| Antonio | In sooth, I know not why I am so sad:It wearies me; you say it wearies you;…My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,Nor to one place; nor is my whole estateUpon the fortune of this present year:Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad….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 wineThan my heart cool with mortifying groans. |
| Bassanio | I owe you much, and, like a wilful youth,That which I owe is lost; but if you pleaseTo shoot another arrow that self wayWhich you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,As I will watch the aim, or to find bothOr bring your latter hazard back againAnd thankfully rest debtor for the first….In Belmont is a lady richly left;And she is fair, and, fairer than that word,Of wondrous virtues: sometimes from her eyesI did receive fair speechless messages |
| Portia | I mayneither choose whom I would nor refuse whom Idislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbedby the will of a dead father. |
| Antonio | Mark you this, Bassanio,The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.An evil soul producing holy witnessIs like a villain with a smiling cheek,A goodly apple rotten at the heart:O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath! |
| Shylock | In the Rialto you have rated meAbout my moneys and my usances:Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe….You, that did void your rheum upon my beardAnd foot me as you spurn a stranger curOver your threshold: moneys is your suitWhat should I say to you? Should I not say’Hath a dog money? is it possibleA cur can lend three thousand ducats?’ |
| Shylock | This kindness will I show.Go with me to a notary, seal me thereYour single bond; and, in a merry sport,If you repay me not on such a day,In such a place, such sum or sums as areExpress’d in the condition, let the forfeitBe nominated for an equal poundOf your fair flesh, to be cut off and takenIn what part of your body pleaseth me. |
| Morocco | Mislike me not for my complexion,The shadow’d livery of the burnish’d sun,To whom I am a neighbour and near bred.Bring me the fairest creature northward born,Where Phoebus’ fire scarce thaws the icicles,And let us make incision for your love,To prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine.I tell thee, lady, this aspect of mineHath fear’d the valiant: by my love I swearThe best-regarded virgins of our climeHave loved it too: I would not change this hue,Except to steal your thoughts, my gentle queen. |
| Portia | In terms of choice I am not solely ledBy nice direction of a maiden’s eyes;Besides, the lottery of my destinyBars me the right of voluntary choosing: |
| Launcelot | My master’s a very Jew: givehim a present! give him a halter: I am famished inhis service; you may tell every finger I have withmy ribs. Father, I am glad you are come: give meyour present to one Master Bassanio, who, indeed,gives rare new liveries: if I serve not him, Iwill run as far as God has any ground. |
| Bassanio | I know thee well; thou hast obtain’d thy suit:Shylock thy master spoke with me this day,And hath preferr’d thee, if it be prefermentTo leave a rich Jew’s service, to becomeThe follower of so poor a gentleman. |
| Bassanio | But hear thee, Gratiano;Thou art too wild, too rude and bold of voice;Parts that become thee happily enoughAnd in such eyes as ours appear not faults;But where thou art not known, why, there they showSomething too liberal. Pray thee, take painTo allay with some cold drops of modestyThy skipping spirit, lest through thy wild behaviorI be misconstrued in the place I go to,And lose my hopes. |
| Jessica | Alack, what heinous sin is it in meTo be ashamed to be my father’s child!But though I am a daughter to his blood,I am not to his manners. O Lorenzo,If thou keep promise, I shall end this strife,Become a Christian and thy loving wife. |
| Lorenzo | I must needs tell thee all. She hath directedHow I shall take her from her father’s house,What gold and jewels she is furnish’d with,What page’s suit she hath in readiness. |
| Shylock | I am bid forth to supper, Jessica:There are my keys. But wherefore should I go?I am not bid for love; they flatter me:But yet I’ll go in hate, to feed uponThe prodigal Christian. Jessica, my girl,Look to my house. I am right loath to go:There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest,For I did dream of money-bags to-night. |
| Shylock | The patch is kind enough, but a huge feeder;Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by dayMore than the wild-cat: drones hive not with me;Therefore I part with him, and part with himTo one that would have him help to wasteHis borrow’d purse. |
| Jessica | Here, catch this casket; it is worth the pains.I am glad ’tis night, you do not look on me,For I am much ashamed of my exchange:But love is blind and lovers cannot seeThe pretty follies that themselves commit;For if they could, Cupid himself would blushTo see me thus transformed to a boy. |
| Lorenzo | Beshrew me but I love her heartily;For she is wise, if I can judge of her,And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true,And true she is, as she hath proved herself,And therefore, like herself, wise, fair and true,Shall she be placed in my constant soul. |
| Morocco | The first, of gold, who this inscription bears,’Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire;’The second, silver, which this promise carries,’Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves;’This third, dull lead, with warning all as blunt,’Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.’How shall I know if I do choose the right? |
| Scroll in the golden chest | All that glitters is not gold;Often have you heard that told:Many a man his life hath soldBut my outside to behold:Gilded tombs do worms enfold.Had you been as wise as bold,Young in limbs, in judgment old,Your answer had not been inscroll’d:Fare you well; your suit is cold. |
| Salanio | I never heard a passion so confused,So strange, outrageous, and so variable,As the dog Jew did utter in the streets:’My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter!Fled with a Christian! O my Christian ducats!Justice! the law! my ducats, and my daughter!A sealed bag, two sealed bags of ducats,Of double ducats, stolen from me by my daughter!And jewels, two stones, two rich and precious stones,Stolen by my daughter! Justice! find the girl;She hath the stones upon her, and the ducats.’ |
| Arragon | I am enjoin’d by oath to observe three things:First, never to unfold to any oneWhich casket ’twas I chose; next, if I failOf the right casket, never in my lifeTo woo a maid in way of marriage: Lastly,If I do fail in fortune of my choice,Immediately to leave you and be gone. |
| Scroll in the silver chest | The fire seven times tried this:Seven times tried that judgment is,That did never choose amiss.Some there be that shadows kiss;Such have but a shadow’s bliss:There be fools alive, I wis,Silver’d o’er; and so was this.Take what wife you will to bed,I will ever be your head:So be gone: you are sped. |
| Shylock | a bankrupt, a prodigal, who dare scarce show his head on theRialto; a beggar, that was used to come so smug uponthe mart; let him look to his bond: he was wont tocall me usurer; let him look to his bond: he waswont to lend money for a Christian courtesy; let himlook to his bond. |
| Shylock | I am a Jew. Hathnot a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed withthe same food, hurt with the same weapons, subjectto the same diseases, healed by the same means,warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, asa Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poisonus, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we notrevenge? If we are like you in the rest, we willresemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian,what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christianwrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be byChristian example? Why, revenge. The villany youteach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but Iwill better the instruction. |
| Shylock | I would my daughterwere dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear!would she were hearsed at my foot, and the ducats inher coffin! No news of them? Why, so: and I knownot what’s spent in the search: why, thou loss uponloss! the thief gone with so much, and so much tofind the thief; and no satisfaction, no revenge:nor no in luck stirring but what lights on myshoulders; no sighs but of my breathing; no tearsbut of my shedding. |
| Song Bassanio hears while choosing a chest | Tell me where is fancy bred,Or in the heart, or in the head?How begot, how nourished?Reply, reply.It is engender’d in the eyes,With gazing fed; and fancy diesIn the cradle where it lies.Let us all ring fancy’s knellI’ll begin it,–Ding, dong, bell. |
| Bassanio | So may the outward shows be least themselves:The world is still deceived with ornament.In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,But, being seasoned with a gracious voice,Obscures the show of evil? In religion,What damned error, but some sober browWill bless it and approve it with a text,Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?There is no vice so simple but assumesSome mark of virtue on his outward parts |
| Scroll in the lead chest | You that choose not by the view,Chance as fair and choose as true!Since this fortune falls to you,Be content and seek no new,If you be well pleased with thisAnd hold your fortune for your bliss,Turn you where your lady isAnd claim her with a loving kiss. |
| Portia | This house, these servants and this same myselfAre yours, my lord: I give them with this ring;Which when you part from, lose, or give away,Let it presage the ruin of your loveAnd be my vantage to exclaim on you. |
| Bassanio | …when this ringParts from this finger, then parts life from hence:O, then be bold to say Bassanio’s dead! |
| Letter from Antonio to Bassanio | Sweet Bassanio, my ships have allmiscarried, my creditors grow cruel, my estate isvery low, my bond to the Jew is forfeit; and sincein paying it, it is impossible I should live, alldebts are cleared between you and I, if I might butsee you at my death. Notwithstanding, use yourpleasure: if your love do not persuade you to come,let not my letter. |
| Shylock | I’ll have my bond; speak not against my bond:I have sworn an oath that I will have my bond.Thou call’dst me dog before thou hadst a cause;But, since I am a dog, beware my fangs…I’ll have my bond; I will not hear thee speak:I’ll have my bond; and therefore speak no more.I’ll not be made a soft and dull-eyed fool,To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield |
| Antonio | The duke cannot deny the course of law:For the commodity that strangers haveWith us in Venice, if it be denied,Will much impeach the justice of his state;Since that the trade and profit of the cityConsisteth of all nations. Therefore, go:These griefs and losses have so bated me,That I shall hardly spare a pound of fleshTo-morrow to my bloody creditor.Well, gaoler, on. Pray God, Bassanio comeTo see me pay his debt, and then I care not! |
| Portia | …we’ll see our husbandsBefore they think of us….but in such a habit,That they shall think we are accomplishedWith that we lack. I’ll hold thee any wager,When we are both accoutred like young men,I’ll prove the prettier fellow of the two,And wear my dagger with the braver grace |
| Launcelot | …we were Christiansenow before; e’en as many as could well live, one byanother. This making Christians will raise theprice of hogs: if we grow all to be pork-eaters, weshall not shortly have a rasher on the coals for money. |
| Lorenzo | How every fool can play upon the word! I think thebest grace of wit will shortly turn into silence,and discourse grow commendable in none only butparrots….O dear discretion, how his words are suited!The fool hath planted in his memoryAn army of good words; and I do knowA many fools, that stand in better place,Garnish’d like him, that for a tricksy wordDefy the matter. |
| Gratiano | Thou makest thy knife keen; but no metal can,No, not the hangman’s axe, bear half the keennessOf thy sharp envy. Can no prayers pierce thee?…O, be thou damn’d, inexecrable dog!And for thy life let justice be accused.Thou almost makest me waver in my faithTo hold opinion with Pythagoras,That souls of animals infuse themselvesInto the trunks of men: thy currish spiritGovern’d a wolf, who, hang’d for human slaughter,Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,And, whilst thou lay’st in thy unhallow’d dam,Infused itself in thee; for thy desiresAre wolvish, bloody, starved and ravenous. |
| Portia in disguise | The quality of mercy is not strain’d,It droppeth as the gentle rain from heavenUpon the place beneath: it is twice blest;It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:’Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomesThe throned monarch better than his crown;His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,The attribute to awe and majesty,Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;But mercy is above this sceptred sway;It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,It is an attribute to God himself;And earthly power doth then show likest God’sWhen mercy seasons justice |
| Shylock | A Daniel come to judgment! yea, a Daniel!O wise young judge, how I do honour thee!… O noble judge! O excellent young man!… O wise and upright judge!How much more elder art thou than thy looks! |
| Bassanio | Antonio, I am married to a wifeWhich is as dear to me as life itself;But life itself, my wife, and all the world,Are not with me esteem’d above thy life:I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them allHere to this devil, to deliver you. |
| Portia in disguise | Your wife would give you little thanks for that,If she were by, to hear you make the offer. |
| Gratiano | I have a wife, whom, I protest, I love:I would she were in heaven, so she couldEntreat some power to change this currish Jew. |
| Nerissa in disguise | ‘Tis well you offer it behind her back;The wish would make else an unquiet house. |
| Portia in disguise | This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood;The words expressly are ‘a pound of flesh:’Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh;But, in the cutting it, if thou dost shedOne drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goodsAre, by the laws of Venice, confiscateUnto the state of Venice…. Therefore prepare thee to cut off the flesh.Shed thou no blood, nor cut thou less nor moreBut just a pound of flesh: if thou cut’st moreOr less than a just pound, be it but so muchAs makes it light or heavy in the substance,Or the division of the twentieth partOf one poor scruple, nay, if the scale do turnBut in the estimation of a hair,Thou diest and all thy goods are confiscate. |
| Gratiano | O upright judge! Mark, Jew: O learned judge!…O learned judge! Mark, Jew: a learned judge!…O Jew! an upright judge, a learned judge!… A second Daniel, a Daniel, Jew!Now, infidel, I have you on the hip…. A Daniel, still say I, a second Daniel!I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word. |
| Portia in disguise | It is enacted in the laws of Venice,If it be proved against an alienThat by direct or indirect attemptsHe seek the life of any citizen,The party ‘gainst the which he doth contriveShall seize one half his goods; the other halfComes to the privy coffer of the state;And the offender’s life lies in the mercyOf the duke only, ‘gainst all other voice.In which predicament, I say, thou stand’st;For it appears, by manifest proceeding,That indirectly and directly tooThou hast contrived against the very lifeOf the defendant; and thou hast incurr’dThe danger formerly by me rehearsed.Down therefore and beg mercy of the duke. |
| Antonio | So please my lord the duke and all the courtTo quit the fine for one half of his goods,I am content; so he will let me haveThe other half in use, to render it,Upon his death, unto the gentlemanThat lately stole his daughter:Two things provided more, that, for this favour,He presently become a Christian;The other, that he do record a gift,Here in the court, of all he dies possess’d,Unto his son Lorenzo and his daughter. |
| Portia in disguise | …for your love, I’ll take this ring from you:Do not draw back your hand; I’ll take no more;And you in love shall not deny me this….I will have nothing else but only this;And now methinks I have a mind to it. |
| Bassanio | Go, Gratiano, run and overtake him;Give him the ring, and bring him, if thou canst,Unto Antonio’s house: away! make haste. |
| Portia | Inquire the Jew’s house out, give him this deedAnd let him sign it: we’ll away to-nightAnd be a day before our husbands home |
| Nerissa | I’ll see if I can get my husband’s ring,Which I did make him swear to keep for ever. |
| Portia | We shall have old swearingThat they did give the rings away to men;But we’ll outface them, and outswear them too. |
| 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 deathAnd 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! |
| Gratiano | 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. …Now, by this hand, I gave it to a youth,A kind of boy, a little scrubbed boy,No higher than thyself; the judge’s clerk,A prating boy, that begg’d it as a fee:I could not for my heart deny it him. |
| Bassanio | Sweet Portia,If you did know to whom I gave the ring,If you did know for whom I gave the ringAnd would conceive for what I gave the ringAnd 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. |
| Portia | I had it of him: pardon me, Bassanio;For, by this ring, the doctor lay with me. |
| Nerissa | …pardon me, my gentle Gratiano;For that same scrubbed boy, the doctor’s clerk,In lieu of this last night did lie with me. |
Merchant of Venice quotes review
July 21, 2019