But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-ey'd cherubins:
Such harmony is in immortal souls: 10
But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it. -

Enter Musicians.

Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn!
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear,
And draw her home with music.

Jess. I'm never merry when I hear sweet music.
Lor. The reason is, your spirits are attentive:
For do but note a wild and wanton herd,
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,

Fetching mad bounds, bellowing, and neighing loud,
Which is the hot condition of their blood;

If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
Or any air of music touch their ears,

You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze,

By the sweet power of music: Therefore the poet
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;
Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:

Let no such man be trusted.

Mark the music.

Enter PORTIA and NERISSA at a distance.

Por. That light we see is burning in my hall. How far that little candle throws his beams!

So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

[Music.

Ner. When the Moon shone we did not see the candle.

Of course everybody has heard of "the music of the spheres," -an ancient mystery which taught that the heavenly bodies in their revolutions sing together in a concert so loud, various, and sweet, as to exceed all proportion to the human ear. And the greatest souls, from Plato to Wordsworth, have been lifted above themselves, and have waxed greater than their wont, with an idea or intuition that the universe was knit together by a principle of which musical harmony is the aptest and clearest expression." 10 The soul of man was thought by some to be or to have something like the music of the spheres. Thus in Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, v. 38: "Touching musical harmony, such is the force thereof, and so pleasing effects it hath in that very part of man which is most divine, that some have thereby been induced to think that the soul itself by nature is or hath in it harmony.”`

Por. So doth the greater glory dim the less:
A substitute shines brightly as a king,
Until a king be by; and then his state
Empties itself, as doth an inland brook
Into the main of waters. Music! hark!

Ner. It is your music, Madam, of the house.
Por. Nothing is good, I see, without respect:
Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.

11

Ner. Silence bestows that virtue on it, Madam.
Por. The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark,
When neither is attended; and I think
The nightingale, if she should sing by day
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.

How many things by season season'd are
To their right praise and true perfection!-
Peace, ho! the Moon sleeps with Endymion,
And would not be awak'd! 12

Lor.

That is the voice, Or I am much deceiv'd, of Portia.

[Music ceases.

Por. He knows me, as the blind man knows the cuckoo.

By the bad voice.

Lor.

Dear lady, welcome home.

Por. We have been praying for our husbands' welfare, Which speed, we hope, the better for our words.

11 Unless it be heeded, or attended to. Hence it sounds better when there is nothing to divert the attention.

12 Endymion was a very beautiful youth: Juno took a fancy to him, whereupon her old man, Jupiter, grew jealous of him, and cast him into a perpetual sleep on Mou t Latmos. While he was there asleep, Madam Luna got so smitten with his beauty, that she used to come down and kiss him, and lie by his side. Some said. however, that Luna herself put him asleep, that she might have the pleasure of kissing him without his knowing it, the youth being somewhat shy when awake. The story was naturally a favourite with the poets. Fletcher, in The Faithful Shepherdess, tells the tale charmingly,

"How the pale Phoebe, hunting in a grove,
First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyes
She took eternal fire that never dies;

How she convey'd him softly in a sleep,
His temples bound with poppy, to the steep

Head of old Latmus, where she stoops each night,
Gilding the mountain with her brother's light,
To kiss her sweetest

No note at all of our being absent hence;
Nor you, Lorenzo; - Jessica, nor you.

[A Tucket sounds.18

Lor. Your husband is at hand; I hear his trumpet.

We are no tell-tales, Madam; fear you not.

Por. This night, methinks, is but the daylight sick; It looks a little paler: 'tis a day,

Such as a day is when the Sun is hid

Enter BASSANIO, ANTONIO, GRATIANO, and their Followers

If

Bass. We should hold day with the Antipodes,

you would walk in absence of the Sun.

Por. Let me give light, but let me not be light 14 For a light wife doth make a heavy husband,

And never be Bassanio so for me:

But God sort all! You're welcome home, my lord.
Bass. I thank you, Madam. Give welcome to my
This is the man, this is Antonio,

To whom I am so infinitely bound.

Por. You should in all sense be much bound to him, For, as I hear, he was much bound for you.

Ant. No more than I am well acquitted of.

Por. Sir, you are very welcome to our house:

It must appear in other ways than words,

Therefore I scant this breathing courtesy.15

friend

Gra. [To NER.] By yonder Moon I swear you do me

wrong;

In faith, I gave it to the judge's clerk.

Por. A quarrel, ho, already! what's the matter?

Gra. About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring

That she did give to me; whose posy was move me,
For all the world like cutler's poetry in
Upon a knife,16 Love me, and leave me not.

Ner. 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.

me not,

18 A tucket is a flourish of trumpets. The word is probably from the Italian toccata, which is said to mean a prelude to a sonata.

14 Twice before, in these scenes, we have had similar playings upon light.

here it is especially gracefu' and happy. See page 139, note 13.

15 This complimentary form, made up only of breath.

16 Knives were formerly inscribed, by means of aqua fortis, with short sentences in distich. The posy of a ring was the motto.

Respective is considerate or regardful; in the same sense as respect is explained, page 101, note 16. The word is repeatedly used thus by Shakespeare; as in Romeo and Juliet, iii. 1: “ Away to Heaven respective lenity, and fire-ey'd fury be my conduct now!"

Gave it a judge's clerk! no, God's my judge!
The clerk will ne'er wear hair on's face that had it.
Gra. He will, an if he live to be a man.
Ner. Ay, if a woman live to be a man.
Gra. Now, by this hand, I gave it to a youth.

A kind of boy; a little scrubbed boy,1

18

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.

Por. 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 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 únkind cause of grief:
An 'twere to me, I should be mad at it.

Bass. [Aside.] Why, I were best to cut my left hand off, And swear I lost the ring defending it.

Gra. My Lord Bassanio gave his ring away

Unto the judge that begg'd it, and indeed
Deserv'd 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.

Por.
What ring gave you, my lord?
Not that, I hope, which you receiv'd of me.
Bass. 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.

Por. Even so void is your false heart of truth.
By Heaven, I will ne'er come in your bed

Until I see the ring.

Ner.

Till I again see mine.

Bass.

If you did know to whom I
If
you Idid know for whom I gave
And would conceive for what I
And how unwillingly I left the ring,

gi

18 Scrubbed is here used in the sense of stunted; as in Holland's Pliny: "Such will never prove fair trees, but scrubs only." And Mr. Verplanck observes that the name scrub oak was from the first settlement of this country given to the dwarf or bush oak.

19

When nought would be accepted but the ring,
You would abate the strength of your displeasure.
Por. 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 pleas'd to have defended it
With any terms of zeal, wanted the modesty
To the thing held as a ceremony?M
Nerissa teaches me what to believe:

urge

I'll die for't, but some woman had the ring.

Bass. No, by mine honour, Madam, by my soul,
No woman had it; but a Civil Doctor,20

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 displeas'd away;

Even he that had held up the very life

Of my dear friend. What should I say, sweet lady?
I was enforc'd to send it after him:

I was beset with shame and courtesy ;

My honour would not let ingratitude

21

So much besmear it. Pardon me, good lady;

For, by these blessed candles of the night,

Had you been there, I think you would have begg'd

The ring of me to give the worthy Doctor.

Por. Let not that Doctor e'er come near my house.

Since he hath got the jewel that I lov'd,

And that which you did swear to keep for me,
I will become as liberal as you:

I'll not deny him any thing I have.

Ant. I am th' unhappy subject of these quarrels.

Por. Sir, grieve not you; you're welcome notwithstanding Bass. Portia, forgive me this enforced wrong;

And in the hearing of these many friends

I swear to thee, even by thine own fair eyes,
Wherein I see myself,

Por.

Mark you but that!

In both my eyes he doubly sees himself;

In each eye, one:- swear by your double self,
And there's an oath of credit.

Bass.

Nay, but hear me:

19 Contain was sometimes used in the sense of retain. So, in Bacon's Essays: "To containe anger from mischiefe, though it take hold of a man, there be two things."

20 A Civil Doctor was a doctor of the Civil Law.
21 Equivalent, perhaps, to shame of my discourtesy.