• SCENE 5.

    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 gormandize,
    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 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. And 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 fopp'ry 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 by
      Will be worth a Jewess' eye.

    [Exit LAUNCELOT.]

    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 I 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.]

     

    Go to Scene 6

    Go back to Scene 4



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