But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

Enter Musicians.

Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn:
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear,
And draw her home with music.

[Music.

Jes. I am never merry when I hear sweeet
music.
Lor. The reason is, your spirits are attentive:
For do but note a wild and wanton herd,
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,
Fetching mad bounds, bellowing, and neighing loud,
Which is the hot condition of their blood;
If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
Or any air of music touch their ears,
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their savage eyes turned to a modest
gaze
By the sweet power of music. Therefore, the poet
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and
floods;

Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.

Enter PORTIA and NERISSA, at a distance.

Por. That light we see is burning in my hall.
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

[A tucket sounds.

Lor. Your husband is at hand, I hear his trumpet:
We are no tell-tales, madam; fear you not.
Por. This night, methinks, is but the day-light
sick;

It looks a little paler: 't is a day
Such as the day is when the sun is hid.

Enter BASSANIO, ANTONIO, GRATIANO, and their
Followers.

Bass. We should hold day with the Antipodes,

Ner. When the moon shone we did not see the If you would walk in absence of the sun.

candle.

Por. So doth the greater glory dim the less:
A substitute shines brightly as a king,
Until a king be by; and then his state
Empties itself, as doth an inland brook
Into the main of waters. Music hark!

Ner. It is your music, madam, of the house.
Por. Nothing is good, I see, without respect:
Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.

Ner. Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam.
Por. The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark,
When neither is attended; and I think
The nightingale, if she should sing by day,

Por. Let me give light, but let me not be light:
For a light wife doth make a heavy husband,
And never be Bassanio so for me:
But God sort all! You are welcome home, my
lord.

Bass. I thank you, madam; give welcome to
my friend.

This is the man, this is Antonio,
To whom I am so infinitely bound.

Por. You should in all sense be much bound to
him:

For, as I hear, he was much bound for you.

Ant. No more than I am well acquitted of.

Por. Sir, you are very welcome to our house;
It must appear in other ways than words;
Therefore I scant this breathing courtesy.

[GRATIANO and NERISSA seem to talk apart.
Gra. By yonder moon, I swear you do me wrong.
In faith, I gave it to the judge's clerk.
Would he were gelt that had it, for my part,
Since you do take it, love, so much at heart.
Por. A quarrel, ho, already! what's the matter?
Gra. About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring
That she did give me ; whose posy was
For all the world like cutler's poetry
Upon a knife; "Love me, and leave me not."

Ner. What talk you of the posy or the value?
You swore to me when I did give it you,
That you would wear it till your hour of death,
And that it should lie with you in your grave:
Though not for me, yet for your vehement oaths
You should have been respective, and have kept it.
Gave it a judge's clerk !- but well I know

If

Sweet Portia,

If you did know to whom I gave the ring,
you did know for whom I gave the ring,
And would conceive for what I gave the ring,
And how unwillingly I left the ring,
When nought would be accepted but the ring,
You would abate the strength of your displeasure
Por. If you had known the virtue of the ring,
Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,
Or your own honor to contain the ring,

The clerk will ne'er wear hair on his face that had it. You would not then have parted with the ring.

Gra. He will an if he live to be a man.

Ner. Ay, if a woman live to be a man.

Gra. Now, by this hand, I gave it to a youth;
A kind of boy; a little scrubbéd boy

No higher than thyself; the judge's clerk;
A prating boy, that begged it as a fee:

I could not for my heart deny it him.

What man is there so much unreasonable,
If you had pleased to have defended it
With any terms of zeal, wanted the modesty
To urge the thing held as a ceremony?
Nerissa teaches me what to believe;
I'll die for 't but some woman had the ring.

Bass. No, by mine honor, madam, by my soul.

Por. You were to blame, I must be plain with No woman had it, but a civil doctor,

you,

To part so slightly with your wife's first gift;
A thing stuck on with oaths upon your finger,
And so riveted with faith unto your flesh.
I gave my love a ring, and made him swear
Never to part with it; and here he stands:
I dare be sworn for him, he would not leave it,
Nor pluck it from his finger, for the wealth
That the world masters. Now in faith, Gratiano,
You give your wife too unkind a cause of grief:
An 't were to me, I should be mad at it.

Bass. Why, I were best to cut my left hand off,
And swear I lost the ring defending it. [Aside.

Gra. My lord Bassanio gave his ring away
Unto the judge, that begged it, and indeed
Deserved it too and then the boy, his clerk,
That took some pains in writing, he begged mine:
And neither man nor master would take aught
But the two rings.

Which did refuse three thousand ducats of me,
And begged the ring; the which I did deny him,
And suffered him to go displeased away;
Even he that had held up the very life

Of my dear friend. What should I say, sweet lady?
I was enforced to send it after him;

I was beset with shame and courtesy ;
My honor would not let ingratitude
So much besmear it. Pardon me, good lady;
For, by these blesséd candles of the night,
Had you been there, I think you would have
begged

The ring of me to give the worthy doctor.

Por. Let not that doctor e'er come near my
house.

Since he hath got the jewel that I loved,
And that which you did swear to keep for me,
I will become as liberal as you;

I'll not deny him any thing I have;

It comes from Padua, from Bellario:
There you shall find that Portia was the doctor;

Lie not a night from home; watch me like Argus: Nerissa there, her clerk. Lorenzo here
If you do not, if I be left alone,

Bass. By heaven, it is the same I gave the doc- Of these events at full. Let us go in ;

NOTES.

"Now by my hood, a Gentile, and no Jew." - Act II., Scene 6.

A jest arising from the ambiguity of the word "Gentile," which signifies both a heathen and one well born.

"That 'many' may be meant

By the fool multitude."- Act II., Scene

The Prince of Arragon intends to say:-"By that 'many' may be meant the foolish multitude." The fourth folio first introduced a phraseology more agreeable to our ears at present:-"Of the fool

"The Duke cannot deny the course of law;
For the commodity that strangers have
With us in Venice, if it be denied,
Will much impeach the justice of the State."
Act III, Scene 3.

As this passage is a litio perplexed in its construction, it may not be improper to explain it :-"If (says Antonio) the Duke stop the course of law, the denial of those rights to strangers, which render their abode at Venice so commodious and agreeable to them, will much impeach the justice of the state," &c. In the "HISTORYE OF

multitude." But change, merely for the sake of elegance, is always ITALYE," by W. Thomas (1567), there is a section "On the libertie of

dangerous. Many modes of speech were familiar in Shakspeare's age that are now no longer used. I have met with many examples of this kind of phraseology. So in Plutarch's Life of Cæsar, as translated by North (1575):-"He answered that these fair long-haired men made him not afraid, but the lean and whitely-faced fellows; meaning that by Brutus and Cassius."-MALONE.

"It was my turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor." Act III., Scene 1.

The precious stone here alluded to is found in the veins of the mountains on the confines of Persia, to the east. In ancient times its pecuniary value was much enhanced by the magic properties attributed to it, one of which was that it faded or brightened its hue as the health of the wearer increased or grew less. Other virtues were also imputed to it, all of which were either monitory or preserv ative to the wearer.

"O! those naughty times

Put 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"-Act III., Scene 2.
The meaning is:-"If the worst I fear should happen, and it
should prove in the event that I, who am justly yours by the free do-
nation I have made you of myself, should yet not be yours in conse-
quence of an unlucky choice, let fortune go to hell for robbing you of
your just due, not I for violating my oath."- HEATH.

"So may the outward shows be least themselves."

Act III., Scene 2.

Bassanio here begins abruptly; the first part of the argument has passed in his mind. The old stage direction has been retained, as regards this particular:-" Music, whilst Bassanio comments on the caskets to himself."

"Thus ornament is but the guiled shore

To a most dangerous sea.” -Act III., Scene 2.

By the "guiled shore" is meant the treacherous or beguiling shore. The passive for the active participle.

"But her eyes,

How could he see to do them having made one,
Methinks it should have power to steal both his,
And leave itself unfurnished.· -Act III., Scene 2.

Straungers at Venice."

Capell, with great plausibility, proposes to read the passage thus:-
"The Duke cannot deny the course of law,

For [because of] the commodity that strangers have
With us in Venice: if it be denied,

"T will much impeach the justice of the state."

"Which makes me think that this Antonio,
Being the bosom lover of my lord,

Must needs be like my lord.” —Act III., Scene 4.

The term lover, in Shakspeare's time, was often applied to those of the same sex who had an esteem for each other. Ben Jonson concludes one of his letters to Dr. Donne, by telling him he is his true lover. In "CORIOLANUS," Menenius says, "I tell thee, fellow, thy general is my lover." Many similar instances might be adduced.

"Some men there are love not a gaping pig.” — Act IV., Scene 1.

By a gaping pig, Shakspeare, I believe, meant a pig prepared for the table; for in that state is the epithet gaping most applicable to this animal. So in Fletcher's "Elder Brother:"-" And they stood gaping like a roasted pig." A passage in one of Nashe's pamphlets (which perhaps furnished our author with his instance) may serve to confirm the observation:-"The causes conducting unto wrath are as diverse as the actions of a man's life. Some will take on like a Sotericus, the surgeon,

That is, "unfurnished" with a companion or fellow. In Fletch- madman, if they see a pig come to the table. er's "LOVER'S PROGRESS," Alcidon says to Clarange:

"You are a noble gentleman

Will 't please you to bring a friend? We are two of us,
And pity either of us should be unfurnished."

"Lorenzo and Salanio, welcome hither."— Act III., Scene 2. The friend who brings Bassanio the evil tidings of Antonio's danger, is in most modern editions designated SALERIO, in compliance with the example of Steevens. But we are clearly of opinion, with Capell, and a contemporary editor, that this is no new character, but merely another term for one of our old acquaintances Salarino and Solanio, whose names are given by the original folio in the most perplexing variety, both at length and in abridgment.

was choleric at the sight of a sturgeon," &c.— MALONE.

"You have among you many a purchased slave."

Act IV., Scene 1.

Johnson observes:-"This argument, considered as used to the particular persons, seems conclusive. I see not how Venetians or Englishmen, while they practice the purchase and sale of slaves, can much enforce or demand the law of doing to others as we would that they should do to us." The rugged philanthropist, we may venture to add, would have been proud to commemorate, had he lived in these days, the long and strenuous efforts by which the stigma of sanctioning slavery has been totally and finally removed from his countrymen.

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