To furnish thee to Belmont, to fair Portia. 1 Go, presently inquire, and so will I, Where money is; and I no question make, [Exeunt. SCENE II.-Belmont.3 A Room in Portia's House. Enter PORTIA and NERISSA. 4 Por. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is a-weary of this great world. Ner. 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 5; superfluity comes sooner by 6 white hairs, but competency lives longer. Presently.] Immediately; at once. 2 To have it of my trust.] Of obtaining it on the credit of my merchandise. The infinitive to have is here used for of having. Our poet uses the infinitive form of the verb to express a much greater variety of relations than is admitted in modern usage. 3 Belmont.] Shakspeare found this name in one of the old stories, but it is hardly to be supposed that he had in his eye some definite spot as the place of Portia's residence. He seems (Act iii. Sc. 4) to make it about twenty miles from Venice. As in the legend it is called a seaport, we may imagine it to be on the coast south-west of Venice. My little body.] The comparison here made by Portia has reference to the suitors coming to her from all parts of the world. 5 Seated in the mean.] Placed in the middle rank of life.-There is here a quibble between the two senses of the word mean; the First Folio, however, reads small happiness. 6 Comes sooner by.] Sooner arrives at, or comes to have; a condition of opulence or superabundance sooner brings on the decline of life. See note 4, p. 3. Por. Good sentences 1, and well pronounced. Por. If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do 2, chapels had been 3 churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier 5 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 6; 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 whom I would, nor refuse whom 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? Ner. 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 1 Sentences.] Maxims.-An exclamatory nominative. 2 What were good to do.] An objective noun clause to know. What, nominative to were. To do, an adverbial infinitive to good. 3 Had been.] Should have been.-The indicative form with potential signification. That follows.] The antecedent to the relative that is the pronoun it, which has a kind of demonstrative import. 5 Easier.] By easier means: an adjective used adverbially. For the blood.] For the regulation of the temper. "Leaps o'er.] Will not be restrained by. Not in the fashion.] Not according to the prescribed mode of choosing a husband for me.-The fashion to choose means the fashion that is to choose, the peculiar mode of choosing, viz., the lottery o the caskets. Me governed by for, understood, is emphatic. • Whereof who chooses his meaning.] Whoever makes that dis you,) will, no doubt, never be chosen by any rightly, but one who you shall rightly love. 1 But what warmth is there in your affection towards any of these princely suitors that are already come? Por. I pray thee, overname them; and as thou namest them I will describe them; and according to my description level at my affection. 2 Ner. First, there is the Neapolitan prince. Por. Ay, that's a colt, indeed 3, 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 afraid my lady his mother played false with a smith. Ner. Then is there the county Palatine. 4 Por. He doth nothing but frown; as who should say 5, An you will not have me, choose 6: he hears merry tales, and smiles not: -I fear he will prove the weeping phi crimination of them which he approved.-His meaning, that is, the casket by which he meant you to be won. 1 Who you shall rightly love.] You is the objective to love, the sense being 'one who shall love you with right motives.' 2 Level at my affection.] Try to hit, argue, guess at the nature of my affection. That is a colt, indeed.] A man of coltish mind or fancy.-The Neapolitans were eminently skilled in all matters of horsemanship. • The county Palatine.] A Polish Palatine, of great opulence, Count Albert Alaski, visited the court of Elizabeth in 1583, and was treated with great distinction: he was a man of gay and prodigal habits; but the circumstance of his visit to England may have suggested to our poet the introduction of a Count Palatine, though of different disposition, in the list of Portia's suitors. 5 As who should say.] See note 2, p. 11. An you will not have me, choose.] Make your own choice, choose whom you please.-An is an old English word for if; it is sometimes found followed by if redundant (see note 1, p. 126), and is sometimes corrupted into and, as in Luke xii. 45. 1 losopher when he grows old, being so full of unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather to be married 2 to a death's head with a bone in his mouth, than to either of these. God defend me from these two! Ner. How say you by the French lord 3, monsieur le Bon? Por. God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker. 4 But he! why, he hath a horse better than the Neapolitan's 5; a better bad habit of frowning than the count Palatine: he is every man in no man7: 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 8 1 The weeping philosopher.] Heraclitus was called the 'weeping philosopher,' because he mourned over the follies of mankind, just as Democritus was called the 'laughing philosopher,' because he laughed at those follies. Philosopher is a nominative following the intran sitive verb prove. 2 I had rather to be married.] I would rather have that I should be married. The infinitive is here an objective complement to had. In some of the old copies to is omitted. 3 By the French lord.] By has here the now obsolete sense of respecting. See note 3, p. 69. • To be a mocker.] The sinfulness here thought of is deduced chiefly from Prov. xvii. 5, 'Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker;' compare the preceding part of Portia's speech. 5 Better than the Neapolitan's.] Thus showing that as a horsefancier he is even more particular than the Neapolitan. A better bad habit.] The adjective better qualifies the complex noun bad habit, and there is an intended jest in the association of the word bad with the comparative degree of good; but the meaning is that the Frenchman surpasses the Count Palatine in the bad habit of frowning. The words good, better, best, are often used to denote mere degree or extent. He is every man.] He has something of every man's temper in him, and is no man himself, has no individuality of disposition. 8 A throstle.] A kind of thrush.-The slightest influences find something responsive in that Frenchman. would despise me I would forgive him; for if he love me to madness I shall never requite him. Ner. What say you then to Faulconbridge 1, the young baron of England? 3 Por. 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 2 that I have a poor pennyworth in the English. He is a proper man's picture 4; 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. Ner. What think you of the Scottish lord 5, his neighbour? 6 7 Por. 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 1 To Faulconbridge.] That is, with reference to, in relation to. In Portia's answer, this meaning of the word to is playfully altered. 2 Come into the court and swear.] You will declare as seriously as if you were upon oath in a court of justice. In the English.] In the amount of English that he speaks. A proper man's picture.] The likeness of a handsome man. This meaning of proper is frequent in Shakspeare and others of our older writers. See the Editor's Julius Cæsar, p. 5, note 4. 5 The Scottish lord.] The word Scottish occurs in the 4to editions of this play, which were printed before the accession of James I.; but it was afterwards changed for the word other, to avoid giving offence to that monarch. • His neighbour.] Scotland being the neighbouring country to England. Neighbourly charity.] Charity or love such as we should show towards our neighbour; for the Englishman, Faulconbridge, having laid this Scotchman under obligation by giving him a box on the ear, the latter vowed he would repay the favour, when it should be in his power to do so. This satirically implies Scotland's usual |