Outline
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Dreamweaver
[Enter Solanio and Salarino.]
Solanio
Now, what news on the Rialto?
Salarino
Why, yet it lives there unchecked that Antonio hath a ship of rich
lading wrack’d 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, as they say, if my gossip Report be an honest
woman of her word.
Solanio
I would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever knapped ginger or
made her neighbours believe she wept for the death of a third husband.
But it is true, without any slips of prolixity or crossing the plain
highway of talk, that the good Antonio, the honest Antonio,—O that I
had a title good enough to keep his name company!—
Salarino
Come, the full stop.
Solanio
Ha, what sayest thou? Why, the end is, he hath lost a ship.
Salarino
I would it might prove the end of his losses.
Solanio
Let me say “amen” betimes, lest the devil cross my prayer, for here he
comes in the likeness of a Jew.
[Enter Shylock.]
Solanio
How now, Shylock, what news among the merchants?
Shylock
You knew, none so well, none so well as you, of my daughter’s flight.
Salarino
That’s certain, I, for my part, knew the tailor that made the wings she
flew withal.
Solanio
And Shylock, for his own part, knew the bird was fledged; and then it
is the complexion of them all to leave the dam.
Shylock
She is damn’d for it.
Salarino
That’s certain, if the devil may be her judge.
Shylock
My own flesh and blood to rebel!
Solanio
Out upon it, old carrion! Rebels it at these years?
Shylock
I say my daughter is my flesh and my blood.
Salarino
There is more difference between thy flesh and hers than between jet
and ivory, more between your bloods than there is between red wine and
Rhenish. But tell us, do you hear whether Antonio have had any loss at
sea or no?
Shylock
There I have another bad match, a bankrupt, a prodigal, who dare scarce
show his head on the Rialto, a beggar that used to come so smug upon
the mart; 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 a Christian cur’sy;
let him look to his bond.
Salarino
Why, I am sure if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his flesh! What’s that
good for?
Shylock
To bait fish withal; if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my
revenge. He hath disgrac’d me and hind’red me half a million, laugh’d
at my losses, mock’d 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.
[Enter a man from Antonio.]
SERVANT
Gentlemen, my master Antonio is at his house, and desires to speak with
you both.
Salarino
We have been up and down to seek him.
[Enter Tubal.]
Solanio
Here comes another of the tribe; a third cannot be match’d, unless the
devil himself turn Jew.
[Exeunt Solanio, Salarino and the Servant.]
Shylock
How now, Tubal, what news from Genoa? Hast thou found my daughter?
Tubal
I often came where I did hear of her, but cannot find her.
Shylock
Why there, there, there, there! A diamond gone cost me two thousand
ducats in Frankfort! The curse never fell upon our nation till now, I
never felt it till now. Two thousand ducats in that, and other
precious, precious jewels. I would my daughter were dead at my foot,
and the jewels in her ear; would she were hearsed at my foot, and the
ducats in her coffin. No news of them? Why so? And I know not what’s
spent in the search. Why, thou—loss upon loss! The thief gone with so
much, and so much to find the thief, and no satisfaction, no revenge,
nor no ill luck stirring but what lights o’ my shoulders, no sighs but
o’ my breathing, no tears but o’ my shedding.
Tubal
Yes, other men have ill luck too. Antonio, as I heard in Genoa—
Shylock
What, what, what? Ill luck, ill luck?
Tubal
—hath an argosy cast away coming from Tripolis.
Shylock
I thank God! I thank God! Is it true, is it true?
Tubal
I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wrack.
Shylock
I thank thee, good Tubal. Good news, good news! Ha, ha, heard in Genoa?
Tubal
Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, one night, fourscore ducats.
Shylock
Thou stick’st a dagger in me. I shall never see my gold again.
Fourscore ducats at a sitting! Fourscore ducats!
Tubal
There came divers of Antonio’s creditors in my company to Venice that
swear he cannot choose but break.
Shylock
I am very glad of it. I’ll plague him, I’ll torture him. I am glad of
it.
Tubal
One of them showed me a ring that he had of your daughter for a monkey.
Shylock
Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal. It was my turquoise, I had it
of Leah when I was a bachelor. I would not have given it for a
wilderness of monkeys.
Tubal
But Antonio is certainly undone.
Shylock
Nay, that’s true, that’s very true. Go, Tubal, fee me an officer;
bespeak him a fortnight before. I will have the heart of him if he
forfeit, for were he out of Venice I can make what merchandise I will.
Go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue. Go, good Tubal, at our
synagogue, Tubal.
[Exeunt.]