The Merchant of Venice: Act 3

But it is true, without any slips of prolixity or crossing the plain highway of talk, that the good Antonio, the honest Antonio,—O that I had a title good enough to keep his name company!

There I have another bad match, a bankrupt, a prodigal, who dare scarce show his head on the Rialto, a beggar that used to come so smug upon the mart; let him look to his bond.

I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wrack.

I pray you tarry, pause a day or two
Before you hazard, for in choosing wrong
I lose your company; therefore forbear a while.

I pray you tarry, pause a day or two
Before you hazard, for in choosing wrong
I lose your company; therefore forbear a while.

But lest you should not understand me well
(And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought)
I would detain you here some month or two
Before you venture for me.

There may as well be amity and life
’Tween snow and fire as treason and my love.

“Confess and love”
Had been the very sum of my confession.
O happy torment, when my torturer
Doth teach me answers for deliverance!

Such it is
As are those dulcet sounds in break of day
That creep into the dreaming bridegroom’s ear
And summon him to marriage.

With much much more dismay
I view the fight than thou that mak’st the fray.

Tell me where is fancy bred,
Or in the heart, or in the head?
How begot, how nourishèd?
Reply, reply.

It is engendered in the eye,
With gazing fed, and fancy dies
In the cradle where it lies.

Let us all ring fancy’s knell:
I’ll begin it.—Ding, dong, bell.

How many cowards whose hearts are all as false
As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins
The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars,
Who inward searched have livers white as milk,
And these assume but valor’s excrement
To render them redoubted.

So are those crispèd snaky golden locks,
Which maketh such wanton gambols with the wind
Upon supposèd fairness, often known
To be the dowry of a second head,
The skull that bred them in the sepulcher.

Therefore, then, thou gaudy gold,
Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee.
Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge
’Tween man and man.

Therefore, then, thou gaudy gold,
Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee.
Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge
’Tween man and man.

But thou, thou meager lead,
Which rather threaten’st than dost promise aught,
Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence,
And here choose I. Joy be the consequence!

But thou, thou meager lead,
Which rather threaten’st than dost promise aught,
Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence,
And here choose I. Joy be the consequence!

O love, be moderate, allay thy ecstasy,
In measure rain thy joy, scant this excess!

Here are severed lips
Parted with sugar breath; so sweet a bar
Should sunder such sweet friends.

Like one of two contending in a prize
That thinks he hath done well in people’s eyes,
Hearing applause and universal shout,
Giddy in spirit, still gazing in a doubt
Whether those peals of praise be his or no,
So, thrice-fair lady, stand I even so,
As doubtful whether what I see be true,
Until confirmed, signed, ratified by you.

Like one of two contending in a prize
That thinks he hath done well in people’s eyes,
Hearing applause and universal shout,
Giddy in spirit, still gazing in a doubt
Whether those peals of praise be his or no,
So, thrice-fair lady, stand I even so,
As doubtful whether what I see be true,
Until confirmed, signed, ratified by you.

Only my blood speaks to you in my veins,
And there is such confusion in my powers
As after some oration fairly spoke
By a belovèd prince there doth appear
Among the buzzing pleasèd multitude,
Where every something being blent together
Turns to a wild of nothing, save of joy
Expressed and not expressed.

But who comes here? Lorenzo and his infidel?
What, and my old Venetian friend, Salerio?

Gentle lady,
When I did first impart my love to you,
I freely told you all the wealth I had
Ran in my veins: I was a gentleman.

And then I told you true; and yet, dear lady,
Rating myself at nothing, you shall see
How much I was a braggart.

He plies the Duke at morning and at night,
And doth impeach the freedom of the state
If they deny him justice.

Since I have your good leave to go away,
I will make haste. But till I come again,
No bed shall e’er be guilty of my stay,
Nor rest be interposer ’twixt us twain.

I never did repent for doing good,
Nor shall not now; for in companions
That do converse and waste the time together,
Whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love,
There must be needs a like proportion
Of lineaments, of manners, and of spirit;
Which makes me think that this Antonio,
Being the bosom lover of my lord,
Must needs be like my lord.

I never did repent for doing good,
Nor shall not now; for in companions
That do converse and waste the time together,
Whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love,
There must be needs a like proportion
Of lineaments, of manners, and of spirit;
Which makes me think that this Antonio,
Being the bosom lover of my lord,
Must needs be like my lord.

I’ll hold thee any wager,
When we are both accoutered like young men,
I’ll prove the prettier fellow of the two,
And wear my dagger with the braver grace,
And speak between the change of man and boy
With a reed voice, and turn two mincing steps
Into a manly stride, and speak of frays
Like a fine bragging youth, and tell quaint lies
How honorable ladies sought my love,
Which I denying, they fell sick and died—
I could not do withal!

He tells me flatly there’s no mercy for me in heaven because I am a Jew’s daughter; and he says you are no good member of the commonwealth, for in converting Jews to Christians you raise the price of pork.

I think the best grace of wit will shortly turn into silence, and discourse grow commendable in none only but parrots.

O dear discretion, how his words are suited!