←

The Merchant of Venice, Act 1, Scene 2

Portia reviews her suitors · William Shakespeare
Every note, for your class

SCENE II. 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 come sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.
PORTIA
Good sentences, and well pronounc’d.
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 to 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 curb’d 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 lott’ry 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 over-name 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 play’d false with a smith.
NERISSA
Then is there the County Palatinea count exercising sovereign or royal authority within his own territory..
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 philosopherHeraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher traditionally portrayed as continually weeping over human folly. 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 byexpress an opinion about or judgement upon. 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 throstleA song thrush. sing, he falls straight a-cap’ring. 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 FalconbridgeFalconbridge, the family name borne by Sir Robert Falconbridge and his supposed son Philip, the Bastard, in King John., 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 hoseshort, heavily padded breeches fashionable among men. 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 seal’d underformally bind by means of a sealed legal agreement. 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. And 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 SibyllaSibylla, the Cumaean Sibyl of classical legend, renowned for her extraordinarily long life., 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 Montferratthe ruler of Montferrat in northern Italy, invoked as a nobleman of high rank and renown.?
PORTIA
Yes, yes, it was Bassanio, as I think, so was he call’d.
NERISSA
True, madam. He, of all the men that ever my foolish eyes look’d upon, was the best deserving a fair lady.
PORTIA
I remember him well, and I remember him worthy of thy praise.
Enter a Servingman.
PORTIA
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.