William Shakespeare - Ultimate Collection: Complete Plays & Poetry in One Volume. William ShakespeareЧитать онлайн книгу.
Every offence is not a hate at first.
SHYLOCK.
What! wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice?
ANTONIO.
I pray you, think you question with the Jew:
You may as well go stand upon the beach,
And bid the main flood bate his usual height;
You may as well use question with the wolf,
Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb;
You may as well forbid the mountain pines
To wag their high tops and to make no noise
When they are fretten with the gusts of heaven;
You may as well do anything most hard
As seek to soften that—than which what’s harder?—
His Jewish heart: therefore, I do beseech you,
Make no moe offers, use no farther means,
But with all brief and plain conveniency.
Let me have judgment, and the Jew his will.
BASSANIO.
For thy three thousand ducats here is six.
SHYLOCK.
If every ducat in six thousand ducats
Were in six parts, and every part a ducat,
I would not draw them; I would have my bond.
DUKE.
How shalt thou hope for mercy, rendering none?
SHYLOCK.
What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong?
You have among you many a purchas’d slave,
Which, fike your asses and your dogs and mules,
You use in abject and in slavish parts,
Because you bought them; shall I say to you
‘Let them be free, marry them to your heirs?
Why sweat they under burdens? let their beds
Be made as soft as yours, and let their palates
Be season’d with such viands? You will answer
‘The slaves are ours.’ So do I answer you:
The pound of flesh which I demand of him
Is dearly bought; ‘tis mine, and I will have it.
If you deny me, fie upon your law!
There is no force in the decrees of Venice.
I stand for judgment: answer; shall I have it?
DUKE.
Upon my power I may dismiss this court,
Unless Bellario, a learned doctor,
Whom I have sent for to determine this,
Come here to-day.
SALARINO.
My lord, here stays without
A messenger with letters from the doctor,
New come from Padua.
DUKE.
Bring us the letters; call the messenger.
BASSANIO.
Good cheer, Antonio! What, man, courage yet!
The Jew shall have my flesh, blood, bones, and all,
Ere thou shalt lose for me one drop of blood.
ANTONIO.
I am a tainted wether of the flock,
Meetest for death; the weakest kind of fruit
Drops earliest to the ground, and so let me.
You cannot better be employ’d, Bassanio,
Than to live still, and write mine epitaph.
[Enter NERISSA dressed like a lawyer’s clerk.]
DUKE.
Came you from Padua, from Bellario?
NERISSA.
From both, my lord. Bellario greets your Grace.
[Presents a letter.]
BASSANIO.
Why dost thou whet thy knife so earnestly?
SHYLOCK.
To cut the forfeiture from that bankrupt there.
GRATIANO.
Not on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew,
Thou mak’st thy knife keen; but no metal can,
No, not the hangman’s axe, bear half the keenness
Of thy sharp envy. Can no prayers pierce thee?
SHYLOCK.
No, none that thou hast wit enough to make.
GRATIANO.
O, be thou damn’d, inexecrable dog!
And for thy life let justice be accus’d.
Thou almost mak’st me waver in my faith,
To hold opinion with Pythagoras
That souls of animals infuse themselves
Into the trunks of men. Thy currish spirit
Govern’d a wolf who, hang’d for human slaughter,
Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,
And, whilst thou lay’st in thy unhallow’d dam,
Infus’d itself in thee; for thy desires
Are wolfish, bloody, starv’d and ravenous.
SHYLOCK.
Till thou canst rail the seal from off my bond,
Thou but offend’st thy lungs to speak so loud;
Repair thy wit, good youth, or it will fall
To cureless ruin. I stand here for law.
DUKE.
This letter from Bellario doth commend
A young and learned doctor to our court.
Where is he?
NERISSA.
He attendeth here hard by,
To know your answer, whether you’ll admit him.
DUKE OF VENICE.
With all my heart: some three or four of you
Go give him courteous conduct to this place.
Meantime, the court shall hear Bellario’s letter.
CLERK. ‘Your Grace shall understand that at the receipt of your letter I am very sick; but in the instant that your messenger came, in loving visitation was with me a young doctor of Rome; his name is Balthazar. I acquainted him with the cause in controversy between the Jew and Antonio the merchant; we turn’d o’er many books together; he is furnished with my opinion which, bettered with his own learning,—the greatness whereof I cannot enough commend,—comes with him at my importunity to fill up your Grace’s request in my stead. I beseech you let his lack of years be no impediment to let him lack a reverend estimation, for I never knew so young a body with so old a head. I leave him to your gracious acceptance, whose trial shall better publish his commendation.’
DUKE.
YOU hear the learn’d Bellario, what he writes;
And here, I take it, is the doctor come.
[Enter PORTIA, dressed like a doctor of laws.]
Give me your hand; come you from old Bellario?
PORTIA.
I did, my lord.
DUKE.