SCENE II. Belmont. A room in PORTIA'S house. The Merchant of Venice  Shakespeare homepage  |  Merchant of Venice  | Act 1, Scene 2 

 Next scene  SCENE II. Belmont. A room in PORTIA'S house. 

 Enter PORTIA and NERISSA  PORTIA  By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of 

 this great world. 

 NERISSA  You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in 

 the same abundance as your good fortunes are: and 

 yet, for aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit 

 with too much as they that starve with nothing. It 

 is no mean happiness therefore, to be seated in the 

 mean: superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but 

 competency lives longer. 

 PORTIA  Good sentences and well pronounced. 

 NERISSA  They would be better, if well followed. 

 PORTIA  If to do were as easy as to know what were good to 

 do, chapels had been churches and poor men's 

 cottages princes' palaces. It is a good divine that 

 follows his own instructions: I can easier teach 

 twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the 

 twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may 

 devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps 

 o'er a cold decree: such a hare is madness the 

 youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel the 

 cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to 

 choose me a husband. O me, the word 'choose!' I may 

 neither choose whom I would nor refuse whom I 

 dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed 

 by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard, 

 Nerissa, that I cannot choose one nor refuse none? 

 NERISSA  Your father was ever virtuous; and holy men at their 

 death have good inspirations: therefore the lottery, 

 that he hath devised in these three chests of gold, 

 silver and lead, whereof who chooses his meaning 

 chooses you, will, no doubt, never be chosen by any 

 rightly but one who shall rightly love. But what 

 warmth is there in your affection towards any of 

 these princely suitors that are already come? 

 PORTIA  I pray thee, over-name them; and as thou namest 

 them, I will describe them; and, according to my 

 description, level at my affection. 

 NERISSA  First, there is the Neapolitan prince. 

 PORTIA  Ay, that's a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but 

 talk of his horse; and he makes it a great 

 appropriation to his own good parts, that he can 

 shoe him himself. I am much afeard my lady his 

 mother played false with a smith. 

 NERISSA  Then there is the County Palatine. 

 PORTIA  He doth nothing but frown, as who should say 'If you 

 will not have me, choose:' he hears merry tales and 

 smiles not: I fear he will prove the weeping 

 philosopher when he grows old, being so full of 

 unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather be 

 married to a death's-head with a bone in his mouth 

 than to either of these. God defend me from these 

 two! 

 NERISSA  How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon? 

 PORTIA  God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. 

 In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker: but, 

 he! why, he hath a horse better than the 

 Neapolitan's, a better bad habit of frowning than 

 the Count Palatine; he is every man in no man; if a 

 throstle sing, he falls straight a capering: he will 

 fence with his own shadow: if I should marry him, I 

 should marry twenty husbands. If he would despise me 

 I would forgive him, for if he love me to madness, I 

 shall never requite him. 

 NERISSA  What say you, then, to Falconbridge, the young baron 

 of England? 

 PORTIA  You know I say nothing to him, for he understands 

 not me, nor I him: he hath neither Latin, French, 

 nor Italian, and you will come into the court and 

 swear that I have a poor pennyworth in the English. 

 He is a proper man's picture, but, alas, who can 

 converse with a dumb-show? How oddly he is suited! 

 I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round 

 hose in France, his bonnet in Germany and his 

 behavior every where. 

 NERISSA  What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour? 

 PORTIA  That he hath a neighbourly charity in him, for he 

 borrowed a box of the ear of the Englishman and 

 swore he would pay him again when he was able: I 

 think the Frenchman became his surety and sealed 

 under for another. 

 NERISSA  How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony's nephew? 

 PORTIA  Very vilely in the morning, when he is sober, and 

 most vilely in the afternoon, when he is drunk: when 

 he is best, he is a little worse than a man, and 

 when he is worst, he is little better than a beast: 

 and the worst fall that ever fell, I hope I shall 

 make shift to go without him. 

 NERISSA  If he should offer to choose, and choose the right 

 casket, you should refuse to perform your father's 

 will, if you should refuse to accept him. 

 PORTIA  Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee, set a 

 deep glass of rhenish wine on the contrary casket, 

 for if the devil be within and that temptation 

 without, I know he will choose it. I will do any 

 thing, Nerissa, ere I'll be married to a sponge. 

 NERISSA  You need not fear, lady, the having any of these 

 lords: they have acquainted me with their 

 determinations; which is, indeed, to return to their 

 home and to trouble you with no more suit, unless 

 you may be won by some other sort than your father's 

 imposition depending on the caskets. 

 PORTIA  If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as 

 chaste as Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner 

 of my father's will. I am glad this parcel of wooers 

 are so reasonable, for there is not one among them 

 but I dote on his very absence, and I pray God grant 

 them a fair departure. 

 NERISSA  Do you not remember, lady, in your father's time, a 

 Venetian, a scholar and a soldier, that came hither 

 in company of the Marquis of Montferrat? 

 PORTIA  Yes, yes, it was Bassanio; as I think, he was so called. 

 NERISSA  True, madam: he, of all the men that ever my foolish 

 eyes looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady. 

 PORTIA  I remember him well, and I remember him worthy of 

 thy praise. 



 Enter a Serving-man  How now! what news? 

 Servant  The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take 

 their leave: and there is a forerunner come from a 

 fifth, the Prince of Morocco, who brings word the 

 prince his master will be here to-night. 

 PORTIA  If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good a 

 heart as I can bid the other four farewell, I should 

 be glad of his approach: if he have the condition 

 of a saint and the complexion of a devil, I had 

 rather he should shrive me than wive me. Come, 

 Nerissa. Sirrah, go before. 

 Whiles we shut the gates 

 upon one wooer, another knocks at the door. 



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