1    In sooth, I know not why I am so sad:
2    It wearies me; you say it wearies you;
3    But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
4    What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
5    I am to learn;
6    And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
7    That I have much ado to know myself.

8    Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
9    There, where your argosies with portly sail,
10   Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood,
11   Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea,
12   Do overpeer the petty traffickers,
13   That curtsy to them, do them reverence,
14   As they fly by them with their woven wings.

15   Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth,
16   The better part of my affections would
17   Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still
18   Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind,
19   Peering in maps for ports and piers and roads;
20   And every object that might make me fear
21   Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt
22   Would make me sad.

23   My wind cooling my broth
24   Would blow me to an ague, when I thought
25   What harm a wind too great at sea might do.
26   I should not see the sandy hour-glass run,
27   But I should think of shallows and of flats,
28   And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand,
29   Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs
30   To kiss her burial. Should I go to church
31   And see the holy edifice of stone,
32   And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks,
33   Which touching but my gentle vessel's side,
34   Would scatter all her spices on the stream,
35   Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks,
36   And, in a word, but even now worth this,
37   And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought
38   To think on this, and shall I lack the thought
39   That such a thing bechanced would make me sad?
40   But tell not me; I know, Antonio
41   Is sad to think upon his merchandise.

42   Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for it,
43   My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,
44   Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate
45   Upon the fortune of this present year:
46   Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad.

47   Why, then you are in love.

48   Fie, fie!

49   Not in love neither? Then let us say you are sad,
50   Because you are not merry: and 'twere as easy
51   For you to laugh and leap and say you are merry,
52   Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus,
53   Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time:
54   Some that will evermore peep through their eyes
55   And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper,
56   And other of such vinegar aspect
57   That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile,
58   Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.

59   Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman,
60   Gratiano and Lorenzo. Fare ye well:
61   We leave you now with better company.

62   I would have stay'd till I had made you merry,
63   If worthier friends had not prevented me.

64   Your worth is very dear in my regard.
65   I take it, your own business calls on you
66   And you embrace the occasion to depart.

67   Good morrow, my good lords.

68   Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? say, when?
69   You grow exceeding strange: must it be so?

70   We'll make our leisures to attend on yours.

71   My Lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio,
72   We two will leave you: but at dinner-time,
73   I pray you, have in mind where we must meet.

74   I will not fail you.

75   You look not well, Signior Antonio;
76   You have too much respect upon the world:
77   They lose it that do buy it with much care:
78   Believe me, you are marvellously changed.

79   I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;
80   A stage where every man must play a part,
81   And mine a sad one.

82   Let me play the fool:
83   With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come,
84   And let my liver rather heat with wine
85   Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
86   Why should a man, whose blood is warm within,
87   Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?
88   Sleep when he wakes and creep into the jaundice
89   By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio--
90   I love thee, and it is my love that speaks--
91   There are a sort of men whose visages
92   Do cream and mantle like a standing pond,
93   And do a wilful stillness entertain,
94   With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion
95   Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit,
96   As who should say 'I am Sir Oracle,
97   And when I ope my lips let no dog bark!'
98   O my Antonio, I do know of these
99   That therefore only are reputed wise
100  For saying nothing; when, I am very sure,
101  If they should speak, would almost damn those ears,
102  Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools.
103  I'll tell thee more of this another time:
104  But fish not, with this melancholy bait,
105  For this fool gudgeon, this opinion.
106  Come, good Lorenzo. Fare ye well awhile:
107  I'll end my exhortation after dinner.

108  Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time:
109  I must be one of these same dumb wise men,
110  For Gratiano never lets me speak.

111  Well, keep me company but two years moe,
112  Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue.

113  Farewell: I'll grow a talker for this gear.

114  Thanks, i' faith, for silence is only commendable
115  In a neat's tongue dried and a maid not vendible.

116  Is that any thing now?

117  Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more
118  than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two
119  grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you
120  shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you
121  have them, they are not worth the search.

122  Well, tell me now what lady is the same
123  To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,
124  That you to-day promised to tell me of?

125  'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,
126  How much I have disabled mine estate,
127  By something showing a more swelling port
128  Than my faint means would grant continuance:
129  Nor do I now make moan to be abridged
130  From such a noble rate; but my chief care
131  Is to come fairly off from the great debts
132  Wherein my time something too prodigal
133  Hath left me gaged. To you, Antonio,
134  I owe the most, in money and in love,
135  And from your love I have a warranty
136  To unburden all my plots and purposes
137  How to get clear of all the debts I owe.

138  I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it;
139  And if it stand, as you yourself still do,
140  Within the eye of honour, be assured,
141  My purse, my person, my extremest means,
142  Lie all unlock'd to your occasions.

143  In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft,
144  I shot his fellow of the self-same flight
145  The self-same way with more advised watch,
146  To find the other forth, and by adventuring both
147  I oft found both: I urge this childhood proof,
148  Because what follows is pure innocence.
149  I owe you much, and, like a wilful youth,
150  That which I owe is lost; but if you please
151  To shoot another arrow that self way
152  Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,
153  As I will watch the aim, or to find both
154  Or bring your latter hazard back again
155  And thankfully rest debtor for the first.

156  You know me well, and herein spend but time
157  To wind about my love with circumstance;
158  And out of doubt you do me now more wrong
159  In making question of my uttermost
160  Than if you had made waste of all I have:
161  Then do but say to me what I should do
162  That in your knowledge may by me be done,
163  And I am prest unto it: therefore, speak.

164  In Belmont is a lady richly left;
165  And she is fair, and, fairer than that word,
166  Of wondrous virtues: sometimes from her eyes
167  I did receive fair speechless messages:
168  Her name is Portia, nothing undervalued
169  To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia:
170  Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth,
171  For the four winds blow in from every coast
172  Renowned suitors, and her sunny locks
173  Hang on her temples like a golden fleece;
174  Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strand,
175  And many Jasons come in quest of her.
176  O my Antonio, had I but the means
177  To hold a rival place with one of them,
178  I have a mind presages me such thrift,
179  That I should questionless be fortunate!

180  Thou know'st that all my fortunes are at sea;
181  Neither have I money nor commodity
182  To raise a present sum: therefore go forth;
183  Try what my credit can in Venice do:
184  That shall be rack'd, even to the uttermost,
185  To furnish thee to Belmont, to fair Portia.
186  Go, presently inquire, and so will I,
187  Where money is, and I no question make
188  To have it of my trust or for my sake.