You shall have gold
     To pay the petty debt twenty times over.
     When it is paid, bring your true friend along.
     My maid Nerissa and myself meantime
     Will live as maids and widows. Come, away!
     For you shall hence318 upon your wedding day.
     Bid your friends welcome, show a merry cheer319,
     Since you are dear320 bought, I will love you dear.
     But let me hear the letter of your friend.

BASSANIO   ‘Sweet Bassanio, my ships have all miscarried,

Reads

     my creditors grow cruel, my estate323 is very low, my bond to
     the Jew is forfeit, and since in paying it, it is impossible I
     should live, all debts are cleared between you and I, if I might
     see you at my death. Notwithstanding326, use your pleasure, if
     your love do not persuade you to come, let not my letter.’

PORTIA   O love! Dispatch328 all business, and be gone!

BASSANIO   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,
     No rest be interposer ’twixt us twain332.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 3]

running scene 15

Location: Venice

Enter [Shylock] the Jew and Solanio and Antonio and the Jailer

SHYLOCK   Jailer, look1 to him, tell not me of mercy.
     This is the fool that lends out money gratis2.
     Jailer, look to him.

ANTONIO   Hear me yet, good Shylock.

SHYLOCK   I’ll have my bond. Speak not against my bond,
     I have sworn an oath that I will have my bond.
     Thou calledst me dog before thou hadst a cause,
     But since I am a dog, beware my fangs.
     The duke shall grant me justice. I do wonder,
     Thou naughty10 jailer, that thou art so fond
     To come abroad11 with him at his request.

ANTONIO   I pray thee hear me speak.

SHYLOCK   I’ll have my bond. I will not hear thee speak.
     I’ll have my bond and therefore speak no more.
     I’ll not be made a soft and dull-eyed15 fool,
     To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield
     To Christian intercessors. Follow not,
     I’ll have no speaking. I will have my bond.

Exit Jew

SOLANIO   It is the most impenetrable cur
     That ever kept20 with men.

ANTONIO   Let him alone.
     I’ll follow him no more with bootless22 prayers.
     He seeks my life, his reason well I know;
     I oft delivered from his forfeitures
     Many that have at times made moan25 to me:
     Therefore he hates me.

SOLANIO   I am sure the duke
     Will never grant28 this forfeiture to hold.

ANTONIO   The duke cannot deny the course of law,
     For the commodity30 that strangers have
     With us in Venice, if it be denied,
     Will much impeach the justice of the state,
     Since that33 the trade and profit of the city
     Consisteth of all nations. Therefore go.
     These griefs and losses have so bated me35,
     That I shall hardly spare a pound of flesh
     Tomorrow to my bloody creditor.
     Well, jailer, on. Pray God, Bassanio come
     To see me pay his debt, and then I care not.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 4]

running scene 16

Location: Belmont

Enter Portia, Nerissa, Lorenzo, Jessica and [Balthasar,] a man of Portia’s

LORENZO   Madam, although I speak it in your presence,
     You have a noble and a true conceit2
     Of godlike amity3, which appears most strongly
     In bearing thus the absence of your lord.
     But if you knew to whom5 you show this honour,
     How true a gentleman you send relief6,
     How dear a lover7 of my lord your husband,
     I know you would be prouder of the work
     Than customary bounty can enforce you9.

PORTIA   I never did repent for doing good,
     Nor shall not now, for in companions
     That do converse and waste12 the time together,
     Whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love,
     There must be needs14 a like proportion
     Of lineaments15, of manners and of spirit;
     Which makes me think that this Antonio,
     Being the bosom lover17 of my lord,
     Must needs be like my lord. If it be so,
     How little is the cost I have bestowed
     In purchasing the semblance20 of my soul
     From out the state of hellish cruelty!
     This comes too near the praising of myself:
     Therefore no more of it. Hear other things.
     Lorenzo, I commit into your hands
     The husbandry25 and manage of my house
     Until my lord’s return; for mine own part,
     I have toward heaven breathed a secret vow
     To live in prayer and contemplation,
     Only attended by Nerissa here,
     Until her husband and my lord’s return.
     There is a monastery two miles off,
     And there we will abide. I do desire you
     Not to deny33 this imposition,
     The which my love and some necessity
     Now lays upon you.

LORENZO   Madam, with all my heart,
     I shall obey you in all fair commands.

PORTIA   My people38 do already know my mind,
     And will acknowledge you and Jessica
     In place of Lord Bassanio and myself.
     So fare you well till we shall meet again.

LORENZO   Fair thoughts and happy hours attend on you.

JESSICA   I wish your ladyship all heart’s content.

PORTIA   I thank you for your wish, and am well pleased
     To wish it back on you: fare you well Jessica.

Exeunt [Jessica and Lorenzo]

     Now, Balthasar,
     As I have ever found thee honest-true47,
     So let me find thee still. Take this same letter,

Gives a letter

     And use thou all the endeavour of a man
     In speed to Padua. See thou render50 this
     Into my cousin’s hand, Doctor Bellario,
     And look what52 notes and garments he doth give thee,
     Bring them, I pray thee with imagined53 speed
     Unto the traject54, to the common ferry
     Which trades55 to Venice; waste no time in words,
     But get thee gone. I shall be there before thee.

BALTHASAR   Madam, I go with all convenient speed.

[Exit]

PORTIA   Come on, Nerissa, I have work in hand
     That you yet know not of; we’ll see our husbands
     Before they think of us.

NERISSA   Shall they see us?

PORTIA   They shall, Nerissa, but in such a habit62,
     That they shall think we are accomplishèd63
     With that we lack64. I’ll hold thee any wager,
     When we are both accoutred65 like young men,
     I’ll prove the prettier fellow of the two,
     And wear my dagger with the braver67 grace,
     And speak between the change of man and boy
     With a reed voice68, and turn two mincing69 steps
     Into a manly stride, and speak of frays70
     Like a fine bragging youth, and tell quaint71 lies,
     How honourable ladies sought my love,
     Which I denying, they fell sick and died.
     I could not do withal74. Then I’ll repent,
     And wish for all that, that I had not killed them;
     And twenty of these puny76 lies I’ll tell,
     That men shall swear I have discontinued school
     Above78 a twelvemonth. I have within my mind
     A thousand raw79 tricks of these bragging Jacks,
     Which I will practise.

NERISSA   Why, shall we turn to81 men?

PORTIA   Fie, what a question’s that,
     If thou wert near a lewd interpreter!
     But come, I’ll tell thee all my whole device84
     When I am in my coach, which stays for us
     At the park gate; and therefore haste away,
     For we must measure87 twenty miles today.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 5]

running scene 17

Enter [Lancelet the] Clown and Jessica

LANCELET   Yes, truly, for look you, the sins of the father are to
     be laid upon the children: therefore, I promise2 you, I fear you.
     I was always plain3 with you, and so now I speak my agitation
     of the matter: therefore be of good cheer, for truly I think you
     are damned. There is but one hope in it that can do you any
     good, and that is but a kind of bastard6 hope neither.

JESSICA   And what hope is that, I pray thee?

LANCELET   Marry, you may partly hope that your father got8
     you not, that you are not the Jew’s daughter.

JESSICA   That were a kind of bastard hope indeed. So the sins
     of my mother should be visited upon me.

LANCELET   Truly then I fear you are damned both by father and
     mother: thus when I shun Scylla, your father, I fall into
     Charybdis13, your mother; well, you are gone14 both ways.

JESSICA   I shall be saved by my husband15. He hath made me a
     Christian.

LANCELET   Truly, the more to blame he. We were Christians
     enow17 before, e’en as many as could well live one by18 another.
     This making of Christians will raise the price of hogs19. If we
     grow all to be pork-eaters, we shall not shortly have a rasher
     on the coals for money21.

Enter Lorenzo

JESSICA   I’ll tell my husband, Lancelet, what you say. Here he
     comes.

LORENZO   I shall grow jealous of you shortly, Lancelet, if you
     thus get my wife into corners25.

JESSICA   Nay, you need not fear us, Lorenzo. Lancelet and I
     are27 out. He tells me flatly there is 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.

LORENZO   I shall answer that better to the commonwealth
     than you can the getting up of the negro’s belly32. The Moor is
     with child by you, Lancelet.

LANCELET   It is much34 that the Moor should be more than
     reason, but if she be less than an honest woman, she is
     indeed more than I took her for35.

LORENZO   How every fool can play upon the word! I think the
     best grace38 of wit will shortly turn into silence, and discourse
     grow commendable in none only but parrots. Go in, sirrah,
     bid them40 prepare for dinner.

LANCELET   That is done, sir, they have all stomachs41.

LORENZO   Goodly lord, what a wit-snapper42 are you? Then bid
     them prepare dinner.

LANCELET   That is done too, sir, only ‘cover’44 is the word.

LORENZO   Will you cover then, sir?

LANCELET   Not so, sir, neither.