The Merchant of Venice | Page 4

aspect
That they'll
not show their teeth in way of smile
Though Nestor swear the jest be
laughable.
[Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO.]
SALANIO.
Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman,

Gratiano, and Lorenzo. Fare ye well;
We leave you now with better
company.
SALARINO.
I would have stay'd till I had made you merry,
If
worthier friends had not prevented me.
ANTONIO.
Your worth is very dear in my regard.
I take it your
own business calls on you,
And you embrace th' occasion to depart.
SALARINO.
Good morrow, my good lords.
BASSANIO.
Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? Say when.

You grow exceeding strange; must it be so?
SALARINO.
We'll make our leisures to attend on yours.
[Exeunt SALARINO and SALANIO.]

LORENZO.
My Lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio,

We two will leave you; but at dinner-time,
I pray you, have in mind
where we must meet.
BASSANIO.
I will not fail you.
GRATIANO.
You look not well, Signior Antonio;
You have too
much respect upon the world;
They lose it that do buy it with much
care.
Believe me, you are marvellously chang'd.
ANTONIO.
I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;
A stage,
where every man must play a part,
And mine a sad one.
GRATIANO.
Let me play the fool;
With mirth and laughter let old
wrinkles come;
And let my liver rather heat with wine
Than my
heart cool with mortifying groans.
Why should a man whose blood is
warm within
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster,
Sleep when he
wakes, and creep into the jaundice
By being peevish? I tell thee what,
Antonio--
I love thee, and 'tis my love that speaks--
There are a sort
of men whose visages
Do cream and mantle like a standing pond,

And do a wilful stillness entertain,
With purpose to be dress'd in an
opinion
Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit;
As who should say 'I
am Sir Oracle,
And when I ope my lips let no dog bark.'
O my
Antonio, I do know of these
That therefore only are reputed wise

For saying nothing; when, I am very sure,
If they should speak,
would almost damn those ears
Which, hearing them, would call their
brothers fools.
I'll tell thee more of this another time.
But fish not
with this melancholy bait,
For this fool gudgeon, this opinion.

Come, good Lorenzo. Fare ye well awhile;
I'll end my exhortation
after dinner.
LORENZO.
Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time.
I must
be one of these same dumb wise men,
For Gratiano never lets me
speak.

GRATIANO.
Well, keep me company but two years moe,
Thou
shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue.
ANTONIO.
Fare you well; I'll grow a talker for this gear.
GRATIANO.
Thanks, i' faith, for silence is only commendable
In a
neat's tongue dried, and a maid not vendible.
[Exeunt GRATIANO and LORENZO.]
ANTONIO.
Is that anything now?
BASSANIO.
Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than

any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in,
two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them, and
when you have them they are not worth the search.
ANTONIO.
Well; tell me now what lady is the same
To whom you
swore a secret pilgrimage,
That you to-day promis'd to tell me of?
BASSANIO.
'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,
How much I have
disabled mine estate
By something showing a more swelling port

Than my faint means would grant continuance;
Nor do I now make
moan to be abridg'd
From such a noble rate; but my chief care
Is to
come fairly off from the great debts
Wherein my time, something too
prodigal,
Hath left me gag'd. To you, Antonio,
I owe the most, in
money and in love;
And from your love I have a warranty
To
unburden all my plots and purposes
How to get clear of all the debts I
owe.
ANTONIO.
I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it;
And if it
stand, as you yourself still do,
Within the eye of honour, be assur'd

My purse, my person, my extremest means,
Lie all unlock'd to your
occasions.
BASSANIO.
In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft,
I shot

his fellow of the self-same flight
The self-same way, with more
advised watch,
To find the other forth; and by adventuring both
I
oft found both. I urge this childhood proof,
Because what follows is
pure innocence.
I owe you much; and, like a wilful youth,
That
which I owe is lost; but if you please
To shoot another arrow that self
way
Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,
As I will watch
the aim, or to find both,
Or bring your latter hazard back again
And
thankfully rest debtor for the first.
ANTONIO.
You know me well, and herein spend but time
To
wind about my love with circumstance;
And out of doubt you do me
now more wrong
In making question of my uttermost
Than if you
had made waste of all I have.
Then do but say to me what I should do

That in your knowledge may by me be done,
And I am prest unto it;
therefore, speak.
BASSANIO.
In Belmont is a lady richly left,
And she is fair and,
fairer than that word,
Of wondrous virtues. Sometimes from her eyes

I