The Merchant of Venice

Belmont. A room in PORTIA'S house.
 
[Enter PORTIA and 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 small happiness therefore to be seated in the mean, superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.
 
PORTIA
Good sentences, and well pronounced.
 
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 be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching: the brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps ore a cold decree, such a hare is madness the youth, to skip ore 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 whom I would, nor refuse whom I dislike, so is the will of a living daughter curbed 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 lottery 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 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
Aye 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 afraid my lady his mother played false with a smith.
 
NERISSA
Then there is the County Palatine.
 
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 philosopher 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 by 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 throstle sing, he falls straight a capering, 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 Falconbridge, 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 hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behavior everywhere.
 
NERISSA
What think you of the other lord his neighbor?
 
PORTIA
That he hath a neighborly 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 sealed under 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 any thing Nerissa ere I'll 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 Sibylla, 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 with 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 Montferrat?
 
PORTIA
Yes, yes, it was Bassanio, as I think, he was so called.
 
NERISSA
True madam, he of all the men that ever my foolish eyes looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady.
 
PORTIA
I remember him well, and I remember him worthy of thy praise.
 
[Enter a Serving-man]
 
SERVANT
The four strangers seek 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 a 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 gates upon one wooer, another knocks at the door.
 
[Exeunt]