This is the man, this is Antonio, To whom I am so infinitely bound. PORTIA You should in all sense be much bound to him.
For, as I hear, he was much bound for you. ANTONIO No more than I am well acquitted of. PORTIA Sir, you are very welcome to our house:
It must appear in other ways than words, Therefore I scant this breathing courtesy. GRATIANO [To NERISSA] 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, Since you do take it, love, so much at heart. PORTIA A quarrel, ho, already! what's the matter? GRATIANO About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring That she did give me, whose posy was For all the world like cutler's poetry Upon a knife, 'Love me, and leave me not.' NERISSA What talk you of the posy or the value?
You swore to me, when I did give it you, That you would wear it till your hour of death And that it should lie with you in your grave:
Though not for me, yet for your vehement oaths, You should have been respective and have kept it.
Gave it a judge's clerk! no, God's my judge, The clerk will ne'er wear hair on's face that had it. GRATIANO He will, an if he live to be a man. NERISSA Ay, if a woman live to be a man. GRATIANO 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. PORTIA 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 so riveted 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 Nor pluck it from his finger, for the wealth That the world masters. Now, in faith, Gratiano, You give your wife too unkind a cause of grief:
An 'twere to me, I should be mad at it. BASSANIO [Aside] Why, I were best to cut my left hand off And swear I lost the ring defending it. GRATIANO My Lord Bassanio gave his ring away Unto the judge that begg'd it and indeed Deserved it too; and then the boy, his clerk, That took some pains in writing, he begg'd mine;And neither man nor master would take aught But the two rings. PORTIA What ring gave you my lord?
Not that, I hope, which you received of me. BASSANIO If I could add a lie unto a fault, I would deny it; but you see my finger Hath not the ring upon it; it is gone. PORTIA Even so void is your false heart of truth.
By heaven, I will ne'er come in your bed Until I see the ring. NERISSA Nor I in yours Till I again see mine. BASSANIO Sweet Portia, If you did know to whom I gave the ring, If you did know for whom I gave the ring And would conceive for what I gave the ring And how unwillingly I left the ring, When nought would be accepted but the ring, You would abate the strength of your displeasure. PORTIA If you had known the virtue of the ring, Or half her worthiness that gave the ring, Or your own honour to contain the ring, You would not then have parted with the ring.
What man is there so much unreasonable, If you had pleased to have defended it With any terms of zeal, wanted the modesty To urge the thing held as a ceremony?
Nerissa teaches me what to believe:
I'll die for't but some woman had the ring. BASSANIO No, by my 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 displeased away;Even he that did uphold the very life Of my dear friend. What should I say, sweet lady?
I was enforced to send it after him;
I was beset with shame and courtesy;