The Merchant of Venice, Act 1, Scene 1

Bassanio seeks Antonio's backing · William Shakespeare

SCENE I. Venice. A street.

Enter Antonio, Salarino 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.

SALARINO

Your mind is tossing on the ocean,There where your argosies, with portly sailLike signiors and rich burghers on the flood,Or as it were the pageants of the sea,Do overpeer the petty traffickersThat 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 wouldBe with my hopes abroad. I should be stillPlucking the grass to know where sits the wind,Peering in maps for ports, and piers and roads;And every object that might make me fearMisfortune to my ventures, out of doubtWould make me sad.

SALARINO

My wind cooling my brothWould blow me to an ague when I thoughtWhat harm a wind too great might do at sea.I should not see the sandy hour-glass runBut I should think of shallows and of flats,And see my wealthy Andrew dock’d in sand,Vailing her high top lower than her ribsTo kiss her burial. Should I go to churchAnd see the holy edifice of stoneAnd 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 thoughtTo think on this, and shall I lack the thoughtThat such a thing bechanc’d would make me sad?But tell not me, I know AntonioIs sad to think upon his merchandise.

'Worth' slides from lost cargo to friendship, so Venetian courtesy is spoken in the vocabulary of price.

'Andrew' names a ship, not a person. It is commonly taken to be the Spanish San Andrés, captured by the English at Cádiz in 1596. The identification is widely accepted but not certain. It is the main ground on which most scholars date the play to c.1596–97; a minority argue for 1594–95.

Salarino says any breeze would remind a merchant of storms threatening his ships.

Salarino imagines a wreck as a woman's body bowing into the grave, and even a church can only remind him of rocks.

Even an hourglass would make him imagine a valuable ship grounded and sinking.

A stone church would suggest rocks destroying his ship, cargo and wealth instantly.

Salarino therefore concludes that worry about his trading ships has made Antonio sad.

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 estateUpon the fortune of this present year.Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad.

SALARINO

Why then you are in love.

ANTONIO

Fie, fie!

SALARINO

Not in love neither? Then let us say you are sadBecause you are not merry; and ’twere as easyFor you to laugh and leap and say you are merryBecause you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus,Nature hath fram’d 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 aspectThat they’ll not show their teeth in way of smileThough Nestor swear the jest be laughable.

Enter Bassanio, Lorenzo and Gratiano.

SOLANIO

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

SALARINO

I would have stay’d 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.

SALARINO

Good morrow, my good lords.

BASSANIO

Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? Say, when?You grow exceeding strange. Must it be so?

SALARINO

We’ll make our leisures to attend on yours.

Exeunt Salarino and Solanio.

LORENZO

My Lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio,We two will leave you, but at dinner-timeI pray you have in mind where we must meet.

BASSANIO

I will not fail you.

GRATIANO

You look not well, Signior Antonio,You have too much respect upon the world.They lose it that do buy it with much care.Believe me, you are marvellously chang’d.

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 wineThan my heart cool with mortifying groans.Why should a man whose blood is warm withinSit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?Sleep when he wakes? And creep into the jaundiceBy being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio,(I love thee, and ’tis my love that speaks):There are a sort of men whose visagesDo cream and mantle like a standing pond,And do a wilful stillness entertain,With purpose to be dress’d in an opinionOf 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 theseThat therefore only are reputed wiseFor saying nothing; when, I am very sure,If they should speak, would almost damn those earsWhich, hearing them, would call their brothers fools.I’ll tell thee more of this another time.But fish not with this melancholy baitFor 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 moe,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 commendableIn 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 sameTo whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,That you today promis’d to tell me of?

BASSANIO

’Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,How much I have disabled mine estateBy something showing a more swelling portThan my faint means would grant continuance.Nor do I now make moan to be abridg’dFrom such a noble rate, but my chief careIs to come fairly off from the great debtsWherein my time, something too prodigal,Hath left me gag’d. To you, Antonio,I owe the most in money and in love,And from your love I have a warrantyTo unburden all my plots and purposesHow 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 assur’dMy purse, my person, my extremest meansLie all unlock’d to your occasions.

BASSANIO

In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft,I shot his fellow of the self-same flightThe self-same way, with more advised watchTo find the other forth; and by adventuring bothI oft found both. I urge this childhood proofBecause what follows is pure innocence.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 both,Or bring your latter hazard back again,And thankfully rest debtor for the first.

ANTONIO

You know me well, and herein spend but timeTo wind about my love with circumstance;And out of doubt you do me now more wrongIn making question of my uttermostThan if you had made waste of all I have.Then do but say to me what I should doThat in your knowledge may by me be done,And I am prest 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 eyesI did receive fair speechless messages:Her name is Portia, nothing undervalu’dTo Cato’s daughter, Brutus’ Portia.Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth,For the four winds blow in from every coastRenowned suitors, and her sunny locksHang on her temples like a golden fleece,Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos’ strond,And many Jasons come in quest of her.O my Antonio, had I but the meansTo hold a rival place with one of them,I have a mind presages me such thriftThat I should questionless be fortunate.

Bassanio introduces Portia through inheritance, appraisal and treasure-hunting, so courtship arrives already dressed in the language of profit.

The Roman Porcia was the daughter of Cato the Younger and wife of Marcus Junius Brutus, one of the assassins of Julius Caesar on 15 March 44 BC. To prove to Brutus that she could keep his secret about the conspiracy against Caesar, she wounded her own thigh.

Bassanio tells Antonio that Portia is wealthy, admirable, and has silently shown interest in him.

Plutarch (Life of Brutus 2, 13) makes Porcia the daughter of Cato the Younger and wife of Marcus Junius Brutus, and tells how she wounded her own thigh to prove to Brutus she could keep the secret of the plot against Caesar. Bassanio's line takes over both of Plutarch's identifying relations.

'Colchos' is Colchis, a region at the far eastern end of the Black Sea, in the area of modern western Georgia. A 'strond' (strand) is a shore, so the line places Belmont on that distant eastern coast.

Famous suitors travel to Belmont from everywhere, making Portia difficult to win.

Bassanio borrows the Argonaut myth told in Ovid's Metamorphoses 7 and Apollonius' Argonautica: Jason led his crew to Colchis to seize the golden fleece and won it with Medea's help. The speech transposes it, making Portia's hair the fleece, Belmont the Colchian shore and her suitors many Jasons; Medea has no counterpart.

Bassanio asks Antonio for enough money to compete, convinced he can win Portia.

The place-name adapts 'Belmonte' from the first tale of the fourth day of Ser Giovanni Fiorentino's Il Pecorone, anglicised to 'Belmont'. That same tale is the chief source of both the Belmont plot and the bond plot, so Bassanio's suit and Antonio's loan derive from one Italian story.

ANTONIO

Thou know’st that all my fortunes are at sea;Neither have I money nor commodityTo raise a present sum, therefore go forthTry what my credit can in Venice do;That shall be rack’d 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 makeTo have it of my trust or for my sake.

Exeunt.