Act I, Scene ii:
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]