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The Merchant of Venice: Act I, Scene 2

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The Merchant of Venice
Act I, Scene 2

Belmont. A room in Portia’s house.

Kate Dolan as Portia

Kate Dolan as Portia

John Everett Millais, 1886

  1. Enter Portia with her waiting-woman, Nerissa.

Portia

1 - 2
  1. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is a-weary of this
  2. great world.

Nerissa

3 - 8
  1. You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same
  2. abundance as your good fortunes are; and yet for aught I
  3. see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they
  4. that starve with nothing. It is no mean happiness therefore
  5. to be seated in the mean: superfluity comes sooner by white
  6. hairs, but competency lives longer.

Portia

9
  1. Good sentences, and well pronounc’d.

Nerissa

10
  1. They would be better if well follow’d.

Portia

11 - 23
  1. If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do,
  2. chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’
  3. palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own
  4. instructions; I can easier teach twenty what were good to be
  5. done, than to be one of the twenty to follow mine own
  6. teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot
  7. temper leaps o’er a cold decree—such a hare is madness the
  8. youth, to skip o’er the meshes of good counsel the cripple.
  9. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to choose me a
  10. husband. O me, the word choose! I may neither choose who I
  11. would, nor refuse who I dislike; so is the will of a living
  12. daughter curb’d by the will of a dead father. Is it not
  13. hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refuse none?

Nerissa

24 - 30
  1. Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their death
  2. have good inspirations; therefore the lott’ry that he hath
  3. devis’d in these three chests of gold, silver, and lead,
  4. whereof who chooses his meaning chooses you, will no doubt
  5. never be chosen by any rightly but one who you shall rightly
  6. love. But what warmth is there in your affection towards any
  7. of these princely suitors that are already come?
Portia and Nerissa

Portia and Nerissa

Friedrich Brockmann, 1849

Portia

31 - 33
  1. I pray thee over-name them, and as thou namest them, I will
  2. describe them; and according to my description level at my
  3. affection.

Nerissa

34
  1. First, there is the Neapolitan prince.

Portia

35 - 38
  1. Ay, that’s a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of
  2. his horse, and he makes it a great appropriation to his own
    Mar 11, 2019 Miko
    special quality
  3. good parts that he can shoe him himself. I am much afeard my
  4. lady his mother play’d false with a smith.
    Mar 11, 2019 Miko
    Portia speculates (probably not seriously) that the prince was conceived as the result of an illicit affair between his mother and someone who makes horse shoes.

Nerissa

39
  1. Then is there the County Palentine.

Portia

40 - 45
  1. He doth nothing but frown, as who should say, “And you will
  2. not have me, choose.” He hears merry tales and smiles not. I
  3. fear he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows
  4. old, being so full of unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had
  5. rather be married to a death’s-head with a bone in his mouth
  6. than to either of these. God defend me from these two!

Nerissa

46
  1. How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon?

Portia

47 - 55
  1. God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. In
  2. truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker, but he! Why, he
  3. hath a horse better than the Neapolitan’s, a better bad
  4. habit of frowning than the Count Palentine; he is every man
  5. in no man. If a throstle sing, he falls straight a-cap’ring.
  6. He will fence with his own shadow. If I should marry him, I
  7. should marry twenty husbands. If he would despise me, I
  8. would forgive him, for if he love me to madness, I shall
  9. never requite him.

Nerissa

56 - 57
  1. What say you then to Falconbridge, the young baron of
  2. England?

Portia

58 - 65
  1. You know I say nothing to him, for he understands not me,
  2. nor I him. He hath neither Latin, French, nor Italian, and
  3. you will come into the court and swear that I have a poor
  4. pennyworth in the English. He is a proper man’s picture, but
  5. alas, who can converse with a dumb show? How oddly he is
  6. suited! I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round
  7. hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behavior
  8. every where.
Portia and Nerissa

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.

Portia and Nerissa

1914

Nerissa

66
  1. What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbor?

Portia

67 - 70
  1. That he hath a neighborly charity in him, for he borrow’d a
  2. box of the ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay him
  3. again when he was able. I think the Frenchman became his
  4. surety and seal’d under for another.

Nerissa

71
  1. How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony’s nephew?

Portia

72 - 76
  1. Very vildly in the morning, when he is sober, and most
  2. vildly in the afternoon, when he is drunk. When he is best,
  3. he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is
  4. little better than a beast. And the worst fall that ever
  5. fell, I hope I shall make shift to go without him.

Nerissa

77 - 79
  1. If he should offer to choose, and choose the right casket,
  2. you should refuse to perform your father’s will, if you
  3. should refuse to accept him.

Portia

80 - 84
  1. Therefore for fear of the worst, I pray thee set a deep
  2. glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket, for if the
  3. devil be within, and that temptation without, I know he will
  4. choose it. I will do any thing, Nerissa, ere I will be
  5. married to a sponge.

Nerissa

85 - 89
  1. You need not fear, lady, the having any of these lords. They
  2. have acquainted me with their determinations, which is
  3. indeed to return to their home, and to trouble you with no
  4. more suit, unless you may be won by some other sort than
  5. your father’s imposition depending on the caskets.
Scene designs, probably by Charles Marshall

Scene designs, probably by Charles Marshall

Portia

90 - 94
  1. If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as
  2. Diana, unless I be obtain’d by the manner of my father’s
  3. will. I am glad this parcel of wooers are so reasonable, for
  4. there is not one among them but I dote on his very absence,
  5. and I pray God grant them a fair departure.

Nerissa

95 - 97
  1. Do you not remember, lady, in your father’s time, a
  2. Venetian, a scholar and a soldier, that came hither in
  3. company of the Marquis of Montferrat?

Portia

98
  1. Yes, yes, it was Bassanio—as I think, so was he call’d.

Nerissa

99 - 100
  1. True, madam; he, of all the men that ever my foolish eyes
  2. look’d upon, was the best deserving a fair lady.

Portia

101 - 103
  1. I remember him well, and I remember him worthy of thy
  2. praise.
  3. Enter a Servingman.
  4. How now, what news?

Portia’s Servant

104 - 107
  1. The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take their leave;
  2. and there is a forerunner come from a fift, the Prince of
  3. Morocco, who brings word the Prince his master will be here
  4. tonight.

Portia

108 - 114
  1. If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good heart as I can
  2. bid the other four farewell, I should be glad of his
  3. approach. If he have the condition of a saint, and the
  4. complexion of a devil, I had rather he should shrive me than
  5. wive me.
  6. Come, Nerissa. Sirrah, go before.
  7. Whiles we shut the gate upon one wooer, another knocks at the door.
  1. Exeunt.

By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is a-weary of this great world.

Edwin Austin Abbey, 1888

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