This casket threatens : men that hazard all
Do it in hope of fair advantages.

A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross;
I'll then nor give nor hazard aught for lead.
What says the silver, with her virgin hue? 1

Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.
As much as he deserves ! - Pause there, Morocco,

And weigh thy value with an even hand:

If thou be'st rated by thy estimation,

Thou dost deserve enough; and yet enough
May not extend so far as to the lady :
And yet to be afeard of my deserving,
Were but a weak disabling 2 of myself.
As much as I deserve! Why, that's the lady:
I do in birth deserve her, and in fortunes,
In graces, and in qualities of breeding;
But more than these, in love I do deserve.
What if I stray'd no further, but chose here?
Let's see once more this saying graved in gold :
Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.
Why, that's the lady; all the world desires her :
From the four corners of the Earth they come,
To kiss this shrine,3 this mortal-breathing saint.
Th' Hyrcanian deserts 4 and the vasty wilds.

1 Alluding to the silver light of the Moon, or rather to the virgin Diana,

who was the Moon-goddess of old mythology.

2 Disabling here has the sense of disparaging or depreciating.

3 Christians often made long pilgrimages to kiss the shrine of a saint, that is, the place where a saint's bones were enshrined. And Portia, because she enshrines so much excellence, though still but "a traveller between life and death," is compared to such a hallowed shrine. Shrine, however, was sometimes used for statue, and so it may be here.

4 A wilderness of indefinite extent south of the Caspian Sea. - Vasty is

Of wide Arabia are as throughfares now

For princes to come view fair Portia :

The watery kingdom, whose ambitious head
Spits in the face of Heaven, is no bar

To stop the foreign spirits; but they come,
As o'er a brook, to see fair Portia.

One of these three contains her heavenly picture.
Is't like that lead contains her? 'Twere damnation,
To think so base a thought: it were too gross
To rib her cerecloth in the obscure grave.5
Or shall I think in silver she's immured,
Being ten times undervalued to tried gold? 6
O sinful thought! Never so rich a gem

Was set in worse than gold. They have in England
A coin that bears the figure of an angel
Stamped in gold, but that's insculp'd upon;'
But here an angel in a golden bed

Lies all within.— Deliver me the key;

Here do I choose, and thrive I as I may !

7

waste, desolate, or void. So Bacon has the noun in his Advancement of Learning: "Their excursions into the limits of physical causes have bred a vastness and solitude in that tract."

5 That is, lead were unworthy even to enclose her cerements, or her shroud. The Poet elsewhere has rib in the sense of enciose or protect: in Cymbeline, iii. 1, he speaks of England as "Neptune's park, ribbed and paled in with rocks unscaleable and roaring waters."

6 This is said to have been just the ratio of silver and gold in 1600. Now it is less than as one to sixteen. - Undervalued is inferior in value. See page 88, note 42.

7 Insculp'd upon is carved or engraved on the outside. The angel was so called from its having on one side a figure of Michael piercing the dragon. It is said to have been worth about ten shillings. Shakespeare has many punning allusions to it; as in The Merry Wives, i. 3: "She has all the rule of her husband's purse; he hath legions of angels." It seems to have held much the same place in English coinage as the sovereign does now.

Portia. There, take it, Prince; and if my form lie there, [He unlocks the golden casket.

Then I am yours.

Moroc.

O Hell! what have we here?

A carrion Death,8 within whose empty eye
There is a written scroll! I'll read the writing.
[Reads.] All that glisters is not gold,-

Often have you heard that told:
Many a man his life hath sold,
But my outside to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms infold.
Had you been as wise as bold,
Young in limbs, in judgment old,
Your answer had not been inscroll'd:
you well; your suit is cold.9

Fare

Cold indeed, and labour lost;

Then, farewell, heat, and welcome, frost ! -
Portia, adieu ! I have too grieved a heart
To take a tedious leave: thus losers part.10

[Exit with Train. Portia. A gentle riddance. — Draw the curtains, go: Let all of his complexion choose me so.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VII.-Venice. A Street.

Enter SALARINO and SOLANIO.

Salar. Why, man, I saw Bassanio under sail : With him is Gratiano gone along;

8 A human skull from which the flesh has all decayed.

9 His courtship, which had been made warm by hope, is now chilled and frozen by an entire and hopeless failure.

10 Part for depart. So the word was frequently used.

And in their ship I'm sure Lorenzo is not.

Solan. The villain Jew with outcries raised the Duke,
Who went with him to search Bassanio's ship.

Salar. He came too late, the ship was under sail;
But there the Duke was given to understand
That in a gondola1 were seen together
Lorenzo and his amorous Jessica :

Besides, Antonio certified the Duke
They were not with Bassanio in his ship.

Solan. I never heard a passion 2 so confused,
So strange, outrageous, and so variable,
As the dog Jew did utter in the streets :
My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter!
Fled with a Christian! O my Christian ducats!·
Justice! the law! my ducats, and my daughter!
A sealed bag, two sealed bags of ducats,

Of double ducats, stol'n from me by my daughter!
And jewels,-two stones, two rich and precious stones,
Stol'n by my daughter!-Justice! find the girl!
She hath the stones upon her, and the ducats!
Salar. Why, all the boys in Venice follow him,
Crying, his stones, his daughter, and his ducats.
Solan. Let good Antonio look he keep his day,
Or he shall pay for this.

Salar.

Marry, well remember'd.

I reason'd 3 with a Frenchman yesterday,

1 Gondola is the name of the vehicles in which people ride through the liquid streets of Venice. In Shakespeare's time Venice was the common resort of all who went abroad to see the world; as much so, perhaps, as Paris is now so that to "have swam in a gondola" was a common phrase for having travelled.

2 Passion for passionate outcry; the cause for the effect.

8 Reason, again, in its old sense of converse. See page 89, note 5.

Who told me, in the narrow seas that part
The French and English, there miscarried
A vessel of our country richly fraught: 4
I thought upon Antonio when he told me ;
And wish'd in silence that it were not his.

Solan. You were best to tell Antonio what you hear;
Yet do't not suddenly, for it may grieve him.

Salar. A kinder gentleman treads not the earth.

I saw Bassanio and Antonio part :

Bassanio told him he would make some speed

Of his return he answer'd, Do not so ;

:

Slubber 5 not business for my sake, Bassanio,
But stay the very riping of the time:

And for the Jew's bond which he hath of me,
Let it not enter in your mind of love.
Be merry; and employ your chiefest thoughts
To courtship, and such fair ostents of love
As shall conveniently become you there.
And even then, his eye being big with tears,
Turning his face, he put his hand behind him,
And with affection wondrous sensible 8

He wrung Bassanio's hand; and so they parted.

Solan. I think he only loves the world for him.

I pray thee, let us go and find him out,

4 Fraught for freighted. The Poet has it repeatedly so; also raught for reached; and many other such shortened preterites.

5 To slubber is to do a thing carelessly. So in Fuller's Worthies of Yorkshire: "Slightly slubbering it over, doing something for show, and nothing to purpose."

6 Mind of love probably means loving mind, or mind full of love. The Poet elsewhere has mind of honour for honourable mind.

7 Conveniently is properly or fittingly.— Ostents for shows or manifestations. See page 113, note 38.

8 Sensible for sensitive or tender. The Poet has it repeatedly so.