No note at all of our being absent hence;—
Nor you, Lorenzo;-Jessica, nor you.

[A tucket 12 sounds. Lor. Your husband is at hand, I hear his trumpet; We are no tell-tales, madam; fear you not.

Por. This night, methinks, is but the daylight sick, It looks a little paler; 'tis a day,

Such as a day is when the sun is hid.

Enter BASSANIO, ANTONIO, GRATIANO, and their Followers.

Bass. We should hold day with the Antipodes, If you would walk in absence of the sun.

Por. Let me give light, but let me not be light 13; For a light wife doth make a heavy husband, And never be Bassanio so for me;

But God sort all!-You are welcome home, my lord. Bass. I thank you, madam: give welcome to my friend.

This is the man, this is Antonio,

To whom I am so infinitely bound.

Por. You should in all sense be much bound to him, For, as I hear, he was much bound for

you. Ant. No more than I am well acquitted of. Por. Sir, you are very welcome to our house: It must appear in other ways than words, Therefore, I scant this breathing courtesy 14.

12 Toccata, Ital. a flourish on a trumpet.

13 Shakspeare delights to trifle with this word. It was also a frequent practice with his cotemporaries, take one instance out of many; from Marston's Insatiate Countess :

By this bright light that is derived from thee

So, sir, you make me a light creature.'

14 This verbal complimentary form, made up only of breath, i. e. words. So in Timon of Athens, a senator replies to Alcibiades who had made a long speech, 'You breathe in vain.' Again in Macbeth:

mouth-honour, breath.'

GRATIANO and NERISSA seem to talk apart. Gra. By yonder moon, I swear, you do me wrong; In faith, I gave it to the judge's clerk:

Would he were gelt that had it, for my part,
Since you do take it, love, so much at heart.
Por. A quarrel, ho, already? what's the matter?
Gra. About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring
That she did give me; whose posy was
For all the world like cutler's poetry
Upon a knife 15, Love me, and leave me not.

Ner. What talk you of the posy, or the value?
You swore to me, when I did give it you,
That you would wear it till your hour of death;
And that it should lie with you in your grave:
Though not for me, yet for your vehement oaths,
You should have been respective 16, and have kept it.
Gave it a judge's clerk!-but well I know,

The clerk will ne'er wear hair on his face that had it. Gra. He will, an if he live to be a man.

Ner. Ay, if a woman live to be a man. Gra. Now, by this hand, I gave it to a youth,A kind of boy; a little scrubbed boy, No higher than thyself; the judge's clerk; A prating boy, that begg'd it as a fee;

I could not for my heart deny it him.

Por. You were to blame, I must be plain with

you,

Knives were formerly inscribed, by means of aqua fortis, with short sentences in distich.

16 Respective, that is considerative, regardful; not respectful or respectable as Steevens supposed. Thus in King John, Act i. Sc. 1.

For new made honour doth forget men's names, 'Tis too respective and too sociable.'

And in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act iv. Sc. 4, p. 168.

'What should it be that he respects in her

But I can make respective in myself.'

To part so slightly with your wife's first gift;
A thing stuck on with oaths upon your finger,
And riveted so with faith unto your flesh.
love a ring, and made him swear

I gave my
Never to part with it; and here he stands;
I dare be sworn for him, he would not leave it,
Nor pluck it from his finger, for the wealth
That the world masters. Now, in faith, Gratiano,
You give your wife too unkind a cause of grief;
An 'twere to me, I should be mad at it.

Bass. Why, I were best to cut my left hand off,
And swear I lost the ring defending it. [Aside.
Gra. My lord Bassanio gave his ring away
Unto the judge that begg'd it, and, indeed,
Deserv'd it too; and then the boy, his clerk,
That took some pains in writing, he begg❜d mine:
And neither man, nor master, would take aught
But the two rings.

Por.

What ring gave you, my lord?
Not that, I hope, which you receiv'd of me.
Bass. If I could add a lie unto a fault,

I would deny it; but you see, my finger
Hath not the ring upon it, it is gone.

Por. Even so void is your false heart of truth. By heaven, I will ne'er come in your bed

Until I see the ring.

Ner.

Till I again see mine.

Nor I in yours,

Bass.

Sweet Portia,

If

you

did know to whom I gave

the ring,

the ring,

the ring,

gave

If you did know for whom I gave
And would conceive for what I
And how unwillingly I left the ring,
When naught would be accepted but the ring,
You would abate the strength of your displeasure.
Por. If f you had known the virtue of the ring,

Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,
Or your own honour to contain 17 the ring,
You would not then have parted with the ring.
What man is there so much unreasonable,
If you had pleas'd to have defended it

With any terms of zeal, wanted the modesty
To urge the thing held as a ceremony 18?
Nerissa teaches me what to believe;

I'll die for't, but some woman had the ring.

Bass. No, by mine honour, madam, by my soul, No woman had it, but a civil doctor,

Which did refuse three thousand ducats of me, And begg❜d the ring; the which I did deny him, And suffer'd him to go displeas'd away;

say,

Even he that had held up the very life
Of my dear friend. What should I
I was enforc'd to send it after him;
I was beset with shame and courtesy ;
My honour would not let ingratitude

sweet lady?

So much besmear it: Pardon me, good lady;
For, by these blessed candles 19 of the night,
Had you been there, I think, you would have begg'd

The ring of me to give the worthy doctor.

Por. Let not that doctor e'er come near my house: Since he hath got the jewel that I lov❜d,

And that which you did swear to keep for me,
I will become as liberal as you:

17 To contain had nearly the same meaning with to retain. So in Bacon's Essays, 4to. 1625, p. 327: To containe anger from mischiefe, though it take hold of a man, there be two things?'

18 i. e. kept in a measure religiously, or superstitiously. Johnson remarks, that this is a very licentious expression, but we have it again in Julius Cæsar, Calphurnia says:

'Cæsar, I never stood on ceremonies,

But now they fright me.'

19 We have again the same expression in one of Shakspeare's Sonnets, in Macbeth, and in Romeo and Juliet.

I'll not deny him any thing I have,

No, not my body, nor my husband's bed:
Know him I shall, I am well sure of it:

Lie not a night from home; watch me, like Argus: do not, if I be left alone,

If you

Now, by mine honour, which is yet my own,
I'll have that doctor for my bedfellow.

Ner. And I his clerk; therefore be well advis'd, How you do leave me to mine own protection.

Gra. Well, do you so: let not me take him then; For, if I do, I'll mar the young clerk's pen.

Ant. I am the unhappy subject of these quarrels. Por. Sir, grieve not you; You are welcome notwithstanding.

Bass. Portia, forgive me this enforced wrong;
And, in the hearing of these many friends,
I swear to thee, even by thine own fair eyes,
Wherein I see myself,-

Por.

Mark you but that! In both my eyes he doubly sees himself:

In each eye, one :-swear by your double 20 self,
And there's an oath of credit.

Bass.
Nay, but hear me:
Pardon this fault, and by my soul I swear,

I never more will break an oath with thee.

Ant. I once did lend my body for his wealth 21; Which, but for him that had your husband's ring, [TO PORTIA. Had quite miscarried: I dare be bound again, My soul upon the forfeit, that your lord Will never more break faith advisedly.

20 Double is here used for deceitful, full of duplicity.

21 i. e. for his advantage; to obtain his happiness. Wealth was the term generally opposed to adversity or calamity. So in The Litany: in all time of our wealth.' It is only another form of weal; we say indifferently common-weal, or commonwealth.