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Come. Come, Nerissa,
for I long to see quick Cupid's post that comes so mannerly.
Bassanio, lord Love, if your will it be.
There's something tells me, but it is not love.
I would not lose you.
And yourself knows hate counsels not in such a quality.
I would detain you here a month or two before you venture for me.
I could teach you how to choose right
but then I'd break my oath.
That will I never do.
So may you miss me
and if you do, you make me wish that sin that I had broke my oath.
Contend me with your eyes
for they have o'erlooked me and divided me.
One half of me is yours, the other half yours, mine own, I would say,
but if mine, then yours and so...
all yours.
Let me choose, for as I am, I live upon the rack.
Upon the rack, Bassanio?
Then confess what treason there is mingled with your love.
None but that ugly treason of mistrust
which makes me fear the enjoying of my love.
Ay but I fear you speak upon the rack,
when men enforced do speak anything.
Promise me life
and I'll confess the truth.
Well, then,
confess and live.
Confess and love has been the very sum of my confession.
But let me to my fortune and the caskets.
Away, then.
I am locked in one of them.
# Tell me where is fancy bred
# Or in the heart or in the head?
# How begot
# How nourished
So may the outward shows be least themselves.
The world is still deceived with ornament.
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt
but being seasoned with a gracious voice obscures the show of evil?
In religion,
what damned error but some sober brow will bless it
and approve it with a text,
hiding the grossness with fair... ornament?
Look on beauty
and you shall see
'tis purchased
by the weight.
Therefore, thou gaudy gold, I will none of you.
Nor none of you, O pale and common drudge between man and man.
But you, O meagre lead,
which rather threatenest than dost promise aught,
your paleness moves me more...
than eloquence.
Here choose I.
Joy be the consequence.
O love, be moderate, allay your ecstasy,
I feel too much your blessing - make it less for fear I surfeit.
What find I here?
Fair Portia's counterfeit.
Oh, what demi-goddess comes so near creation?
Move these eyes? Or whether, riding on the balls of mine, seem they in motion?
But her eyes - how could he see to do them?
But look how far the substance of my praise
does wrong this shadow in underpraising it,
so far this shadow doth limp behind the substance.
Here's the scroll - the continent and summary of my fortune.
"You that choose not by the view
"Chances fair and chooses true
"Since this fortune falls on you
"Be content and seek no new
"If you be well pleased with this
"Then hold your fortune for your bliss
"Turn you where your lady is
"And claim her with a loving kiss"
A gentle scroll!
Fair lady,
by your leave, I come by note
to give.
And to receive.
Like one of two contending in a prize
That thinks he has done well in people's eyes
Hearing applause and universal shout
Giddy in spirit, still gazing in a doubt
As doubtful whether what I see be true
Until confirmed, signed, ratified
by you
You see me, lord Bassanio, where I stand, such as I am.
Though for myself alone
I would not be ambitious in my wish to wish myself much better,
yet for you,
I would be treble twenty times myself.
A thousand times more fair,
ten thousand times more rich,
that only to stand high in your account, I might in virtues, beauties,
livings, friends,
exceed account.
But the full sum of me
is sum of something which, to term in gross,
is an unlessoned girl,
unschooled, unpractised.
Happy in this, she is not yet so old that she may learn.
Happier than this, she is not bred so dull that she may learn.
Happiest of all,
is that her gentle spirit commits itself to yours to be directed
as by her governor,
her lord,
her king.
This house, these servants,
and this same myself
are yours,
my lord's.
I give them with this ring,
which when you part from, lose or give away,
let it presage the ruin of your love.
And give me vantage to exclaim on you.
Madam,
you have bereft me of all words.
Only my blood speaks to you in my veins,
there is such confusion in my powers.
But when this ring parts from this finger
then parts life from hence -
O, then be bold to say Bassanio's dead.
My lord Bassanio, my gentle lady,
I wish you all the joy that you can wish
and when your honours mean to solemnize the bargain of your faith,
I do beseech you even at that time, I may be married, too.
With all my heart.
If you can get a wife.
I thank you, your lordship, you have got me one.
My eyes, my lord, can look as swift as yours.
You saw the mistress,
I beheld the maid.
Is it true, Nerissa?
- Madam, it is! - Oh!
And do you, Gratiano, mean good faith?
Yes, faith, my lord.
Our feast shall be much honoured in your marriage.
We'll play with them the first boy for a thousand ducats.
- What, with stake down? - No.
We shall never win at that sport with stake down.