? |
| PORTIA: |
| I pray thee over-name them; and as thou namest them, I will |
| describe them; and according to my description, level at my |
| affection. |
| NERISSA: |
| First, there is the Neapolitan prince. |
| PORTIA: |
| Ay, that's a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of |
| his horse; and he makes it a great appropriation to his own good |
| parts that he can shoe him himself; I am much afeard my lady his |
| mother play'd false with a smith. |
| NERISSA: |
| Then is there the County Palatine. |
| PORTIA: |
| He doth nothing but frown, as who should say 'An you will |
| not have me, choose.' He hears merry tales and smiles not: I fear |
| he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old, being so |
| full of unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather be married |
| to a death's-head with a bone in his mouth than to either of |
| these. God defend me from these two! |
| NERISSA: |
| How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon? |
| PORTIA: |
| God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. In |
| truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker, but he! why, he hath a |
| horse better than the Neapolitan's, a better bad habit of |
| frowning than the Count Palatine; he is every man in no man. If a |
| throstle sing he falls straight a-capering; he will fence with |
| his own shadow; if I should marry him, I should marry twenty |
| husbands. If he would despise me, I would forgive him; for if he |
| love me to madness, I shall never requite him. |
| NERISSA: |
| What say you, then, to Falconbridge, the young baron of |
| England? |
| PORTIA: |
| You know I say nothing to him, for he understands not me, |
| nor I him: he hath neither Latin, French, nor Italian, and you |
| will come into the court and swear that I have a poor pennyworth |
| in the English. He is a proper man's picture; but alas, who can |
| converse with a dumb-show? How oddly he is suited! I think he |
| bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet |
| in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere. |
| NERISSA: |
| What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour? |
| PORTIA: |
| That he hath a neighbourly charity in him, for he borrowed |
| a box of the ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay him |
| again when he was able; I think the Frenchman became his surety, |
| and sealed under for another. |
| NERISSA: |
| How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony's nephew? |
| PORTIA: |
| Very vilely in the morning when he is sober, and most |
| vilely in the afternoon when he is drunk: when he is best, he is |
| a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little |
| better than a beast. An the worst fall that ever fell, I hope I |
| shall make shift to go without him. |
| NERISSA: |
| If he should offer to choose, and choose the right casket, |
| you should refuse to perform your father's will, if you should |
| refuse to accept him. |
| PORTIA: |
| Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee set a deep |
| glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket; for if the devil be |
| within and that temptation without, I know he will choose it. I |
| will do anything, Nerissa, ere I will be married to a sponge. |
| NERISSA: |
| You need not fear, lady, the having any of these lords; |
| they have acquainted me with their determinations, which is |
| indeed to return to their home, and to trouble you with no more |
| suit, unless you may be won by some other sort than your father's |
| imposition, depending on the caskets. |
| PORTIA: |
| If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as |
| Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner of my father's will. I |
| am glad this parcel of wooers are so reasonable; for there is not |
| one among them but I dote on his very absence, and I pray God |
| grant them a fair departure. |
| NERISSA: |
| Do you not remember, lady, in your father's time, a Venetian, a |
| scholar and a soldier, that came hither in company of the Marquis |
| of Montferrat? |
| PORTIA: |
| Yes, yes, it was Bassanio; as I think, so was he called. |
| NERISSA: |
| True, madam; he, of all the men that ever my foolish eyes |
| looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady. |
| PORTIA: |
| I remember him well, and I remember him worthy of thy praise. |
| [Enter a SERVANT.] |
| How now! what news? |
| SERVANT: |
| The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take their |
| leave; and there is a forerunner come from a fifth, the Prince of |
| Morocco, who brings word the Prince his master will be here |
| to-night. |
| PORTIA: |
| If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good heart as I |
| can bid the other four farewell, I should be glad of his |
| approach; if he have the condition of a saint and the complexion |
| of a devil, I had rather he should shrive me than wive me. |
| Come, Nerissa. Sirrah, go before. |
| Whiles we shut the gate upon one wooer, another knocks at the |
| door. |
| [Exeunt] |
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