Act I, Scene 2

Belmont. A room in PORTIA’S house.

[Enter PORTIA and NERISSA]

• Portia. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of 195
  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 200
  is no mean 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. 205

• 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 210
  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 215
  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? 220

• 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 225
  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 230
  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 235
  shoe him himself. I am much afeard 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 'If you
  will not have me, choose:' he hears merry tales and 240
  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 245
  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 250
  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 255
  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 260
  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! 265
  I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round
  hose in France, his bonnet in Germany and his
  behavior every where.

• Nerissa. What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour?

• Portia. That he hath a neighbourly charity in him, for he 270
  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? 275

• 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 280
  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 285
  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 290
  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. 295

• 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 pray God grant 300
  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. 305

• 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] 310
  How now! what news?

• Servant. 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 to-night. 315

• 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, 320
  Nerissa. Sirrah, go before.
  Whiles we shut the gates
  upon one wooer, another knocks at the door.

[Exeunt]