The Merchant of Venice, with line numbers E-Book

William Shakespeare

• Herausgeber: Seltzer Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 114

Beschreibung

The classic play. According to Wikipedia: "The Merchant of Venice is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Although classified as a comedy in the First Folio, and while it shares certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps more remembered for its dramatic scenes, and is best known for the character of Shylock. The title character is the merchant Antonio, not the Jewish moneylender Shylock, who is the play's most prominent and more famous character. Though Shylock is a tormented character, he is also a tormentor, so whether he is to be viewed with disdain or sympathy is up to the audience (as influenced by the interpretation of the play's director and lead actors). As a result, The Merchant of Venice is often classified as one of Shakespeare's problem plays."

Leseprobe

The Merchant Of Venice By William Shakespeare

published by Samizdat Express, Orange, CT, USA

established in 1974, offering over 14,000 books

Other comedies by William Shakespeare:

All's Well That Ends Well

As You Like It

The Comedy of Errors

Love's Labour's Lost

Measure for Measure

The Merry Wives of Windsor

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Much Ado About Nothing

The Taming of the Shrew

Twelfth Night

Two Gentlemen of Verona

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Dramatis Personae

The Merchant Of Venice

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.

Dramatis Personae

The Duke Of Venice. (Duke:)

Suitors To Portia

The Prince Of Morocco (Morocco:)

The Prince Of Arragon (Arragon:) |

Antonio, A Merchant Of Venice.

Bassanio, His Friend, Suitor Likewise To Portia.

Friends To Antonio And Bassanio

Salanio

Salarino

Gratiano

Salerio

Lorenzo, In Love With Jessica.

Shylock, A Rich Jew.

Tubal A Jew, His Friend.

Launcelot Gobbo, The Clown, Servant To Shylock. (Launcelot:)

Old Gobbo, Father To Launcelot. (Gobbo:)

Leonardo Servant To Bassanio.

Servants To Portia

Balthasar

Stephano

Portia, A Rich Heiress.

Nerissa, Her Waiting-Maid.

Jessica, Daughter To Shylock.

Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of Justice, Gaoler, Servants to Portia, and other Attendants. (Servant:), (Clerk:)

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

SCENE:  Partly at Venice, and partly at Belmont, the seat of PORTIA, on the Continent.

ACT I

SCENE I.  Venice. A street.

 [Enter ANTONIO, SALARINO, and SALANIO]

(1) 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,

(10) 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;

(20) 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

(30) 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

(40) 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,

(50) 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.

(60) 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,

(70) 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:

(80) 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,

(90) 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.

(100) 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.

(110) 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

(120) 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

(130) 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.

(140) 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,

(150) 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,

(160) 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

(170) 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;

(180) 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]

(1) 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.

(10) PORTIA Good sentences and well pronounced.

NERISSA They would be better, if well followed.

PORTIA If to do were as easy as to know what were good to

 do, chapels had been churches and poor men's

 cottages princes' palaces. It is a good divine that

 follows his own instructions: I can easier teach

 twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the

 twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may

 devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps

 o'er a cold decree: such a hare is madness the

(20) youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel the

 cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to

 choose me a husband. O me, the word 'choose!' I may

 neither choose whom I would nor refuse whom I

 dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed

 by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard,

 Nerissa, that I cannot choose one nor refuse none?

NERISSA Your father was ever virtuous; and holy men at their

 death have good inspirations: therefore the lottery,

 that he hath devised in these three chests of gold,

(30) silver and lead, whereof who chooses his meaning

 chooses you, will, no doubt, never be chosen by any

 rightly but one who shall rightly love. But what

 warmth is there in your affection towards any of

 these princely suitors that are already come?

PORTIA I pray thee, over-name them; and as thou namest

 them, I will describe them; and, according to my

 description, level at my affection.

NERISSA First, there is the Neapolitan prince.

PORTIA Ay, that's a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but

(40) talk of his horse; and he makes it a great

 appropriation to his own good parts, that he can