Belmont. A Room in Portia's House.
 Enter PORTIA with her waiting-woman, 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 who I 
	would nor refuse who 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 you 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 overname 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 is there the County Palatine.

Portia	He doth nothing but frown, as who should say "And 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 behaviour 
	everywhere.

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. An 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 anything, Nerissa, ere I will 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 so was he 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 SERVINGMAN.

	How now, what news?

Servingman	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 
	tonight.

Portia	If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good 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 
	gate upon one wooer, another knocks at the door.
														[Exeunt.
