Enter Musicians. Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn;" Jes. I am never merry when I hear sweet musick. [Musick. Lor. The reason is your spirits are attentive: If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound, Or any By the sweet power of musick: Therefore, the poet Let no such man be trusted. Mark the musick. Enter PORTIA and NERISSA, at a distance. Por. That light we see, is burning in my hall. the quality of being moved by sweet sounds (as he expresses it afterwards;) but our gross terrestrial part, which environs us, deadens the sound, and prevents our hearing.—It, [Doth grossly close it in,] I apprehend, refers to harmony. MALONE. 6 wake Diana with a hymn;] Diana is the moon, who is in the next scene represented as sleeping. Ner. When the moon shone, we did not see the candle. Por. So doth the greater glory dim the less: Ner. It is your musick, madam, of the house. Lor. [Musick ceases. That is the voice, Or I am much deceiv'd, of Portia. Por. He knows me, as the blind man knows the cuckoo, By the bad voice. Lor. Dear lady, welcome home. Por. We have been praying for our husbands' welfare, Which speed, we hope, the better for our words. Are they return'd? 7 without respect;] Not absolutely good, but relatively good as it is modified by circumstances. No note at all of our being absent hence; [A tucket 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 the 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; 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. [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, 8 A tucket-] Toccata, Ital. a flourish on a trumpet. 9 Let me give light, &c.] There is scarcely any word with which Shakspeare so much delights to trifle as with light, in its various significations. JOHNSON. 1 -this breathing courtesy.] This verbal complimentary form, made up only of breath, i. e. words. Por. A quarrel, ho, already? what's the matter? The clerk will ne'er wear hair on his face, that had it. 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, 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. I gave my love a ring, and made him swear Never to part with it; and here he stands; I dare be sworn for him, he would not leave it, Bass. Why, I were best to cut my left hand off, [Aside. 2 like cutler's poetry-] Knives, as Sir J. Hawkins observes, were formerly inscribed, by means of aqua fortis, with short sentences in distich. For posy, Mr. Malone reads poesy, in his last edition, but not in his first. Gra. My lord Bassanio gave his ring away 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 Por. Even so void is your false heart of truth. If you did know to whom I gave the ring, When naught would be accepted but the ring, 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; |