Belmont. The Avenue to Portia's House.
 Enter LORENZO and JESSICA.

Lorenzo	The moon shines bright. In such a night as this,
	When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees
	And they did make no noise, in such a night
	Troilus methinks mounted the Trojan walls,
	And sighed his soul toward the Grecian tents
	Where Cressid lay that night.

Jessica										In such a night
	Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew,
	And saw the lion's shadow ere himself,
	And ran dismayed away.

Lorenzo								In such a night
	Stood Dido with a willow in her hand
	Upon the wild sea-banks, and waft her love
	To come again to Carthage.

Jessica									In such a night
	Medea gathered the enchanted herbs
	That did renew old Aeson.

Lorenzo								In such a night
	Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew,
	And with an unthrift love did run from Venice
	As far as Belmont.

Jessica							In such a night
	Did young Lorenzo swear he loved her well,
	Stealing her soul with many vows of faith,
	And ne'er a true one.

Lorenzo								In such a night
	Did pretty Jessica, like a little shrew,
	Slander her love, and he forgave it her.

Jessica	I would outnight you, did nobody come;
	But hark, I hear the footing of a man.

                             Enter STEPHANO.

Lorenzo	Who comes so fast in silence of the night?

Stephano	A friend.

Lorenzo	A friend? What friend? Your name I pray you, friend?

Stephano	Stephano is my name, and I bring word
	My mistress will before the break of day
	Be here at Belmont. She doth stray about
	By holy crosses, where she kneels and prays
	For happy wedlock hours.

Lorenzo								Who comes with her?

Stephano	None but a holy hermit and her maid.
	I pray you, is my master yet returned?

Lorenzo	He is not, nor we have not heard from him.
	But go we in, I pray thee, Jessica,
	And ceremoniously let us prepare
	Some welcome for the mistress of the house.

                             Enter LAUNCELOT.

Launcelot	Sola, sola! Wo ha, ho! Sola, sola!

Lorenzo	Who calls?

Launcelot	Sola! Did you see Master Lorenzo? Master Lorenzo! Sola, 
	sola!

Lorenzo	Leave holloaing man. Here!

Launcelot	Sola! Where, where?

Lorenzo	Here!

Launcelot	Tell him there's a post come from my master, with his horn 
	full of good news: my master will be here ere morning.
														[Exit.

Lorenzo	Sweet soul, let's in, and there expect their coming.
	And yet no matter; why should we go in?
	My friend Stephano, signify, I pray you,
	Within the house, your mistress is at hand;
	And bring your music forth into the air.
														[Exit STEPHANO.
	How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
	Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
	Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night
	Become the touches of sweet harmony.
	Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
	Is thick inlaid with patens of bright gold;
	There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
	But in his motion like an angel sings,
	Still choiring to the young-eyed cherubins.
	Such harmony is in immortal souls;
	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.
Jessica	I am never merry when I hear sweet music.

Lorenzo	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 naught 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.

Portia	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.

Nerissa	When the moon shone we did not see the candle.

Portia	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!

Nerissa	It is your music, madam, of the house.

Portia	Nothing is good, I see, without respect.
	Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.

Nerissa	Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam.

Portia	The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark
	When neither is attended, and I think
	The nightingale, if she should sing by day
	When every goose is cackling, would be thought
	No better a musician than the wren.
	How many things by season seasoned are
	To their right praise, and true perfection!
	Peace, ho! The moon sleeps with Endymion,
	And would not be awaked!
														[Music ceases.
Lorenzo								That is the voice,
	Or I am much deceived, of Portia.

Portia	He knows me, as the blind man knows the cuckoo,
	By the bad voice!

Lorenzo						Dear lady, welcome home.

Portia	We have been praying for our husbands' welfare;
	Which speed, we hope, the better for our words.
	Are they returned?

Lorenzo							Madam, they are not yet;
	But there is come a messenger before,
	To signify their coming.

Portia									Go in, Nerissa;
	Give order to my servants that they take
	No note at all of our being absent hence;
	Nor you, Lorenzo; Jessica, nor you.
														[A tucket sounds.

Lorenzo	Your husband is at hand, I hear his trumpet.
	We are no telltales, madam; fear you not.

Portia	This night methinks is but the daylight sick;
	It looks a little paler: - 'tis a day
	Such as the day is when the sun is hid.

         Enter BASSANIO, ANTONIO, GRATIANO, and their FOLLOWERS.

Bassanio	We should hold day with the Antipodes,
	If you would walk in absence of the sun.

Portia	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.

Bassanio	I thank you, madam. Give welcome to my friend.
	This is the man, this is Antonio,
	To whom I am so infinitely bound.

Portia	You should in all sense be much bound to him,
	For, as I hear, he was much bound for you.

Antonio	No more than I am well acquitted of.

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

Gratiano	[To NERISSA.] 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.

Portia	A quarrel, ho, already! What's the matter?

Gratiano	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'.

Nerissa	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! No, God's my judge,
	The clerk will ne'er wear hair on's face that had it.

Gratiano	He will, an if he live to be a man.

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

Gratiano	Now, by this hand, I gave it to a youth,
	A kind of boy, a little scrubbd 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.

Portia	You were to blame - I must be plain with 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 'twere to me I should be mad at it.

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

Gratiano	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.

Portia						What ring gave you, my lord?
	Not that, I hope, which you received of me.

Bassanio	If I could add a lie unto a fault,
	I would deny it; but you see my finger
	Hath not the ring upon it. It is gone.

Portia	Even so void is your false heart of truth.
	By heaven, I will ne'er come in your bed
	Until I see the ring!

Nerissa								Nor I in yours
	Till I again see mine!

Bassanio									Sweet Portia,
	If you did know to whom I gave the ring,
	If 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.

Portia	If you had known the virtue of the ring,
	Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,
	Or your own honour to contain the ring,
	You would not then have parted with the ring.
	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.

Bassanio	No, by my honour, madam! By my soul,
	No woman had it, but a civil doctor,
	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 honour would not let ingratitude
	So much besmear it. Pardon me, good lady,
	For, by these blessd candles of the night,
	Had you been there I think you would have begged
	The ring of me to give the worthy doctor.

Portia	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 anything I have,
	No, not my body, nor my husband's bed.
	Know him I shall, I am well sure of it.
	Lie not a night from home. Watch me like Argus.
	If you do not, if I be left alone,
	Now by mine honour, which is yet mine own,
	I'll have that doctor for my bedfellow.

Nerissa	And I his clerk; therefore be well advised
	How you do leave me to mine own protection.

Gratiano	Well, do you so. Let not me take him then;
	For, if I do, I'll mar the young clerk's pen.

Antonio	I am th'unhappy subject of these quarrels.

Portia	Sir, grieve not you; you are welcome notwithstanding.

Bassanio	Portia, forgive me this enforcd wrong;
	And in the hearing of these many friends
	I swear to thee, even by thine own fair eyes
	Wherein I see myself-

Portia									Mark you but that!
	In both my eyes he doubly sees himself,
	In each eye one. Swear by your double self,
	And there's an oath of credit.

Bassanio										Nay, but hear me.
	Pardon this fault, and by my soul I swear
	I never more will break an oath with thee.

Antonio	I once did lend my body for his wealth,
	Which but for him that had your husband's ring
	Had quite miscarried. I dare be bound again,
	My soul upon the forfeit, that your lord
	Will never more break faith advisedly.

Portia	Then you shall be his surety. Give him this,
	And bid him keep it better than the other.

Antonio	Here, Lord Bassanio, swear to keep this ring.

Bassanio	By heaven, it is the same I gave the doctor!

Portia	I had it of him. Pardon me, Bassanio,
	For by this ring the doctor lay with me.

Nerissa	And pardon me, my gentle Gratiano,
	For that same scrubbd boy, the doctor's clerk,
	In lieu of this, last night did lie with me.

Gratiano	Why, this is like the mending of highways
	In summer where the ways are fair enough!
	What, are we cuckolds ere we have deserved it?

Portia	Speak not so grossly. You are all amazed.
	Here is a letter, read it at your leisure.
	It comes from Padua, from Bellario;
	There you shall find that Portia was the doctor,
	Nerissa there her clerk. Lorenzo here
	Shall witness I set forth as soon as you,
	And even but now returned; I have not yet
	Entered my house. Antonio, you are welcome,
	And I have better news in store for you
	Than you expect. Unseal this letter soon;
	There you shall find three of your argosies
	Are richly come to harbour suddenly.
	You shall not know by what strange accident
	I chancd on this letter.

Antonio									I am dumb!

Bassanio	Were you the doctor, and I knew you not?

Gratiano	Were you the clerk that is to make me cuckold?

Nerissa	Ay, but the clerk that never means to do it,
	Unless he live until he be a man.

Bassanio	Sweet doctor, you shall be my bedfellow;
	When I am absent, then lie with my wife.

Antonio	Sweet lady, you have given me life and living,
	For here I read for certain that my ships
	Are safely come to road.

Portia									How now, Lorenzo,
	My clerk hath some good comforts too for you.

Nerissa	Ay, and I'll give them him without a fee.
	There do I give to you and Jessica,
	From the rich Jew, a special deed of gift,
	After his death, of all he dies possessed of.

Lorenzo	Fair ladies, you drop manna in the way
	Of starvd people.

Portia							It is almost morning,
	And yet I am sure you are not satisfied
	Of these events at full. Let us go in,
	And charge us there upon inter'gatories,
	And we will answer all things faithfully.

Gratiano	Let it be so. The first inter'gatory
	That my Nerissa shall be sworn on is
	Whether till the next night she had rather stay,
	Or go to bed now, being two hours to day.
	But were the day come I should wish it dark,
	Till I were couching with the doctor's clerk.
	Well, while I live I'll fear no other thing
	So sore as keeping safe Nerissa's ring.
														[Exeunt.
