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Por. Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack,
Where men enforced do speak anything.

Bass. Promise me life, and I'll confess the truth.
Por. Well, then, confess, and live.
Bass.

Confess, and love

Had been the very sum of my confession :
O happy torment, when my torturer
Doth teach me answers for deliverance !
But let me to my fortune and the caskets.

If

Por. Away, then :] I am locked in one of them ;|
you do love me, you will find me out. |
Nerissa, and the rest, stand all aloof.]

Let music sound, | while he doth make his choice ; |
Then,) if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,

45 Fading in music :) that the comparison

May stand more proper, | my eye shall be the stream,
And watery death-bed for him: He may win ;|

And what is music then? then music is
Even as the flourish, when true subjects bow

50 To a new-crowned monarch: | such it is, |
As are those dulcet sounds in break of day, |
That creep into the dreaming bridegroom's ear, |
And summon him to marriage.]
Now he goes,
With no less presence, but with much more love,|
55 Than young Alcides,] when he did redeem
The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy
To the sea-monster | I stand for sacrifice, |
The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives,
With bleared visages, come forth to view
60 The issue of the exploit. | Go, Hercules !]

55. Than young Alcides, i.e., Hercules.

57. The allusion is to a myth of Hercules and Hesione, daughter of Laomedon, King of Troy. This myth is merely another version of that of Perseus and Andromeda.

58. Wives. This word was formerly not restricted to mean a married woman, but, like the German weib, signified woman in

general; remnants of this use are the expressions fishwife, housewife. See Shakspere's Julius Cæsar, iii. 1,-" Men, wives, and children stare, cry out, and run."

59. Come forth.-The Past Partic. of an Intr. Verb without having. See Cowper's Task, i. 4, note.

Live thou, I live :|-With much much more dismay
I view the fight, than thou] that mak'st the fray.

Music whilst BASSANIO comments on the caskets to himself.

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Bass. So may the outward shows be least themselves | The world is still deceiv'd with ornament. [

65 In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,]

But, being season'd 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,
70 Hiding the grossness with fair ornament ?]
There is no vice so simple, but assumes
Some mark of virtue on his outward parts:]
How many cowards,) whose hearts are all as false |
As stayers of sand,] wear yet upon their chins
75 The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars,)
Who, inward search'd, have livers white as milk, |
And these assume but valour's excrement,

To render them redoubted | Look on beauty,]
And you shall see, it is purchased by the weight; |
80 Which therein works a miracle in nature,

*Fancy is here error, illusion, not, as is generally thought, love.

74. Stayers, i.e., props.

77. Excrement.-This word comes from ex and cresco, to grow out; and was used

formerly of the hair, whiskers, nails,-anything growing out of the surface of the body. We should now say excrescence instead.

79. And you shall see.-Fut. tense. See Act 1. Scene 3, 83, note.

Making them lightest | that wear most of it :|
So are those crisped snaky golden locks,)
Which make such wanton gambols with the wind, |
Upon supposed fairness, often known

85 To be the dowry of a second head,

The skull that bred them in the sepulchre.)
Thus ornament is but the guiled shore

To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf
Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,

90 The seeming truth | which cunning times put on
To entrap the wisest. Therefore, thou gaudy gold,
Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee :|

Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge
"Tween man and man.] But thou, thou meagre lead,)
95 Which rather threat'nest | than dost promise aught,]
Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence,)

And here choose I. Joy be the consequence !]
|

Por. How all the other passions fleet to air,
As doubtful thoughts, and rash embrac'd despair,
100 And shudd'ring fear, and green-ey'd jealousy !|
O love, be moderate,] allay thy ecstasy,]
In measure rain thy joy,] scant this excess ;]
I feel too much thy blessing, make it less,

For fear] I surfeit hat find I here?

Bass.

[Opening the leaden casket.

Move these eyes? |

105 Fair Portia's counterfeit ?] What demi-god
Hath come so near creation
Or whether, riding on the balls of mine,

86. This line is a Nominative Absolute.

87. Guiled.-For guiling, deceiving. The active and passive sense of the Partic. are often interchanged in Shakspere. See Iv. 1, 166, "It is twice blessed. It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes."

89. Indian.-The context shows that by Indian beauty is meant the reverse of

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beauty. A dark complexion is to be considered as incompatible with beauty.

92. Midas.-King of Phrygia, who prayed that everything he touched might turn to gold, and was starved in consequence

93. Pale and common drudge, i e., Silver. 94. But thou.-The construction changes in line 96 to the possessive form thy.

107. Whether is now obsolete in Principal Interrogative Sentences.

Seem they in motion?

Here are sever'd lips,

Parted with sugar breath; so sweet a bar

110 Should sunder such sweet friends | Here in her hairs The painter plays the spider ;| and hath woven

A golden mesh to entrap the hearts of men,
Faster than gnats in cobwebs :]

How could he see to do them?

But her eyes,

having made one, 115 [Methinks] it should have power to steal both his, And leave itself unfurnish'd | Yet look] how far The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow In underprizing it, so far this shadow

Doth limp behind the substance. -Here's the scroll, 120 The continent and summary of my fortune.

"You that choose not by the view,

*

Chance as fair, and choose as true!
Since this fortune falls to you,

Be content, and seek no new.

If you be well pleas'd with this,
And 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 hath done well in people's eyes,

125 Hearing applause and universal shout,
Giddy in spirit, still gazing in a doubt)
Whether those peals of praise be his or no ; |
So, thrice fair lady, stand I, even so ;
As doubtful) whether) what I see | be true,)
130 Until confirm'd, sign'd, ratified by you.]

110. Hairs.-The singular would be used

now.

114. Having made one, must be connected logically with the Personal Pronoun involved in his in the next line, though the construc

[Kissing her.

tion is at best but loose. See Act. 11. Scene 2, 2, note.

116. Unfurnished, scil., with the other. 120. Continent.-Contents.

As fair, scil., as those who do.

Por. You see, my 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, 135 I would be trebled 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
140 Is sum of nothing; which, to term in gross,
Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractis'd:
Happy in this,) she is not yet so old |

But she may learn ; | happier) than this,]
She is not bred so dull | but she can learn ; |
145 Happiest of all, is,] that her gentle spirit
Commits itself to yours to be directed,

As from her lord, her governor, her king. |
Myself, and what is mine, to you and yours
Is now converted :| but now I was the lord
150 Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,
Queen o'er myself; and even now, but now,
This house, these servants, and this same myself,
Are yours, my lord, |—I give them with this ring ;|
Which when you part from, | lose,] or give away,]
155 Let it presage the ruin of your love,|

And be my vantage to exclaim on you.]

Bass. Madam, you have bereft me of all words,
Only my blood speaks to you in my veins :|
And there is such confusion in my powers

160 As, after some oration, fairly spoke

By a beloved prince, there doth appear
Among the buzzing pleased multitude; |
Where every something, being blent together

131. Where I stand.-Alluding to "So stand I," 128.

149. Lord, master.-See 11. 6, 52, note.

154. Sentences beginning with which when must be classed, not as Adj. sentences but as Adverbial.

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