SCENE I. Venice. A street. The Merchant of Venice  Shakespeare homepage  |  Merchant of Venice  | Act 1, Scene 1 

 Next scene  SCENE I. Venice. A street. 

 Enter ANTONIO, SALARINO, and SALANIO  ANTONIO  In sooth, I know not why I am so sad: 

 It wearies me; you say it wearies you; 

 But how I caught it, found it, or came by it, 

 What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born, 

 I am to learn; 

 And such a want-wit sadness makes of me, 

 That I have much ado to know myself. 

 SALARINO  Your mind is tossing on the ocean; 

 There, where your argosies with portly sail, 

 Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood, 

 Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea, 

 Do overpeer the petty traffickers, 

 That curtsy to them, do them reverence, 

 As they fly by them with their woven wings. 

 SALANIO  Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth, 

 The better part of my affections would 

 Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still 

 Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind, 

 Peering in maps for ports and piers and roads; 

 And every object that might make me fear 

 Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt 

 Would make me sad. 

 SALARINO  My wind cooling my broth 

 Would blow me to an ague, when I thought 

 What harm a wind too great at sea might do. 

 I should not see the sandy hour-glass run, 

 But I should think of shallows and of flats, 

 And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand, 

 Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs 

 To kiss her burial. Should I go to church 

 And see the holy edifice of stone, 

 And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks, 

 Which touching but my gentle vessel's side, 

 Would scatter all her spices on the stream, 

 Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks, 

 And, in a word, but even now worth this, 

 And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought 

 To think on this, and shall I lack the thought 

 That such a thing bechanced would make me sad? 

 But tell not me; I know, Antonio 

 Is sad to think upon his merchandise. 

 ANTONIO  Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for it, 

 My ventures are not in one bottom trusted, 

 Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate 

 Upon the fortune of this present year: 

 Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad. 

 SALARINO  Why, then you are in love. 

 ANTONIO  Fie, fie! 

 SALARINO  Not in love neither? Then let us say you are sad, 

 Because you are not merry: and 'twere as easy 

 For you to laugh and leap and say you are merry, 

 Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus, 

 Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time: 

 Some that will evermore peep through their eyes 

 And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper, 

 And other of such vinegar 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 the 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 changed. 

 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 it is 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  Farewell: 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 any thing 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 promised 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 abridged 

 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 gaged. 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 assured, 

 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 did receive fair speechless messages: 

 Her name is Portia, nothing undervalued 

 To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia: 

 Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth, 

 For the four winds blow in from every coast 

 Renowned suitors, and her sunny locks 

 Hang on her temples like a golden fleece; 

 Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strand, 

 And many Jasons come in quest of her. 

 O my Antonio, had I but the means 

 To hold a rival place with one of them, 

 I have a mind presages me such thrift, 

 That I should questionless be fortunate! 

 ANTONIO  Thou know'st that all my fortunes are at sea; 

 Neither have I money nor commodity 

 To raise a present sum: therefore go forth; 

 Try what my credit can in Venice do: 

 That shall be rack'd, even to the uttermost, 

 To furnish thee to Belmont, to fair Portia. 

 Go, presently inquire, and so will I, 

 Where money is, and I no question make 

 To have it of my trust or for my sake. 



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