 | The Merchant of Venice |  |
Scene 5
The same. Before SHYLOCK'S house.
Enter SHYLOCK and LAUNCELOT
Well, thou shalt see, thy eyes shall be thy judge,
The difference of old Shylock and Bassanio:—
What, Jessica!—thou shalt not gormandise,
As thou hast done with me:—What, Jessica!—
And sleep and snore, and rend apparel out;—
Why, Jessica, I say!
LAUNCELOT
Why, Jessica!
SHYLOCK
Who bids thee call? I do not bid thee call.
LAUNCELOT
Your worship was wont to tell me that
I could do nothing without bidding.
Enter Jessica
JESSICA
Call you? what is your will?
SHYLOCK
I am bid forth to supper, Jessica:
There are my keys. But wherefore should I go?
I am not bid for love; they flatter me:
But yet I'll go in hate, to feed upon
The prodigal Christian. Jessica, my girl,
Look to my house. I am right loath to go:
There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest,
For I did dream of money-bags to-night.
LAUNCELOT
I beseech you, sir, go: my young master doth expect
your reproach.
SHYLOCK
So do I his.
LAUNCELOT
An they have conspired together, I will not say you
shall see a masque; but if you do, then it was not
for nothing that my nose fell a-bleeding on
Black-Monday last at six o'clock i' the morning,
falling out that year on Ash-Wednesday was four
year, in the afternoon.
SHYLOCK
What, are there masques? Hear you me, Jessica:
Lock up my doors; and when you hear the drum
And the vile squealing of the wry-neck'd fife,
Clamber not you up to the casements then,
Nor thrust your head into the public street
To gaze on Christian fools with varnish'd faces,
But stop my house's ears, I mean my casements:
Let not the sound of shallow foppery enter
My sober house. By Jacob's staff, I swear,
I have no mind of feasting forth to-night:
But I will go. Go you before me, sirrah;
Say I will come.
LAUNCELOT
I will go before, sir. Mistress, look out at
window, for all this, There will come a Christian
boy, will be worth a Jewess' eye.
Exit
SHYLOCK
What says that fool of Hagar's offspring, ha?
JESSICA
His words were 'Farewell mistress;' nothing else.
SHYLOCK
The patch is kind enough, but a huge feeder;
Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by day
More than the wild-cat: drones hive not with me;
Therefore I part with him, and part with him
To one that would have him help to waste
His borrow'd purse. Well, Jessica, go in;
Perhaps I will return immediately:
Do as I bid you; shut doors after you:
Fast bind, fast find;
A proverb never stale in thrifty mind.
Exit
JESSICA
Farewell; and if my fortune be not crost,
I have a father, you a daughter, lost.
Exit
| The Merchant of Venice | |