Let not the cloud of sorrow justle it [lost, From what it purpos'd; since, to wail friends Is not by much so wholesome, profitable, As to rejoice at friends but newly found. Prin. I understand you not; my griefs are double. [ear of grief;Biron. Honest plain words best pierce the And by these badges understand the king. For your fair sakes have we neglected time, Play'd foul play with our oaths; your beauty, $ ladies, [mours Hath much deform'd us, fashioning our huEven to the opposed end of our intents: And what in us hath seem'd ridiculous,As love is, full of unbefitting strains; All wanton as a child, skipping, and vain; Form'd by the eye, and, therefore, like the eye Full of strange shapes, of habits, and of forms, Varying in subjects as the eye doth roll To every varied object in his glance: T Which party-coated presence of loose love Put on by us, if, in your heavenly eyes, Have misbecom'd our oaths and gravities, Those heavenly eyes, that look into these faults, Suggested us to make: Therefore, ladies, Our love being yours, the error that love makes Is likewise yours: we to ourselves prove false, By being once false for ever to be true

To those that make us both,-fair ladies, you: And even that falsehood, in itself a sin

Thus purifies itself, and turns to grace. [love; Prin. We have receiv'd your letters, full of Your favours, the ambassadors of love; And, in our maiden council, rated them At courtship, pleasant jest, and courtesy, As bombast, and as lining to the time; But more devout than this, in our respects, Have we not been; and therefore met your In their own fashion, like a merriment. [loves Dum. Our letters, madam, show'd much more Long. So did our looks. [than jest. 3 Ros. We did not quote + them so. King. Now, at the latest minute of the hour, Grant us your loves. Prin. A time, methinks, too short. To make a world-without-end bargain in: No, no, my lord, your grace is perjur'd much, Full of dear guiltiness; and, therefore this, If for my love (as there is no such cause) You will do aught, this shall you do for me: Your oath I will not trust; but go with speed To some forlorn and naked hermitage, Remote from all the pleasures of the world; There stay, until the twelve celestial signs Have brought about their annual reckoning: If this austere insociable life

Change not your offer made in heat of blood; If frosts, and fasts, hard lodging, and thin weeds,

Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,
But that it bear this trial, and last love;
Then, at the expiration of the year,
Come challange, challenge me by these deserts,
And, by this virgin palm, now kissing thine,
I will be thine; and, till that instant, shut
My woeful self up in a mourning house;

•Tempted. + Regard.

Raining the tears of lamentation, For the remembrance of my father's death. If this thou do deny, let our hands part; Neither entitled in the other's heart. King. If this, or more than this, I would deny, [rest, To flatter up these powers of mine with The sudden hand of death close up mine eye! Hence ever then my heart is in thy breast. Biron. And what to me, my love? and what to me? [rank; Ros. You must be purged too, your sins are You are attaint with faults and perjury; Therefore, if you my favour mean to get, A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest, But seek the weary beds of people sick. Dum. But what to me, my love? but what to me? [honesty; Kath. A wife!-A beard, fair health, and With three-fold love I wish you all these three. Dum. O, shall I say, I thank you, gentle [and a day

wife?

Kath. Not so, my lord;-a twelvemonth I'll mark no words that smooth-fac'd wooers say: Come when the king doth to my lady come, Then, if I have much love, I'll give you some. Dum. I'll serve thee true and faithfully till

Kath. Yet swear not, lest you be forsworn Long. What says Maria?

Mar.

At the twelvemonth's end, I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend. Long. I'll stay with patience; but the time, [young.

is long. Mar. The liker you; few taller are SO Biron. Studies my lady? mistress look on me, Behold the window of my heart, mine eye, What humble suit attends thy answer there; Impose some service on me for thy love.

Ros. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Birón, Before I saw you: and the world's large tongue Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks; Full of comparisons and wounding flouts; Which you on all estates will execute, That lie within the mercy of your wit: [brain; To weed this wormwood from your fruitful And, therewithal, to win me, if you please, (Without the which I am not to be won,) [day You shall this twelvemonth term from day to Visit the speechless sick, and still converse With groaning wretches; and your task shall With all the fierces endeavour of your wit, [be, To enforce the pained impotent to smile.

Biron. To move wild laughter in the throat It cannot be; it is impossible: [of death? Mirth cannot move a soul in agony. [spirit,

Ros. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing Whose influence is begot of that loose grace, Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools A jest's prosperity lies in the ear

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it: then, if sickly ears,
Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear

But, if they will not, throw away that spirit, And I shall find you empty of that fault, Right joyful of your reformation.

Biron. A twelvemonth? well, befal what will befal,

I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital. Prin. Ay, sweet my lord; and so I take my leave. [To the King. King. No, madam: we will bring you on your way. [play; Biron. Our wooing doth not end like an old Jack hath not Jill: these ladies' courtesy Might well have made our sport a comedy. King, Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth And then 'twill end. [and a day. That's too long for a play. Enter ARMADO.

Biron.

Arm. Sweet majesty, vouchsafe me,-
Prin. Was not that Hector?
Dum. The worthy knight of Troy.

Arm. I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave: I am a votary; I have vowed to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her sweet love three years. But, most esteemed greatness, will you hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled, in praise of the owl and the cuckoo? it should have followed in the end of our show.

King, Call them forth quickly, we will do so.
Arm. Holla! approach.
Enter HOLOFERNES, NATHANIEL, MOTH,
COSTARD, and others.
This side is Hiems, winter; this Ver, the
spring; the one maintain'd by the owl, the
other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin.
SONG.

Spring. When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight,

Cool.

The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo;

Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!
II.

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer
smocks,

The cuckoo then, on every tree,

Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo;

Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!

III. :

Winter. When icicles hang by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,·
To-who;

Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
IV.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,

And coughing drowns the parson's saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow,

And Marian's nose looks red and raw, When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-who;

Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. Arm. The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo. You, that way; we, this way. [Exeunt.

SCENE I. Venice. A Street.
Enter ANTONIO, SALARINO, and SALANIO.
Ant. 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,
I am to learn ;'

And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself.

Salar. Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
There, where your argosies with portly sail,
Like signiors and rich burghers of the flood,
Or, as it were the pageants of the sea,-
Do overpeer the petty traffickers,
That curt'sy to them, do them reverence,
As they fly by them with their woven wings.
Salan. Believe me, sir, had I such venture
The better part of my affections would [forth,
Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still
Plucking the grass, to know where sits the
wind;
[roads;
Peering in maps, for ports, and piers, and
And every object, that might make me fear
Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt,
Would make me sad.

Salar.

My wind, cooling my broth, Would blow me to an ague, when I thought What harm a wind too great might do at sea. I should not see the sandy hour-glass run, vie 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, To kiss her burial. Should I go to church, And see the holy edifice of stone, [rocks?! And not bethink me straight of dangerous

"

Which touching but my gentle vessel's side,:
Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks;
Would scatter all her spices on the stream;
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, bechanc'd would make me
But, tell not me; I know, Antonio [sad?
Is sad to think upon his merchandise. [for it,
Ant. Believe me, no: I thank my fortune
My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,
Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate.
Upon the fortune of this present year:
Therefore, my merchandise makes me not sad.
Salun. Why then you are in love.
Ant. S 1.
Fie, fie!
Salan. Not in love neither? Then let's say,

you are sad,

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 fram'd strange fellows in her time::
Some that will evermore peep through their
And laugh, like parrots, at a bag-piper; [eyes,
And other of such vinegar aspect, [smile,
That they'll not show their teeth in way of
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.
Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO.
Salan. Here comes Bassanio, your most

noble kinsman, ab_o› Gratiano, and Lorenzo: Fare you well; We leave you now with better company. Salar. I would have staid till I had made you merry,

[Exeunt SALARINO and SALANIO. Lor. 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. Bass. I will not fail you.

Gra. You look not well, signior Antonio; You have too much respect upon the world's They lose it, that do buy it with much care. Believe me, you are marvellously chang'd. Ant. I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;

A stage, where every man must. play a part, And mine a sad one.

Gra,
Let me play the fool:
With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come;
And let my liver rather heat with wine,
Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
Why should a inan, whose blood is warm
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster? [within,
Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the
:isjaundice

By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio,
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!
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,
For saying nothing; who, I am very sure,
If they should speak, would almost damn those
ears,
matoul [thers, fools.
Which, hearing them, would call their bro-
I'll tell thee more of this another time: 7
But fish not, with this melancholy bait,
For this fool's gudgeon, this opinion.
Come, good Lorenzo: Fare ye well; a while;
I'll end my exhortation after dinner. [time:
Lor. Well, we will leave you then till dinner-
I must be one of these same dumb wise men,
For Gratiano never lets me speak.. [more,
Gra. Well, keep me company but two years
Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own
tongue!
De donate

Ant. Farewell: I'll grow a talker for this Agear. no1, [commendable Gra. Thanks, ifaith for silence is only In a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not vendible.T:

•* [Exeunt GRATIANO and LORENZO. Ant. Is that any thing now? Bass. Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of

• Obstinate silence.

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.

Ant. Well; tell me now, what lady is this To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage, [same That you to-day promis'd to tell me of?

Bass Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,

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 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 gaged: To you, Antonio, I owe the most, in money, and in love; And from your love I have a warranty To unburthen all my plots, and purposes, How to get clear of all the debts I owe. [it;

Ant. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know 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. [one shaft,

Bass. In my school-days, when I had lost I shot his fellow of the self-same flight The self-same way, with more advised watch, To find the other forth; and by advent'ring 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,
That which I owe is lost but if you please '1
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,
And thankfully rest debtor for the first.

Ant. You know me well ; and herein spend

but time,v tank

To wind about my love with circumstance;
And, out of doubt, you do me now more
In making question of my uttermost, [wrong,
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 prestt into it: therefore, speak.

Bass. In Belmont is a lady richly left,
And she is fair, and, fairer than that word,
Of wondrous virtues; sometimes from her
I did receive fair speechless messages: Leyes.
Her name is Portia ; nothing undervalued
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;
Which makes her seat of Belmont, Colchos'
strand,

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.

Ready. Formerly.

Ant. Thou know'st, that all my fortunes are at sea;

Nor 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,
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. = SCENE II. Belmont. A Room in Portia's

House.

Enter PORTIA and NERISSA. Por. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is a-weary of this great world.

Ner. 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.

Por. Good sentences, and well pronounced. Ner. They would be better, if well followed. Por. 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 be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood; but a hot temper leaps over 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:-0 me, the word choose! I may neither choose whom I would, nor refuse whom I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curb'd by the will of a dead father:-Is it not hard, Ñerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refuse none?

Ner. Your father was ever virtuous; and holy men, at their death, have good inspirations; therefore, the lottery, 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?

Por. I pray thee, over-name them; and as thou namest them, I will describe them; and, according to my description, level at my affection.

Ner. First, there is the Neapolitan prince. Por. 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 afraid, my lady his mother played false with a smith.

Ner. Then, is there the county + Palatine. Por. He doth nothing but frown; as who should say, An if 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!

Ner. How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon?

Por. 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.

Ner. What say you then to Faulconbridge, the young baron of England?

Por. 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 penny-worth 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 every where.

Ner. What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour?

Por. That he hath a neighbourly charity in hin; 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.

Ner. How like you the young German, the duke of Saxony's nephew?

Por. 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.

Ner. 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. ̧

Por. 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 any thing, Nerissa, ere I will be married to a spunge.

Ner. You need not fear, lady, the having any of these lords; they have acquainted me