The Merchant of Venice: Act 5, Scene 1
Enter LORENZO and JESSICA.
LORENZO
4. Troilus: Trojan prince and lover of Cressida, who proved faithless to him after she had been sent from Troy to the Greek camp.
1
The moon shines bright: in such a night as this,
2
When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees
3
And they did make no noise, in such a night
4
Troilus methinks mounted the Troyan walls
5
And sigh'd his soul toward the Grecian tents,
6
Where Cressid lay that night.
JESSICA
6
In such a night
7. Thisbe: Beloved of Pyramus who, arranging to meet him by night, was affrighted by a lion; their story is the subject of the play performed by Bottom and his fellows in A Midsummer Night's Dream (Act 5).
7
Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew
8
And saw the lion's shadow ere himself
9
And ran dismay'd away.
LORENZO
9
In such a night
10. Dido: queen of Carthage who loved Aeneas and was deserted by him. willow: The emblem of slighted love.
10
Stood Dido with a willow in her hand
11
Upon the wild sea banks and waft her love
12
To come again to Carthage.
JESSICA
12
In such a night
13. Medea: a famous enchantress of Colchis who, after falling in love with Jason and helping him win the Golden Fleece, used her magic to renew [restore youth] to Aeson, Jason's father.
13
Medea gather'd the enchanted herbs
14
That did renew old Aeson.
LORENZO
14
In such a night
15
Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew
16. unthrift: prodigal.
16
And with an unthrift love did run from Venice
17
As far as Belmont.
JESSICA
17
In such a night
18
Did young Lorenzo swear he loved her well,
19
Stealing her soul with many vows of faith
20
And ne'er a true one.
LORENZO
20
In such a night
21. shrow: shrew.
21
Did pretty Jessica, like a little shrow,
22
Slander her love, and he forgave it her.
JESSICA
23
I would out-night you, did no body come;
24. footing: footsteps.
24
But, hark, I hear the footing of a man.
Enter a MESSENGER [STEPHANO].
LORENZO
25
Who comes so fast in silence of the night?
STEPHANO
26
A friend.
LORENZO
27
A friend! what friend? your name, I pray you, friend?
STEPHANO
28
Stephano is my name; and I bring word
29
My mistress will before the break of day
30
Be here at Belmont; she doth stray about
31. holy crosses: wayside crosses or shrines (common both in England and in Italy).
31
By holy crosses, where she kneels and prays
32
For happy wedlock hours.
LORENZO
32
Who comes with her?
STEPHANO
33
None but a holy hermit and her maid.
34
I pray you, is my master yet return'd?
LORENZO
35
He is not, nor we have not heard from him.
36
But go we in, I pray thee, Jessica,
37
And ceremoniously let us prepare
38
Some welcome for the mistress of the house.
Enter Clown [LAUNCELOT].
LAUNCELOT
39. Sola: Perhaps the imitation of a post horn (see lines 46‑48 which mention a post accompanied by a horn).
39
Sola, sola! wo ha, ho! sola, sola!
LORENZO
40
Who calls?
LAUNCELOT
41
Sola! did you see Master Lorenzo?
42
Master Lorenzo, sola, sola!
LORENZO
43
Leave hollowing, man: here.
LAUNCELOT
44
Sola! where? where?
LORENZO
45
Here.
LAUNCELOT
46
Tell him there's a post come from my master, with
47
his horn full of good news: my master will be here
48
ere morning.
[Exit.]
LORENZO
49. expect: await.
49
Sweet soul, let's in, and there expect their coming.
50
And yet no matter: why should we go in?
51. signify: give notice.
51
My friend Stephano, signify, I pray you,
52
Within the house, your mistress is at hand;
53
And bring your music forth into the air.
Exit Messenger.
54
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
55
Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
56
Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night
57. Become: suit, befit. touches: notes (literally, the fingering of a musical instrument).
57
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
58
Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
59. patens: thin metal plates or disks.
59
Is thick inlaid with patens of bright gold:
60
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
61
But in his motion like an angel sings,
62. quiring: singing in harmony. young-ey'd: i.e., eternally clear-sighted.
62
Still quiring to the young-ey'd cherubins;
63
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
64. muddy vesture of decay: i.e., mortal flesh.
64
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
65. close it in: i.e., enclose the soul. hear it: i.e., hear the music of the spheres.
65
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
[Enter MUSICIANS.]
66
Come, ho! and wake Diana with a hymn!
67
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear,
68
And draw her home with music.
Play Music.
JESSICA
69
I am never merry when I hear sweet music.
LORENZO
70. spirits are attentive: faculties are concentrated; the spirits would be in motion . . . more 71. wanton: untrained (cf. line 72 unhandled, with similar meaning). 72. race: herd.
70
The reason is, your spirits are attentive:
71
For do but note a wild and wanton herd,
72
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,
73
Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud,
74
Which is the hot condition of their blood;
75
If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
76
Or any air of music touch their ears,
77. mutual: common or simultaneous.
77
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
78
Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze
79. the poet: perhaps Ovid, who tells the story of the Thracian musician Orpheus in his Metamorphoses. 80. Orpheus: legendary musician. drew: attracted, charmed. 81. stockish: resembling a block of wood; i.e., unfeeling.
79
By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet
80
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods;
81
Since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage,
82
But music for the time doth change his nature.
83
The man that hath no music in himself,
84
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
85. stratagems: deceptive tricks. spoils: acts of plunder.
85
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
86
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
87. Erebus: the hell of classical mythology; primeval darkness.
87
And his affections dark as Erebus:
88
Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.
Enter PORTIA and NERISSA.
PORTIA
89
That light we see is burning in my hall.
90
How far that little candle throws his beams!
91. naughty: wicked.
91
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
NERISSA
92
When the moon shone, we did not see the candle.
PORTIA
93
So doth the greater glory dim the less:
94
A substitute shines brightly as a king
95
Unto the king be by, and then his state
96
Empties itself, as doth an inland brook
97. main of waters: ocean.
97
Into the main of waters. Music! hark!
NERISSA
98
It is your music, madam, of the house.
PORTIA
99. respect: reference to other circumstances, comparison, context.
99
Nothing is good, I see, without respect:
100
Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.
NERISSA
101
Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam.
PORTIA
102
The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark,
103. When neither is attended: i.e., when each sings alone.
103
When neither is attended, and I think
104
The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
105
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
106
No better a musician than the wren.
107. by season season'd are: are matured by favorable occasion.
107
How many things by season season'd are
108
To their right praise and true perfection!
109. Endymion: a shepherd loved by the moon-goddess, who caused him to be cast into a perpetual sleep in a cave on Mount Latmos where she could visit him.
109
Peace, ho! the moon sleeps with Endymion
110
And would not be awaked.
[Music ceases.]
LORENZO
110
That is the voice,
111
Or I am much deceived, of Portia.
PORTIA
112
He knows me as the blind man knows the cuckoo,
113
By the bad voice.
LORENZO
113
Dear lady, welcome home.
PORTIA
114
We have been praying for our husbands' healths,
115. Which speed: who thrive.
115
Which speed, we hope, the better for our words.
116
Are they return'd?
LORENZO
116
Madam, they are not yet;
117
But there is come a messenger before,
118
To signify their coming.
PORTIA
118
Go in, Nerissa;
119
Give order to my servants that they take
120
No note at all of our being absent hence;
121
Nor you, Lorenzo; Jessica, nor you.
tucket: distinctive series of notes on a trumpet.
[A tucket sounds.]
LORENZO
122
Your husband is at hand; I hear his trumpet:
123
We are no tell-tales, madam; fear you not.
PORTIA
124
This night methinks is but the daylight sick;
125
It looks a little paler: 'tis a day,
126
Such as the day is when the sun is hid.
Enter BASSANIO, ANTONIO,
GRATIANO, and their FOLLOWERS.
BASSANIO
127‑28. We should hold day with the Antipodes, / If you would walk in absence of the sun: i.e., if you, Portia, like a second sun, always walked at night (when it is day on the other side of the world), . . . more
127
We should hold day with the Antipodes,
128
If you would walk in absence of the sun.
PORTIA
129. not be light: not be wanton, unfaithful.
129
Let me give light, but let me not be light;
130. heavy: sad, sorrowful.
130
For a light wife doth make a heavy husband,
131
And never be Bassanio so for me:
132. sort: decide, dispose.
132
But God sort all! You are welcome home, my lord.
BASSANIO
133
I thank you, madam. Give welcome to my friend.
134
This is the man, this is Antonio,
135
To whom I am so infinitely bound.
PORTIA
136. in all sense: in every way, with every reason.
136
You should in all sense be much bound to him.
137
For, as I hear, he was much bound for you.
ANTONIO
138
No more than I am well acquitted of.
PORTIA
139
Sir, you are very welcome to our house:
140
It must appear in other ways than words,
141. scant: make brief. breathing courtesy: courteous speaking, utterance of welcome.
141
Therefore I scant this breathing courtesy.
GRATIANO [To Nerissa.]
142
By yonder moon I swear you do me wrong;
143
In faith, I gave it to the judge's clerk:
144. gelt: gelded [castrated]. for my part: as far as I'm concerned.
144
Would he were gelt that had it, for my part,
145
Since you do take it, love, so much at heart.
PORTIA
146
A quarrel, ho, already! what's the matter?
GRATIANO
147
About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring
148. posy: motto, sometimes in verse (posy ~ poesy), inscribed inside a ring.
148
That she did give me, whose posy was
149
For all the world like cutler's poetry
150. leave: part with.
150
Upon a knife, "Love me, and leave me not."
NERISSA
151
What talk you of the posy or the value?
152
You swore to me, when I did give it you,
153
That you would wear it till your hour of death
154
And that it should lie with you in your grave:
155
Though not for me, yet for your vehement oaths,
156. respective: mindful, careful.
156
You should have been respective and have kept it.
157
Gave it a judge's clerk! no, God's my judge,
158
The clerk will ne'er wear hair on's face that had it.
GRATIANO
159
He will, an if he live to be a man.
NERISSA
160
Ay, if a woman live to be a man.
GRATIANO
161
Now, by this hand, I gave it to a youth,
162. scrubbed: scrubby, stunted.
162
A kind of boy, a little scrubbed boy,
163
No higher than thyself; the judge's clerk,
164
A prating boy, that begg'd it as a fee:
165
I could not for my heart deny it him.
PORTIA
166
You were to blame, I must be plain with you,
167
To part so slightly with your wife's first gift:
168
A thing stuck on with oaths upon your finger
169
And so riveted with faith unto your flesh.
170
I gave my love a ring and made him swear
171
Never to part with it; and here he stands;
172
I dare be sworn for him he would not leave it
173
Nor pluck it from his finger, for the wealth
174. masters: possesses.
174
That the world masters. Now, in faith, Gratiano,
175
You give your wife too unkind a cause of grief:
176. mad: beside myself.
176
An 'twere to me, I should be mad at it.
BASSANIO [Aside.]
177
Why, I were best to cut my left hand off
178
And swear I lost the ring defending it.
GRATIANO
179
My Lord Bassanio gave his ring away
180
Unto the judge that begg'd it and indeed
181
Deserved it too; and then the boy, his clerk,
182
That took some pains in writing, he begg'd mine;
183
And neither man nor master would take aught
184
But the two rings.
PORTIA
184
What ring gave you my lord?
185
Not that, I hope, which you received of me.
BASSANIO
186
If I could add a lie unto a fault,
187
I would deny it; but you see my finger
188
Hath not the ring upon it; it is gone.
PORTIA
189
Even so void is your false heart of truth.
190
By heaven, I will ne'er come in your bed
191
Until I see the ring.
NERISSA
191
Nor I in yours
192
Till I again see mine.
BASSANIO
192
Sweet Portia,
193
If you did know to whom I gave the ring,
194
If you did know for whom I gave the ring
195
And would conceive for what I gave the ring
196
And how unwillingly I left the ring,
197
When nought would be accepted but the ring,
198
You would abate the strength of your displeasure.
PORTIA
199. virtue: power, efficacy.
199
If you had known the virtue of the ring,
200
Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,
201. contain: retain.
201
Or your own honor to contain the ring,
202
You would not then have parted with the ring.
203
What man is there so much unreasonable,
204
If you had pleased to have defended it
205. wanted the modesty: who would have been so lacking in moderation as. 206. urge: insist on being given. ceremony: sacred pledge.
205
With any terms of zeal, wanted the modesty
206
To urge the thing held as a ceremony?
207
Nerissa teaches me what to believe:
208
I'll die for't but some woman had the ring.
BASSANIO
209
No, by my honor, madam, by my soul,
210. civil doctor: doctor of civil law.
210
No woman had it, but a civil doctor,
211
Which did refuse three thousand ducats of me
212
And begg'd the ring; the which I did deny him
213
And suffer'd him to go displeased away;
214
Even he that did uphold the very life
215
Of my dear friend. What should I say, sweet lady?
216
I was enforced to send it after him;
217
I was beset with shame and courtesy;
218
My honor would not let ingratitude
219
So much besmear it. Pardon me, good lady;
220
For, by these blessed candles of the night,
221
Had you been there, I think you would have begg'd
222
The ring of me to give the worthy doctor.
PORTIA
223
Let not that doctor e'er come near my house:
224
Since he hath got the jewel that I loved,
225
And that which you did swear to keep for me,
226. liberal: (1) generous; (2) sexually free.
226
I will become as liberal as you;
227
I'll not deny him any thing I have,
228
No, not my body nor my husband's bed:
229
Know him I shall, I am well sure of it:
230. from: away from. Argus: a mythological hundred-eyed monster.
230
Lie not a night from home; watch me like Argus:
231
If you do not, if I be left alone,
232
Now, by mine honor, which is yet mine own,
233
I'll have that doctor for my bedfellow.
NERISSA
234
And I his clerk; therefore be well advised
235
How you do leave me to mine own protection.
GRATIANO
236
Well, do you so; let not me take him, then;
237. pen: With ribald second sense.
237
For if I do, I'll mar the young clerk's pen.
ANTONIO
238
I am the unhappy subject of these quarrels.
PORTIA
239
Sir, grieve not you; you are welcome notwithstanding.
BASSANIO
240
Portia, forgive me this enforced wrong;
241
And, in the hearing of these many friends,
242
I swear to thee, even by thine own fair eyes,
243
Wherein I see myself
PORTIA
243
Mark you but that!
244
In both my eyes he doubly sees himself;
245. double: With play on the double reflection and the sense "deceitful." 246. of credit: worthy to be believed.
245
In each eye, one: swear by your double self,
246
And there's an oath of credit.
BASSANIO
246
Nay, but hear me:
247
Pardon this fault, and by my soul I swear
248
I never more will break an oath with thee.
ANTONIO
249. wealth: welfare.
249
I once did lend my body for his wealth;
250
Which, but for him that had your husband's ring,
251
Had quite miscarried: I dare be bound again,
252
My soul upon the forfeit, that your lord
253. advisedly: intentionally, deliberately.
253
Will never more break faith advisedly.
PORTIA
254
Then you shall be his surety. Give him this
255
And bid him keep it better than the other.
ANTONIO
256
Here, Lord Bassanio; swear to keep this ring.
BASSANIO
257
By heaven, it is the same I gave the doctor!
PORTIA
258
I had it of him: pardon me, Bassanio;
259
For, by this ring, the doctor lay with me.
NERISSA
260
And pardon me, my gentle Gratiano;
261
For that same scrubbed boy, the doctor's clerk,
262. In lieu of: in return for.
262
In lieu of this last night did lie with me.
GRATIANO
263‑264. this is like the mending of highways / In summer, where the ways are fair enough: this development makes what was fairly bad before even worse. 265. cuckolds: husbands whose wives are unfaithful.
263
Why, this is like the mending of highways
264
In summer, where the ways are fair enough:
265
What, are we cuckolds ere we have deserved it?
PORTIA
266. amaz'd: bewildered.
266
Speak not so grossly. You are all amaz'd:
267
Here is a letter; read it at your leisure;
268
It comes from Padua, from Bellario:
269
There you shall find that Portia was the doctor,
270
Nerissa there her clerk: Lorenzo here
271
Shall witness I set forth as soon as you
272
And even but now return'd; I have not yet
273
Enter'd my house. Antonio, you are welcome;
274
And I have better news in store for you
275
Than you expect: unseal this letter soon;
276
There you shall find three of your argosies
277
Are richly come to harbour suddenly:
278
You shall not know by what strange accident
279
I chanced on this letter.
ANTONIO
279
I am dumb.
BASSANIO
280
Were you the doctor and I knew you not?
GRATIANO
281
Were you the clerk that is to make me cuckold?
NERISSA
282
Ay, but the clerk that never means to do it,
283
Unless he live until he be a man.
BASSANIO
284
Sweet doctor, you shall be my bed-fellow:
285
When I am absent, then lie with my wife.
ANTONIO
286
Sweet lady, you have given me life and living;
287
For here I read for certain that my ships
288. road: anchorage.
288
Are safely come to road.
PORTIA
288
How now, Lorenzo!
289
My clerk hath some good comforts too for you.
NERISSA
290
Ay, and I'll give them him without a fee.
291
There do I give to you and Jessica,
292
From the rich Jew, a special deed of gift,
293
After his death, of all he dies possess'd of.
LORENZO
294
Fair ladies, you drop manna in the way
295
Of starved people.
PORTIA
295
It is almost morning,
296
And yet I am sure you are not satisfied
297
Of these events at full. Let us go in;
298. charge us there upon inter'gatories: require us to answer all things under oath.
298
And charge us there upon inter'gatories,
299
And we will answer all things faithfully.
GRATIANO
300
Let it be so: the first inter'gatory
301
That my Nerissa shall be sworn on is,
302. stay: wait.
302
Whether till the next night she had rather stay,
303
Or go to bed now, being two hours to day:
304
But were the day come, I should wish it dark,
305
That I were couching with the doctor's clerk.
306
Well, while I live I'll fear no other thing
307
So sore as keeping safe Nerissa's ring.
Exeunt.