Enter Portia, Nerissa, Lorenzo, Jessica and Balthazar.
LORENZO
Madam, although I speak it in your presence,You have a noble and a true conceitOf godlike amity, which appears most stronglyIn bearing thus the absence of your lord.But if you knew to whom you show this honour,How true a gentleman you send relief,How dear a lover of my lord your husband,I know you would be prouder of the workThan customary bounty can enforce you.
PORTIA
I never did repent for doing good,Nor shall not now; for in companionsThat do converse and waste the time together,Whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love,There must be needs a like proportionOf lineaments, of manners, and of spirit;Which makes me think that this Antonio,Being the bosom lover of my lord,Must needs be like my lord. If it be so,How little is the cost I have bestowedIn purchasing the semblance of my soulFrom out the state of hellish cruelty!This comes too near the praising of myself;Therefore no more of it. Hear other things.Lorenzo, I commit into your handsThe husbandry and manage of my houseUntil my lord’s return. For mine own part,I have toward heaven breath’d a secret vowTo live in prayer and contemplation,Only attended by Nerissa here,Until her husband and my lord’s return.There is a monastery two miles off,And there we will abide. I do desire youNot to deny this imposition,The which my love and some necessityNow lays upon you.
LORENZO
Madam, with all my heartI shall obey you in all fair commands.
PORTIA
My people do already know my mind,And will acknowledge you and JessicaIn place of Lord Bassanio and myself.So fare you well till we shall meet again.
LORENZO
Fair thoughts and happy hours attend on you!
JESSICA
I wish your ladyship all heart’s content.
PORTIA
I thank you for your wish, and am well pleas’dTo wish it back on you. Fare you well, Jessica.
Exeunt Jessica and Lorenzo.
PORTIA
Now, Balthazar,As I have ever found thee honest-true,So let me find thee still. Take this same letter,And use thou all th’ endeavour of a manIn speed to Padua, see thou render thisInto my cousin’s hands, Doctor Bellarioa learned doctor of law and Portia’s cousin, whose authority supports her appearance in court.;And look what notes and garments he doth give thee,Bring them, I pray thee, with imagin’d speedUnto the trajectA ferry or place of passage across water., to the common ferryWhich trades to Venice. Waste no time in words,But get thee gone. I shall be there before thee.
BALTHAZAR
Madam, I go with all convenient speed.
Exit.
PORTIA
Come on, Nerissa, I have work in handThat you yet know not of; we’ll see our husbandsBefore they think of us.
NERISSA
Shall they see us?
PORTIA
They shall, Nerissa, but in such a habitThat they shall think we are accomplishedWith that we lack. I’ll hold thee any wagerto accept or match someone’s wager.,When we are both accoutered like young men,I’ll prove the prettier fellow of the two,And wear my dagger with the braver grace,And speak between the change of man and boyWith a reed voice; and turn two mincing stepsInto a manly stride; and speak of fraysLike a fine bragging youth; and tell quaint liesHow honourable ladies sought my love,Which I denying, they fell sick and died;I could not do withal. Then I’ll repent,And wish for all that, that I had not kill’d them.And twenty of these puny lies I’ll tell,That men shall swear I have discontinued schoolAbout a twelvemonth. I have within my mindA thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks,Which I will practise.
NERISSA
Why, shall we turn to men?
PORTIA
Fie, what a question’s that,If thou wert near a lewd interpreter!But come, I’ll tell thee all my whole deviceWhen I am in my coach, which stays for usAt the park gate; and therefore haste away,For we must measure twenty miles today.