The Merchant of Venice E-Book

William Shakespeare

• Herausgeber: Krill Press
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Seitenzahl: 113

Beschreibung

William Shakespeare is almost universally considered the English language's most famous and greatest writer. In fact, the only people who might dispute that are those who think he didn't write the surviving 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems still attributed to him. Even people who never get around to reading his works in class are instantly familiar with titles like King Lear, Othello, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo & Shakespeare.

The Merchant of Venice is technically a comedy, but it's also a dramatic story about a Venice merchant and the Jewish lender Shylock. While the play is a little controversial for dealing with elements of traditional anti-Semitism, it's also heavily debated by some who think Shylock is portrayed sympathetically, especially in his famous "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speech.

Leseprobe

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

..................

William Shakespeare

MASQUERADE PRESS

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Copyright © 2015 by William Shakespeare

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Merchant of Venice

Characters of the Play

Act I

Scene I. Venice. A street.

Scene II: Belmont. A room in Portia’s house.

Scene III. Venice. A public place.

Act II

Scene I. Belmont. A room in Portia’s house.

Scene II. Venice. A street.

Scene III. The same. A room in Shylock’s house.

Scene IV. The same. A street.

Scene V. The same. Before Shylock’s house.

Scene VI. The same.

Scene VII. Belmont. A room in Portia’s house.

Scene VIII. Venice. A street.

Scene IX. Belmont. A room in Portia’s house.

Act III

Scene I. Venice. A street.

Scene II. Belmont. A room in Portia’s house.

Scene III. Venice. A street.

Scene IV. Belmont. A room in Portia’s house.

Scene V. The same. A garden.

Act IV

Scene I. Venice. A court of justice.

Scene II. The same. A street.

Act V

Scene I. Belmont. Avenue to Portia’s house.

The Merchant of Venice

By

William Shakespeare

The Merchant of Venice

Published by Masquerade Press

New York City, NY

First published 1605

Copyright © Masquerade Press, 2015

All rights reserved

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

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CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY

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The Duke of Venice.

The Prince of Arragon and The Prince of Morocco, suitors to Portia.

Antonio, a merchant.

Bassanio, his friend.

Salanio, Salarino, and Gratiano, friends to Antonio and Bassanio.

Lorenzo, in love with Jessica.

Shylock, a rich Jew.

Tubal, a Jew, his friend.

Launcelot Gobbo, a clown, servant to Shylock.

Old Gobbo, father to Launcelot.

Leonardo, servant to Bassanio.

Balthasar and Stephano, servants to Portia.

Portia, a rich heiress.

Nerissa, her waiting-maid.

Jessica, daughter to Shylock.

Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of Justice, Gaoler, Servants, and other Attendants.

ACT I

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SCENE I. VENICE. A STREET.

..................

Enter Antonio, Salarino, and Salanio

Antonio

In sooth, I know not why I am so sad:

It wearies me; you say it wearies you;

But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,

What stuff ’tis made of, whereof it is born,

I am to learn;

And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,

That I have much ado to know myself.

Salarino

Your mind is tossing on the ocean;

There, where your argosies with portly sail,

Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood,

Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea,

Do overpeer the petty traffickers,

That curtsy to them, do them reverence,

As they fly by them with their woven wings.

Salanio

Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth,

The better part of my affections would

Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still

Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind,

Peering in maps for ports and piers and roads;

And every object that might make me fear

Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt

Would make me sad.

Salarino

My wind cooling my broth

Would blow me to an ague, when I thought

What harm a wind too great at sea might do.

I should not see the sandy hour-glass run,

But I should think of shallows and of flats,

And see my wealthy Andrew dock’d in sand,

Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs

To kiss her burial. Should I go to church

And see the holy edifice of stone,

And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks,

Which touching but my gentle vessel’s side,

Would scatter all her spices on the stream,

Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks,

And, in a word, but even now worth this,

And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought

To think on this, and shall I lack the thought

That such a thing bechanced would make me sad?

But tell not me; I know, Antonio

Is sad to think upon his merchandise.

Antonio

Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for it,

My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,

Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate

Upon the fortune of this present year:

Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad.

Salarino

Why, then you are in love.

Antonio

Fie, fie!

Salarino

Not in love neither? Then let us say you are sad,

Because you are not merry: and ’twere as easy

For you to laugh and leap and say you are merry,

Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus,

Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time:

Some that will evermore peep through their eyes

And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper,

And other of such vinegar aspect

That they’ll not show their teeth in way of smile,

Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.

Enter Bassanio, Lorenzo, and Gratiano

Salanio

Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman,

Gratiano and Lorenzo. Fare ye well:

We leave you now with better company.

Salarino

I would have stay’d till I had made you merry,

If worthier friends had not prevented me.

Antonio

Your worth is very dear in my regard.

I take it, your own business calls on you

And you embrace the occasion to depart.

Salarino

Good morrow, my good lords.

Bassanio

Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? say, when?

You grow exceeding strange: must it be so?

Salarino

We’ll make our leisures to attend on yours.

Exeunt Salarino and Salanio

Lorenzo

My Lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio,

We two will leave you: but at dinner-time,

I pray you, have in mind where we must meet.

Bassanio

I will not fail you.

Gratiano

You look not well, Signior Antonio;

You have too much respect upon the world:

They lose it that do buy it with much care:

Believe me, you are marvellously changed.

Antonio

I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;

A stage where every man must play a part,

And mine a sad one.

Gratiano

Let me play the fool:

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come,

And let my liver rather heat with wine

Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.

Why should a man, whose blood is warm within,

Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?

Sleep when he wakes and creep into the jaundice

By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio —

I love thee, and it is my love that speaks —

There are a sort of men whose visages

Do cream and mantle like a standing pond,

And do a wilful stillness entertain,

With purpose to be dress’d in an opinion

Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit,

As who should say ‘I am Sir Oracle,

And when I ope my lips let no dog bark!’

O my Antonio, I do know of these

That therefore only are reputed wise

For saying nothing; when, I am very sure,

If they should speak, would almost damn those ears,

Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools.

I’ll tell thee more of this another time:

But fish not, with this melancholy bait,

For this fool gudgeon, this opinion.

Come, good Lorenzo. Fare ye well awhile:

I’ll end my exhortation after dinner.

Lorenzo

Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time:

I must be one of these same dumb wise men,

For Gratiano never lets me speak.

Gratiano

Well, keep me company but two years moe,

Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue.

Antonio

Farewell: I’ll grow a talker for this gear.

Gratiano

Thanks, i’ faith, for silence is only commendable

In a neat’s tongue dried and a maid not vendible.

Exeunt Gratiano and Lorenzo

Antonio

Is that any thing now?

Bassanio

Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search.

Antonio

Well, tell me now what lady is the same

To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,

That you to-day promised to tell me of?

Bassanio

’Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,

How much I have disabled mine estate,

By something showing a more swelling port

Than my faint means would grant continuance:

Nor do I now make moan to be abridged

From such a noble rate; but my chief care

Is to come fairly off from the great debts

Wherein my time something too prodigal

Hath left me gaged. To you, Antonio,

I owe the most, in money and in love,

And from your love I have a warranty

To unburden all my plots and purposes

How to get clear of all the debts I owe.

Antonio

I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it;

And if it stand, as you yourself still do,

Within the eye of honour, be assured,

My purse, my person, my extremest means,

Lie all unlock’d to your occasions.

Bassanio

In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft,

I shot his fellow of the self-same flight

The self-same way with more advised watch,

To find the other forth, and by adventuring both

I oft found both: I urge this childhood proof,

Because what follows is pure innocence.

I owe you much, and, like a wilful youth,

That which I owe is lost; but if you please

To shoot another arrow that self way

Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,

As I will watch the aim, or to find both

Or bring your latter hazard back again

And thankfully rest debtor for the first.

Antonio

You know me well, and herein spend but time

To wind about my love with circumstance;

And out of doubt you do me now more wrong

In making question of my uttermost

Than if you had made waste of all I have:

Then do but say to me what I should do

That in your knowledge may by me be done,

And I am prest unto it: therefore, speak.

Bassanio

In Belmont is a lady richly left;

And she is fair, and, fairer than that word,

Of wondrous virtues: sometimes from her eyes

I did receive fair speechless messages:

Her name is Portia, nothing undervalued

To Cato’s daughter, Brutus’ Portia:

Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth,

For the four winds blow in from every coast

Renowned suitors, and her sunny locks

Hang on her temples like a golden fleece;

Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos’ strand,

And many Jasons come in quest of her.

O my Antonio, had I but the means

To hold a rival place with one of them,

I have a mind presages me such thrift,

That I should questionless be fortunate!

Antonio

Thou know’st that all my fortunes are at sea;

Neither have I money nor commodity

To raise a present sum: therefore go forth;

Try what my credit can in Venice do:

That shall be rack’d, even to the uttermost,

To furnish thee to Belmont, to fair Portia.

Go, presently inquire, and so will I,

Where money is, and I no question make

To have it of my trust or for my sake.

Exeunt

SCENE II: BELMONT. A ROOM IN PORTIA’S HOUSE.

..................

Enter Portia and Nerissa

Portia

By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world.

Nerissa

You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same abundance as your good fortunes are: and yet, for aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing. It is no mean happiness therefore, to be seated in the mean: superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.

Portia

Good sentences and well pronounced.

Nerissa

They would be better, if well followed.

Portia