The Merchant of Venice Page #4

shall she be placed in my constant soul.

(All) No!

(Thunder)

(Antonio) Who's there?

- Signior Antonio!

- Fie, fie, Gratiano.

'Tis ten o'clock, our friends all wait for you.

No masque tonight.

The wind has come about,

Bassanio soon will come aboard.

I have sent twenty out to seek for you.

Jessica!

Jessica!

Jessica!

I will make some speed of my return.

Hurry not business for my sake,

but stay the very riping of the time.

And for the Jew's bond that he has

of thee, let it not enter your mind of love.

- (Sailor) Leva i remi.

- Rema.

(Sailor) Avanti!

(Antonio) Be merry and employ

your chiefest thoughts to courtship,

such fair displays of love

as may conveniently become you there.

(Sailor) Tira!

(Oarsmen) Oh... ehi! Oh... ehi!

Oh... ehi! Oh... ehi!

(Oarsmen continue calling)

No!

No!

No, no. (Sobs)

Jessica!

(Sobs)

No.

(Salanio) I never heard

a passion 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!"

The villain Jew with outcries

raised the Duke

who went with him

to search Bassanio's ship.

He came too late, the ship was under sail.

Let good Antonio look he keep his day

or he shall pay for this.

Marry, well remembered.

I reasoned with a Frenchman yesterday

who told me, in the narrow seas

that part the French and English

there miscarried a vessel of our country

richly fraught.

I thought upon Antonio when he told me

and wished in silence that it were not his.

Madam! Madam!

Madam!

Oh... Madam!

Quick! Quick!

I pray you, the Prince of Aragon

hath taken his oath

and comes to his election presently.

- Msica!

- (# Spanish guitars play)

"Who chooses me

must give and hazard all he has. "

You shall look fairer ere I give or hazard.

- (Sniggers)

- (Laughs)

What says the golden chest?

Ha! Let me see.

"Who chooses me shall gain

what many men desire. "

I will not choose what many men desire

because I will not jump

with common spirits

and rank me with the barbarous multitude.

(# Resounding guitar chords)

"Who chooses me

"shall get as much as he deserves. "

And well said, too.

(Spits)

- I will assume desert.

- (# Guitar chord)

Give me a key for this

and instantly unlock my fortunes here.

Too long a pause

for that which you find there.

What's here?

The portrait of a blinking idiot

presenting me a schedule?

Did I deserve no more than a fool's head?

Is that my prize?

Are my deserts no better?

To offend and judge are distinct offices

and of opposed natures.

With one fool's head

I came to woo.

But I go away with two.

Antonio's ship is wrecked,

gone down with all hands,

all merchandise lost.

(Women calling)

Come on up! Come on up.

(Woman) Who is that there?

- Jew!

- The Jew! Hey!

Take some pleasure with us!

Taste my Christian flesh!

(# Lute playing, woman singing)

(Laughter)

- What news on the Rialto?

- Why, yet it lives there unchecked

that Antonio hath a ship of rich lading

wrecked on the narrow seas -

the Goodwins, I think they call the place,

a very dangerous flat and fatal -

where the carcasses of

many a tall ship lie buried.

What say you?

I would it might prove

the end of his losses.

How now, Shylock?

What news amongst the merchants?

You knew of my daughter's flight.

None so well.

None so well as you.

And Shylock for his own part

knew the bird was fledged

and then it is the complexion of them all

to leave the dam.

She be damned for it.

Tell us, do you hear whether Antonio

have had any loss at sea or no?

Let him look to his bond.

He was wont to call me usurer.

Let him look to his bond.

He was wont to lend money

for Christian courtesy.

Let him look to his bond.

(Woman) Hello, Jew!

I'm sure if he forfeit you'll not take

his flesh. What's that good for?

To bait fish withal.

If it will feed nothing else,

it will feed my revenge.

He hath disgraced me

and hindered me half a million,

laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains,

scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains,

cooled my friends, heated mine enemies,

and what's his reason?

I am a Jew!

Hath not a Jew eyes?

Hath not a Jew hands?

Organs, dimensions?

Senses, affections, passions?

Fed with the same food?

Hurt with the same weapons?

Subject to the same diseases?

Healed by the same means?

Warmed and cooled by the same

winter and summer as a Christian is?

If you prick us, do we not bleed?

If you tickle us, do we not laugh?

If you poison us, do we not die?

And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?

If we are like you in the rest,

we will resemble you in that.

If a Jew wrong a Christian,

what is his humility? Revenge.

If a Christian wrong a Jew,

what should his sufferance be

by Christian example?

Why, revenge.

The villainy you teach me I will execute.

And it shall go hard

but I will better the instruction.

Antonio is at his house.

We should speak with him.

How now, Tubal?

What news from Genoa?

- Have you found my daughter?

- I often came where I did hear of her

but cannot find her.

Why...

there, there, there.

A diamond gone.

Cost me two thousand ducats in Frankfurt.

The curse never fell upon our nation

till now.

I never felt it.

Till now.

I would my daughter were dead at my foot

and the jewel in her ear.

No news of them?

- (Bell tolling)

- Loss upon loss.

The thief gone with so much

and so much to find the thief.

And no satisfaction, no revenge,

no luck stirring

but what lights on my shoulders.

No sighs

but of my breathing.

No tears but of my shedding.

Yes, other men have ill luck, too.

Antonio, as I heard in Genoa.

What?

What, what? llI luck?

There's a ship, wrecked,

coming from Tripolis.

Oh, I thank God.

I thank God.

Oh!

Heard you in Genoa what?

Your daughter spent in Genoa,

as I heard,

one night, four score ducats.

Oh, you stick a dagger in me.

I shall never see my gold again.

Four score ducats!

At a sitting!

Four score ducats!

There came various of Antonio's creditors

in my company to Venice

- that swear he cannot choose but break.

- I am very glad of it.

I'll plague him.

I'll torture him. I am glad of it.

One of them showed me a ring

he had of your daughter

for a monkey.

(Shylock) How dare her!

Tubal, you torture me.

It was my turquoise.

I had it of Leah, her mother,

when I was a bachelor.

I would not have given it away

for a wilderness of monkeys.

But Antonio is certainly undone.

That is true.

Tubal, go, find me an officer.

Bespeak him a fortnight before.

I will have Antonio's heart if he forfeit.

Go, go, Tubal -

at our synagogue, good Tubal.

(Oarsmen) Oh... ehi!

Madam!

There is alighted at your gate

a young Venetian,

one who comes to signify

the approaching of his lord.

I have not seen

so likely an ambassador of love!

A day in April never came so sweet

to show how costly summer was at hand

as this... oh! Forerunner

comes before his lord.

No more, I pray you. I'm half afraid

you will say anon he is some kin to you,

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