TUBAL One of them showed me a ring that he had of your daughter for a monkey.

SHYLOCK Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal. It was my turquoise. I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor. I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.

TUBAL, But Antonio is certainly undone.

SHYLOCK Nay, that’s true, that’s very true. Go, Tubal, fee me an officer. Bespeak him a fortnight before. I will have the heart of him if he forfeit, for were he out of Venice I can make what merchandise I will. Go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue. Go, good Tubal; at our synagogue, Tubal. Exeunt severally

3.2 Enter Bassanio, Portia, Nerissa, Graziano, and all their trains. ⌈The curtains are drawn aside revealing the three caskets⌉

PORTIA (to Bassanio)

I pray you tarry. Pause a day or two

Before you hazard, for in choosing wrong

I lose your company. Therefore forbear a while.

There’s something tells me—but it is not love—

I would not lose you; and you know yourself

Hate counsels not in such a quality.

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. I could teach you

How to choose right, but then I am forsworn.

So will I never be; so may you miss me.

But if you do, you’ll make me wish a sin,

That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes,

They have o‘erlooked me and divided me. 15

One half of me is yours, the other half yours—

Mine own, I would say, but if mine, then yours,

And so all yours. O, these naughty times

Puts bars between the owners and their rights;

And so, though yours, not yours. Prove it so,

Let fortune go to hell for it, not I.

I speak too long, but ’tis to piece the time,

To eke it, and to draw it out in length

To stay you from election.

BASSANIO Let me choose,

For as I am, I live upon the rack. 25

PORTIA

Upon the rack, Bassanio? Then confess

What treason there is mingled with your love.

BASSANIO

None but that ugly treason of mistrust

Which makes me fear th‘enjoying of my love.

There may as well be amity and life

’Tween snow and fire as treason and my love.

PORTIA

Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack,

Where men enforced do speak anything.

BASSANIO

Promise me life and I’ll confess the truth.

PORTIA

Well then, confess and live.

BASSANIO ’Confess and love’ 35

Had been the very sum of my confession.

O happy torment, when my torturer

Doth teach me answers for deliverance!

But let me to my fortune and the caskets.

PORTIA

Away then. I am locked in one of them.

If you do love me, you will find me out.

Nerissa and the rest, stand all aloof.

Let music sound while he doth make his choice.

Then if he lose he makes a swanlike end,

Fading in music. That the comparison

May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream

And wat‘ry deathbed for him. He may win,

And what is music then? Then music is

Even as the flourish when true subjects bow

To a new-crowned monarch. 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. Now he goes,

With no less presence but with much more love

Than young Alcides when he did redeem

The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy

To the sea-monster. I stand for sacrifice.

The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives,

With blearèd visages come forth to view

The issue of th’exploit. Go, Hercules.

Live thou, I live. With much much more dismay

I view the fight than thou that mak’st the fray.

⌈Here music.⌉ A song the whilst Bassanio comments on the caskets to himself

⌈ONE FROM PORTIA’S TRAIN⌉

Tell me where is fancy bred,

Or in the heart, or in the head?

How begot, how nourished?

⌈ALL⌉ Reply, reply.

⌈ONE FROM PORTIA’S TRAIN⌉

It is engendered in the eyes,

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.

ALL Ding, dong, bell.

BASSANIO (aside)

So may the outward shows be least themselves.

The world is still deceived with ornament.

In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt

But, being seasoned with a gracious voice,

Obscures the show of evil? In religion,

What damned error but some sober brow

Will bless it and approve it with a text,

Hiding the grossness with fair ornament? 80

There is no vice so simple but assumes

Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.

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 valour’s excrement

To render them redoubted. Look on beauty

And you shall see ‘tis purchased by the weight,

Which therein works a miracle in nature, 90

Making them lightest that wear most of it.