The Merchant of Venice

ACT II

SCENE V The same. Before SHYLOCK'S house.

[Enter SHYLOCK and LAUNCELOT]

SHYLOCK 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]