• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

How 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 school

About a twelvemonth. I have within my mind

A 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 device

When I am in my coach, which stays for us

At the park gate; and therefore haste away,

For we must measure twenty miles to-day. Exeunt

SCENE V. Belmont. The garden

Enter LAUNCELOT and JESSICA

LAUNCELOT.

Yes, truly; for, look you, the sins of the father are to

be laid upon the children; therefore, I promise you, I fear you.

I was always plain with you, and so now I speak my agitation of

the matter; therefore be o' good cheer, for truly I think you are

damn'd. There is but one hope in it that can do you any good, and

that is but a kind of bastard hope, neither.

JESSICA.

And what hope is that, I pray thee?

LAUNCELOT.

Marry, you may partly hope that your father got you

not-

that you are not the Jew's daughter.

JESSICA.

That were a kind of bastard hope indeed; so the sins of my

mother should be visited upon me.

LAUNCELOT.

Truly then I fear you are damn'd both by father and

mother; thus when I shun Scylla, your father, I fall into

Charybdis, your mother; well, you are gone both ways.

JESSICA.

I shall be sav'd by my husband; he hath made me a Christian.

LAUNCELOT.

Truly, the more to blame he; we were Christians enow

before, e'en as many as could well live one by another. This

making of Christians will raise the price of hogs; if we grow all

to be pork-eaters, we shall not shortly have a rasher on the coals for money.

Enter LORENZO

JESSICA.

I'll tell my husband, Launcelot, what you say; here he comes.

LORENZO.

I shall grow jealous of you shortly, Launcelot, if you

thus get my wife into corners.

JESSICA.

Nay, you need nor fear us, Lorenzo; Launcelot and I are

out; he tells me flatly there's no mercy for me in heaven,

because I am a Jew's daughter; and he says you are no good member

of the commonwealth, for in converting Jews to Christians you

raise the price of pork.

LORENZO.

I shall answer that better to the commonwealth than you

can the getting up of the negro's belly; the Moor is with child

by you, Launcelot.

LAUNCELOT.

It is much that the Moor should be more than reason; but

if she be less than an honest woman, she is indeed more than

I

took her for.

LORENZO.

How every fool can play upon the word! I think the best

grace of wit will shortly turn into silence, and discourse grow

commendable in none only but parrots. Go in, sirrah; bid them prepare for dinner.

LAUNCELOT.

That is done, sir; they have all stomachs.

LORENZO.

Goodly Lord, what a wit-snapper are you! Then bid them prepare dinner.

LAUNCELOT.

That is done too, sir, only 'cover' is the word.

LORENZO.

Will you cover, then, sir?

LAUNCELOT.

Not so, sir, neither; I know my duty.

LORENZO.

Yet more quarrelling with occasion! Wilt thou show the

whole wealth of thy wit in an instant? I pray thee understand a

plain man in his plain meaning: go to thy fellows, bid them cover

the table, serve in the meat, and we will come in to dinner.

LAUNCELOT.

For the table, sir, it shall be serv'd in; for the meat,

sir, it shall be cover'd; for your coming in to dinner, sir,

why,

let it be as humours and conceits shall govern.

Exit

LORENZO. O dear discretion, how his words are suited!

The fool hath planted in his memory

An army of good words; and I do know

A many fools that stand in better place,

Garnish'd like him, that for a tricksy word

Defy the matter. How cheer'st thou, Jessica?

And now, good sweet, say thy opinion,

How dost thou like the Lord Bassanio's wife?

JESSICA.

Past all expressing. It