Portia

Your wife would give you little thanks for that,
If she were by, to hear you make the offer.

Gratiano

I have a wife, whom, I protest, I love;

I would she were in heaven, so she could
Entreat some power to change this currish Jew.

'Tis well you offer it behind her back;

The wish would make else an unquiet house. Shylock

These be the Christian husbands: I have a daughter;
'Would, any of the stock of Barrabas

Had been her husband, rather than a Christian! [Aside.
We trifle time; I pray thee, pursue sentence.

A pound of that same merchant's flesh is thine; The court awards it, and the law doth give it. Shylock

And you must cut this flesh from off his breast;
The law allows it, and the court awards it.

Tarry a little; there is something else.
This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood;

The words expressly are a pound of flesh:

Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh;

But, in the cutting it, if thou dost shed

One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods
Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate

Unto the state of Venice.

Gratiano

O upright judge!- Mark, Jew; - O learned judge! Shylock

Is that the law?

Portia

Thyself shall see the act:

For, as thou urgest justice, be assured,
Thou shalt have justice more than thou desir'st.

Gratiano

O learned judge! - Mark, Jew;-a learned judge! Shylock

I take this offer then;

And let the Christian go.

pay the bond thrice,

O Jew! an upright judge, a learned judge!
Portia-

Therefore, prepare thee to cut off the flesh.
Shed thou no blood; nor cut thou less, nor more,
But just a pound of flesh: if thou tak'st more,
Or less, than a just pound, - be it but so much
As makes it light, or heavy, in the substance,
Or the division of the twentieth part
Of one poor scruple; nay, if the scale do turn
But in the estimation of a hair, -

Thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate.
Gratiano-

A second Daniel! a Daniel, Jew!
Now, infidel, I have thee on the hip.

Portia

Why doth the Jew pause? take thy forfeiture. Shylock

Give me my principal, and let me go.

Bassanio

I have it ready for thee; here it is.
Portia-

He hath refused it in the open court;
He shall have merely justice and his bond.
Gratiano-

A Daniel, still say I; a second Daniel

I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word. Shylock

He seek the life of any citizen,

The party, 'gainst the which he doth contrive,
Shall seize one half his goods; the other half
Comes to the privy coffer of the state;
And the offender's life lies in the mercy
Of the duke only, 'gainst all other voice.
In which predicament, I say, thou stand'st:
For it appears by manifest proceeding,
That indirectly, and directly too,

Thou hast contrived against the very life
Of the defendant: and thou hast incurred
The danger formerly by me rehearsed.
Down, therefore, and beg mercy of the duke.

INTO THE BREACH.

SPEECH OF HENRY V. TO HIS ARMY.

BY SHAKESPEARE.

Scene: France. - Before Harfleur.

Alarum. Enter KING HENRY, EXETER, BEDFORD, GLOUCESTER and Soldiers, with scaling ladders.

King

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

Or close the wall up with our English dead.

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man

As modest stillness and humility:

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspèct;

Let it pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a gallèd rock

O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean.

Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English,

Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonor not your mothers; now attest

That those whom you called fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war.

And you, good yeomen,

Whose limbs were made in England, show us here

The mettle of your pasture; let us swear

That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble luster in your eyes.

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge

Cry God for Harry, England, and Saint George!

[Exeunt. Alarum, and chambers go off.

FALSTAFF AND THE PRINCE.

BY SHAKESPEARE.

Scene: London.- An apartment of the Prince's.

Enter the PRINCE OF WALES and FALSTAFF.

Falstaff Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?

Prince-Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack and unbuttoning thee after supper and sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know. What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? Unless hours were cups of sack and minutes capons, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of the day.

Falstaff-Indeed, you come near me now, Hal; for we that take purses go by the moon and seven stars, and not by Phoebus, he "that wandering knight so fair." And, I pray thee, sweet wag, when thou art king, as, God save thy grace, majesty, I should say, for grace thou wilt have none

Prince What, none?

Falstaff-No, by my troth, not so much as will serve to be prologue to an egg and butter.

Prince Well, how then? come, roundly, roundly.

Falstaff Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that are squires of the night's body be called thieves of the day's beauty: let us be Diana's foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon; and let men say we be men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.

Prince-Thou sayest well, and it holds well too; for the fortune of us that are the moon's men doth ebb and flow like the sea, being governed, as the sea is, by the moon. As, for proof, now a purse of gold most resolutely snatched on Monday night, and most dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning; got with swearing, "Lay by," and spent with crying, "Bring in"; now in as low an ebb as the foot of the ladder, and by and by in as high a flow as the ridge of the gallows.

Falstaff By the Lord, thou sayest true, lad. And is not my hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench?

Prince - As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle. And is not a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance?

Falstaff-How now, how now, mad wag? What, in thy quips and thy quiddities? what a plague have I to do with a buff jerkin?

Prince - Why, what a pox have I to do with my hostess of the tavern?

Falstaff Well, thou hast called her to a reckoning many a

time and oft.

Prince - Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part?

Falstaff-No. I'll give thee thy due, thou hast paid all there. Prince-Yea, and elsewhere, so far as my coin would stretch; and where it would not, I have used my credit.

Falstaff-Yea, and so used it that, were it not here apparent that thou art heir apparent, but, I prithee, sweet wag, shall there be gallows standing in England when thou art king! and resolution thus fobbed as it is with the rusty curb of old father antic, the law? Do not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief. Prince - No, thou shalt.

Falstaff-Shall I? O rare! By the Lord, I'll be a brave

judge!