The Merchant of Venice Act 2 Scene 5

Well, you'll see — let your own eyes be the judge of

the difference between old Shylock and Bassanio. —

Jessica! — You won't be stuffing yourself there

the way you have with me — Jessica! —

and sleeping and snoring and wearing your clothes to rags. —

Jessica, I say!

Jessica!

Who told you to call her? I didn't tell you to call.

Your worship always used to tell me I could do nothing unless I was told.

Did you call? What do you want?

I've been invited out to supper, Jessica.

There are my keys. — But why should I go?

I'm not invited out of affection. They're flattering me.

But I'll go anyway, out of hatred, to eat at the expense of

the spendthrift Christian. — Jessica, my girl,

look after my house. — I'm very unwilling to go.

Some trouble is brewing against my peace,

because I dreamed of money bags last night. (He knows exactly why he has been invited and goes anyway, to eat their food out of spite. The invitation is a trick, and he is right about that too.)

Please go, sir. My young master is expecting your reproach.

And I'm expecting his.

And they've conspired together — I won't say you'll see a masque, but if you do, then it wasn't for nothing that my nose started bleeding last

Black Monday, at six in the morning, which that year fell on Ash Wednesday four years ago in the afternoon.

What — are there masques? Listen to me, Jessica.

Lock up my doors, and when you hear the drum

and the vile squealing of the twisted-necked fife,

don't go climbing up to the windows

or push your head out into the public street

to stare at Christian fools in their painted masks.

Block up my house's ears — I mean my windows.

Don't let the noise of shallow foolery into

my sober house. By Jacob's staff I swear

I've no appetite for dining out tonight.

But I'll go. — You go on ahead of me, fellow.

Say I'm coming.

I'll go on ahead, sir. (aside to Jessica) Mistress, look out of the window in spite of all that.

There'll come a Christian by

who'll be worth a Jewess's eye.

What's that fool of Hagar's brood saying, eh? (Two scriptural insults in two lines. 'Worth a Jew's eye' was a common phrase for something precious, and Lancelet twists it into a rhyme; Shylock hits back by calling him a descendant of Hagar, the servant driven out of Abraham's household — the standard word for an outsider. Each reaches into the other's scripture for a weapon.)

All he said was 'Goodbye, mistress'. Nothing more.

The fool is kind enough, but he eats enormously,

is snail-slow at being useful, and sleeps in the daytime

more than a wildcat. I don't keep idle bees in my hive,

so I'm letting him go — and letting him go

to a man I'd like him to help empty

of his borrowed money. Well — go inside, Jessica.

I may be back very shortly.

Do as I tell you. Shut the doors behind you.

Lock it up tight and you'll find it safe —

a proverb that never goes stale in a careful mind. (His last words in the scene are about locking the house. The audience has already watched Lorenzo read out the plan for emptying it.)

Goodbye. And if my luck isn't crossed,

you've lost a daughter and I've lost a father.