Venice. A Street.
 Enter ANTONIO, SALERIO, and SOLANIO.

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.

Salerio	Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
	There where your argosies with portly sail,
	Like signors 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.

Solanio	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.

Salerio						My wind cooling my broth
	Would blow me to an ague when I thought
	What harm a wind too great might do at sea.
	I should not see the sandy hour-glass run
	But I should think of shallows and of flats,
	And see my wealthy Andrew docked 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.

Solanio	Why, then you are in love.

Antonio									Fie, fie!

Solanio	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 bagpiper,
	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.

	Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman,
	Gratiano, and Lorenzo. Fare ye well;
	We leave you now with better company.

Salerio	I would have stayed 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.

Salerio	Good morrow, my good lords.

Bassanio	Good signors both, when shall we laugh? Say, when?
	You grow exceeding strange; must it be so?

Salerio	We'll make our leisures to attend on yours.
											[Exeunt SALERIO and SOLANIO.

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, Signor 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 '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 dressed 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 a while;
	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 more,
	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 today 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 unlocked to your occasions.

Bassanio	In my schooldays, when I had lost one shaft,
	I shot his fellow of the selfsame flight
	The selfsame way, with more advisd 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 pressed 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
	Renownd 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 racked, 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.
														[Exeunt.
