To unburden all my plots and purposes,
How to get clear of all the debts I owe.

Ant. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it;
And if it stand as you yourself still do,
Within the eye of honour, be assured

My purse, my person, my extremest means,
Lie all unlock'd to your occasions.

Bas. In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft,

I shot his fellow of the selfsame flight

The selfsame way, with more advised watch,
To find the other forth; and, by advent'ring both
I oft found both. I urge this childhood proof,
Because what follows is pure

innocence.

I owe you much, and, like a wilful youth,
That which I owe is lost; but if you please
To shoot another arrow that self way

Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,
As I will watch the aim, or to find both

Or bring your latter hazard back again,

And thankfully rest debtor for the first.

Ant. You know me well, and herein spend but time

To wind about my love with circumstance;

And, out of doubt, you do me now more wrong,

In making question of my uttermost,

Than if you had made waste of all I have:

Then do but say to me what I should do
That in your knowledge may by me be done,
And I am pressed unto it: therefore, speak.
Bas. In Belmont is a lady richly left,

And she is fair, and fairer than that word
Of wondrous virtues: sometimes from her eyes
I did receive fair speechless messages:
Her name is Portia; nothing undervalued
To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia.

Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth;
For the four winds blow in from every coast
Renowned suitors; and her sunny locks
Hang on her temples like a golden fleece;

Which makes her seat of Belmont, Colchos' strand,
And many Jasons come in quest of her.

Oh, my Antonio, had I but the means
To hold a rival place with one of them,
I have a mind presages me such thrift
That I should questionless be fortunate.

Ant. Thou know'st that all my fortunes are at sea; Neither have I money nor commodity

To raise a present sum: therefore go forth,
Try what my credit can in Venice do;
That shall be rack'd, even to the uttermost,
To furnish thee to Belmont, to fair Portia.
Go, presently inquire, and so will I,
Where money is; and I no question make
To have it of my trust, or for my sake.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II-Enter PORTIA with her waiting-woman NE

RISSA.

Por. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world.

Ner. 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.

Por. Good sentences, and well pronounced.
Ner. They would be better if well followed.

Por. 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 fol lows 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 over 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 choose me a husband. Oh, me, the word choose! I may neither choose whom I would, nor refuse whom I dislike; so is the will of a

PLATE I

EXEUNT SALARINO AND SALANIO

Merchant of Venice, act i., scene i.