The Same. Before SHYLOCK’S House. | |
| |
Enter SHYLOCK and LAUNCELOT. | |
| Shy. Well, thou shalt see, thy eyes shall be thy judge, | |
| The difference of old Shylock and Bassanio:— | 4 |
| What, Jessica!—thou shalt not gormandize, | |
| As thou hast done with me;—What, Jessica!— | |
| And sleep and snore, and rend apparel out— | |
| Why, Jessica, I say! | 8 |
| Laun. Why, Jessica! | |
| Shy. Who bids thee call? I do not bid thee call. | |
| Laun. Your worship was wont to tell me that I could do nothing without bidding. | |
| |
Enter JESSICA. | 12 |
| Jes. Call you? What is your will? | |
| Shy. I am bid forth to supper, Jessica: | |
| There are my keys. But wherefore should I go? | |
| I am not bid for love; they flatter me: | 16 |
| But yet I’ll go in hate, to feed upon | |
| The prodigal Christian. Jessica, my girl, | |
| Look to my house. I am right loath to go: | |
| There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest, | 20 |
| For I did dream of money-bags to-night. | |
| Laun. I beseech you, sir, go: my young master doth expect your reproach. | |
| Shy. So do I his. | |
| Laun. And they have conspired together: I will not say you shall see a masque; but if you do, then it was not for nothing that my nose fell a-bleeding on Black-Monday last, at six o’clock i’ the morning, falling out that year on Ash-Wednesday was four year in the afternoon. | 24 |
| Shy. What! are there masques? Hear you me, Jessica: | |
| Lock up my doors; and when you hear the drum, | |
| And the vile squealing of the wry-neck’d fife, | |
| Clamber not you up to the casements then, | 28 |
| Nor thrust your head into the public street | |
| To gaze on Christian fools with varnish’d faces, | |
| But stop my house’s ears, I mean my casements; | |
| Let not the sound of shallow foppery enter | 32 |
| My sober house. By Jacob’s staff I swear | |
| I have no mind of feasting forth to-night; | |
| But I will go. Go you before me, sirrah; | |
| Say I will come. | 36 |
| Laun. I will go before, sir. Mistress, look out at window, for all this; | |
| There will come a Christian by, | |
| Will be worth a Jewess’ eye. [Exit LAUNCELOT. | |
| Shy. What says that fool of Hagar’s offspring, ha? | 40 |
| Jes. His words were, ‘Farewell, mistress;’ nothing else. | |
| Shy. The patch is kind enough, but a huge feeder; | |
| Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by day | |
| More than the wild cat: drones hive not with me; | 44 |
| Therefore I part with him, and part with him | |
| To one that I would have him help to waste | |
| His borrow’d purse. Well, Jessica, go in: | |
| Perhaps I will return immediately: | 48 |
| Do as I bid you; shut doors after you: | |
| ‘Fast bind, fast find,’ | |
| A proverb never stale in thrifty mind. [Exit. | |
| Jes. Farewell; and if my fortune be not crost, | 52 |
| I have a father, you a daughter, lost. [Exit. | |
