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 deny 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 people 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 Lorenzo and Jessica

Now, Balthasar,

As I have ever found thee honest-true,

So let me find thee still. Take this same letter,

And use thou all th’endeavour of a man

In speed to Padua. See thou render this

Into my cousin’s hands, Doctor Bellario,

And look what notes and garments he doth give

thee,

Bring them, I pray thee, with imagined speed

Unto the traject, to the common ferry

Which trades 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 habit

That they shall think we are accomplishèd

With that we lack. 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 honourable ladies sought my love,

Which I denying, they fell sick and died.

I could not do withal. Then I’ll repent,

And wish for all that that I had not killed them;

And twenty of these puny lies I’ll tell,

That men shall swear I have discontinued school

Above a twelvemonth. I have within my mind

A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks

Which I will practise.

NERISSA Why, shall we turn to men?

PORTIA Fie, what a question’s that

If thou wert near a lewd interpreter!

But come, I’ll tell thee all my whole device

When I am in my coach, which stays for us

At the park gate; and therefore haste away,

For we must measure twenty miles today. Exeunt

3.5 Enter Lancelot the clown, and Jessica

LANCELOT Yes, truly; for look you, the sins of the father are to be laid upon the children, therefore I promise you I fear you. I was always plain with you, and so now I speak my agitation of the matter, therefore be o’ 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 bastard hope, neither.

JESSICA And what hope is that, I pray thee?

LANCELOT Marry, you may partly hope that your father got 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.

LANCELOT Truly then, I fear you are damned both by father and mother. Thus, when I shun Scylla your father, I fall into Charybdis your mother. Well, you are gone both ways.

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

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

Enter Lorenzo

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

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

JESSICA Nay, you need not fear us, Lorenzo. Lancelot and I are out. 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.

LORENZO (to Lancelot) I shall answer that better to the commonwealth than you can the getting up of the Negro’s belly. The Moor is with child by you, Lancelot. LANCELOT It is much 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 for.

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

LANCELOT That is done, sir. They have all stomachs.

LORENZO Goodly Lord, what a wit-snapper are you Then bid them prepare dinner.

LANCELOT That is done too, sir; only ’cover’ is the word.

LORENZO Will you cover then, sir?

LANCELOT Not so, sir, neither. I know my duty.

LORENZO Yet more quarrelling with occasion! Wilt thou show the whole wealth of thy wit in an instant? I pray thee understand a plain man in his plain meaning. Go to thy fellows; bid them cover the table, serve in the meat, and we will come in to dinner.

LANCELOT For the table, sir, it shall be served in. For the meat, sir, it shall be covered. For your coming in to dinner, sir, why, let it be as humours and conceits shall govern. Exit

LORENZO

O dear discretion, how his words are suited!

The fool hath planted in his memory

An army of good words, and I do know

A many fools that stand in better place,

Garnished like him, that for a tricksy word

Defy the matter. How cheer’st thou, Jessica?

And now, good sweet, say thy opinion: