The Merchant of Venice Act 5 Scene 1

The moon is bright. On a night like this,

when the soft wind kissed the trees so gently

that they made no sound — on such a night

Troilus, I think, climbed the walls of Troy

and sighed his soul out towards the Greek camp

where Cressida was lying that night.

On such a night

Thisbe went fearfully skimming through the dew

and saw the lion's shadow before the lion

and ran away in terror.

On such a night

Dido stood with a willow branch in her hand

on the wild shore, beckoning her lover

to come back to Carthage.

On such a night

Medea gathered the magic herbs

that made old Aeson young again.

On such a night

Jessica stole from the wealthy Jew

and ran from Venice with a spendthrift lover

as far as Belmont.

On such a night

young Lorenzo swore he loved her dearly,

stealing her soul with a great many vows of faith —

and not one of them true.

On such a night

pretty Jessica, like a little shrew,

slandered her lover, and he forgave her for it.

I'd out-night you if nobody were coming,

but listen — I hear a man's footsteps. (Every couple they name ends badly: Troilus betrayed, Thisbe dead beside her lover, Dido abandoned and suicidal, Medea a murderer of children. Lorenzo then puts Jessica into the list, and she answers by pointing out that his vows were lies. It is the most beautiful passage in the play and neither of them seems to hear what they are saying.)

Who's coming so quickly in the silence of the night?

A friend.

A friend? What friend? Your name, please, friend.

Stephano is my name, and I bring word

that my mistress will be here at Belmont

before daybreak. She's wandering about

among the wayside crosses, kneeling and praying

for happy married years.

Who's with her?

Only a holy hermit and her maid.

Tell me — has my master come back yet?

He hasn't, and we've heard nothing from him. —

But let's go in, Jessica,

and let's get some proper welcome ready

for the mistress of the house.

Sola, sola! Whoa-ho! Sola, sola!

Who's calling?

Sola! Have you seen Master Lorenzo? Master

Lorenzo — sola, sola!

Stop hollering, man. Over here.

Sola! Where? Where?

Here!

Tell him a messenger has come from my master with a horn full of good news. My master will be here before morning, sweet soul.

Let's go in and wait for them there.

And yet — no matter. Why should we go in? —

My friend Stephano, please tell them

inside the house that your mistress is close by,

and bring the musicians out into the open.

How sweetly the moonlight lies asleep on this bank.

We'll sit here and let the sound of music

creep into our ears. Soft quiet, and the night,

suit sweet harmony well.

Sit down, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven

is thickly inlaid with discs of bright gold.

There isn't the smallest sphere you can see

that doesn't sing like an angel as it moves,

endlessly harmonising to the clear-eyed cherubim.

That same harmony is in immortal souls —

but while this muddy, rotting suit of a body

shuts it grossly in, we can't hear it. (Every star was thought to sing as it turned, and the sound was inaudible only because the body dulls the ear. It is the play's loveliest speech, and the man giving it is living on money stolen from Jessica's father.)

Come on — wake the moon with a hymn.

Pierce your mistress's ear with the sweetest playing

and draw her home with music.

I'm never cheerful when I hear sweet music.

That's because your spirits are concentrating.

Just consider a wild, unruly herd

or a string of young, unbroken colts,

leaping madly, bellowing and neighing loudly,

which is the hot state of their blood.

If they happen to hear a trumpet sound,

or any tune reaches their ears,

you'll see them all stop together,

their wild eyes turned to a quiet gaze

by the sweet power of music. That's why the poet

invented Orpheus drawing trees and stones and rivers after him —

because nothing is so blockish, hard and full of rage

that music won't change its nature for a while.

The man who has no music in him,

and isn't moved by the harmony of sweet sounds,

is fit for treason, plotting and plunder.

The movements of his spirit are dull as night

and his feelings dark as the underworld.

Let no such man be trusted. Listen to the music. (In Act 2 Shylock told Jessica to lock the doors against 'the vile squealing of the wry-necked fife' and stop the house's ears. Lorenzo, who is living on that man's money and will shortly inherit the rest of it, has just laid down that a man who does not care for music cannot be trusted.)

That light we can see is burning in my hall.

How far that little candle throws its beams.

That's how a good deed shines in a wicked world. (She has come straight from a courtroom where she took a man's money, his livelihood and his religion, and she is still wearing the road dust.)

While the moon was out we couldn't see the candle.

That's how the greater glory dims the lesser.

A deputy shines as brightly as a king

until a king is present — and then his grandeur

empties itself the way an inland stream

empties into the ocean. Listen — music.

It's your own musicians, madam, from the house.

Nothing is good, I see, except in relation to something.

It sounds far sweeter to me than it does by day.

The silence gives it that quality, madam.

The crow sings as sweetly as the lark

when nobody is listening to either. And I think

the nightingale, if she sang in the daytime

when every goose is cackling, would be reckoned

no better a singer than the wren.

How many things are brought by their right season

to their proper praise and true perfection.

Quiet — the moon is sleeping with Endymion

and doesn't want to be woken.

That's the voice

of Portia, unless I'm much mistaken.

He knows me the way a blind man knows a cuckoo —

by the bad singing.

Dear lady — welcome home.

We've been praying for our husbands' welfare,

which we hope prospers the better for our words.

Are they back?

Not yet, madam,

but a messenger has arrived ahead of them

to announce that they're coming.

Go inside, Nerissa.

Give orders to my servants to take

no notice at all of our having been away. —

Nor you, Lorenzo. Nor you, Jessica.

Your husband is close. I can hear his trumpet.

We're no tell-tales, madam — don't worry.

This night seems to me like daylight that's ill —

it looks a little paler. It's a day

the way a day is when the sun's behind cloud.

We'd have daylight at the same time as the far side of the world

if you would only walk about while the sun is away.

Let me give light, but never let me be light —

because a loose wife makes a heavy-hearted husband,

and may Bassanio never be that on my account.

But God settle everything. You're welcome home, my lord.

Thank you, madam. Please welcome my friend.

This is the man. This is Antonio,

to whom I'm so infinitely bound.

You ought by every measure to be much bound to him,

since I hear he was much bound for you.

No more than I've been fully released from.

Sir, you're very welcome to our house.

That will have to show in other ways than words,

so I'll keep this spoken courtesy short.

(to Nerissa) By that moon up there, I swear you're wronging me.

I gave it to the judge's clerk, honestly.

I wish the man who got it were castrated, for my part,

since you're taking it so much to heart, my love.

A quarrel already? What's the matter?

About a hoop of gold — a trifling ring

she gave me, with a motto on it

exactly like the doggerel a cutler engraves

on a knife: 'Love me, and leave me not.'

Why are you talking about the motto or the value?

You swore to me, when I gave it to you,

that you'd wear it until the hour of your death

and that it would lie in the grave with you.

If not for my sake, then for your own violent oaths,

you should have been careful and kept it.

Gave it to a judge's clerk! No — God be my judge,

the clerk who got it will never grow a hair on his face.

He will, if he lives to be a man.

Yes — if a woman lives to be a man.

By this hand, I gave it to a young man —

a sort of boy, a little stunted boy,

no taller than you, the judge's clerk,

a chattering boy who begged for it as his fee.

I couldn't find it in me to refuse him.

You were at fault — I'll be blunt with you —

to give up your wife's first gift so lightly,

a thing fixed onto your finger with oaths

and riveted to your flesh with faith.

I gave my love a ring and made him swear

never to part with it — and here he stands.

I'd swear on his behalf that he wouldn't leave it

or pull it off his finger for all the wealth

the world commands. Honestly, Gratiano,

you've given your wife too unkind a reason for grief.

If it were me, I'd be furious about it.

(aside) I'd do best to cut my left hand off

and swear I lost the ring defending it.

My Lord Bassanio gave his ring away

to the judge who begged for it — and who indeed

deserved it. And then the boy, his clerk,

who'd done the writing, begged for mine,

and neither the servant nor the master would take anything

except the two rings.

Which ring did you give away, my lord?

Not the one you had from me, I hope.

If I could add a lie on top of a fault

I'd deny it — but you can see my finger

hasn't the ring on it. It's gone.

And your false heart is just as empty of truth.

By heaven, I'll never come to your bed

until I see that ring.

(to Gratiano) Nor I to yours

until I see mine again.

Sweet Portia,

if you knew who I gave the ring to,

if you knew who I gave the ring for,

and could understand what I gave the ring for,

and how unwillingly I let the ring go

when nothing but the ring would be accepted,

you'd soften the force of your anger.

If you had known the power of the ring,

or half the worth of the woman who gave the ring,

or your own honour in keeping the ring,

you would not have parted with the ring.

What man is so unreasonable

that — if you'd chosen to defend it

with any warmth at all — would have been so shameless

as to press for a thing held sacred?

Nerissa is teaching me what to think.

I'll stake my life some woman got that ring.

No — on my honour, madam, on my soul,

no woman had it. A doctor of law had it,

who refused three thousand ducats from me

and asked for the ring — which I refused him,

and let him go away offended,

the very man who had just saved the life

of my dear friend. What could I say, sweet lady?

I was forced to send it after him.

I was hemmed in by shame and good manners.

My honour wouldn't let ingratitude

smear it like that. Forgive me, good lady —

because by these blessed candles of the night,

if you'd been there I think you'd have begged

the ring off me to give to the worthy lawyer. (Which is exactly what she did, standing in front of him in a borrowed gown. He is telling the truth without knowing it, and getting no credit for either.)

Then let that lawyer never come near my house.

Since he's got the jewel I loved,

the thing you swore to keep for me,

I'll be as free with myself as you were.

I'll refuse him nothing I own —

not my body, and not my husband's bed.

I shall know him, I'm quite certain of that.

Don't spend a night away from home. Watch me like Argus.

If you don't, if I'm left on my own,

then by my honour — which is still my own —

I'll take that lawyer to bed. (She is threatening him with herself. Every word of it will turn out to be true, and it is the only threat in the play that costs nobody anything.)

And I'll take his clerk. So think carefully

about leaving me to look after myself.

All right, do that. Only don't let me catch him —

because if I do, I'll ruin the young clerk's pen.

I'm the unhappy cause of all this quarrelling.

Don't distress yourself, sir. You're welcome all the same.

Portia, forgive me this wrong I was forced into,

and in front of all these friends

I swear to you, by your own lovely eyes,

in which I can see myself —

Just note that.

In both my eyes he sees himself twice over,

one in each. Swear by your double self —

there's an oath worth trusting.

No — listen to me.

Forgive this fault, and I swear on my soul

I'll never break another oath to you.

I once lent my body for his fortune,

and it would have been forfeited entirely

but for the man who has your husband's ring. I'll stand surety again —

with my soul as the forfeit — that your husband

will never knowingly break faith again. (His first bond nearly cost him a pound of flesh. He offers a second one within a hundred lines of the trial, and this time stakes his soul.)

Then you shall be his guarantor. Give him this, (giving Antonio a ring)

and tell him to keep it better than the last one.

Here, Lord Bassanio — swear to keep this ring.

By heaven — it's the same one I gave the lawyer.

I got it from him. Forgive me, Bassanio —

because by this ring, the lawyer slept with me.

And forgive me, my gentle Gratiano,

because that same stunted boy, the lawyer's clerk,

in exchange for this, slept with me last night. (Both statements are true, and both are jokes, and the joke only works because the husbands cannot tell which. The wives win the argument by telling the truth in a form nobody can hear.)

This is like repairing the roads

in summer, when they're perfectly good already.

What — are we cheated on before we've even earned it?

Don't put it so crudely. — You're all bewildered.

Here's a letter — read it when you like. (handing Bassanio a paper)

It comes from Bellario, in Padua.

You'll find in it that Portia was the lawyer

and Nerissa was her clerk. Lorenzo here

can testify that I set out as soon as you did

and have only just got back. I haven't even

gone into my own house yet. — Antonio, you're welcome,

and I've better news waiting for you

than you're expecting. Open this letter shortly. (handing him a paper)

You'll find in it that three of your merchant ships

have suddenly come into harbour with rich cargoes.

You shall not learn by what strange chance

I came by this letter. (She restores his entire fortune and refuses to say how she knows. It is the last piece of information she withholds in a play she has spent two acts controlling by knowing more than everyone else.)

I have nothing to say.

You were the lawyer, and I didn't know you?

And you were the clerk who's supposed to cuckold me?

Yes — but a clerk who never intends to do it,

unless he lives long enough to become a man.

Sweet lawyer, you shall share my bed.

When I'm away, sleep with my wife.

Sweet lady, you've given me my life and my livelihood,

because I read here for certain that my ships

have come safely into anchorage.

Well now, Lorenzo —

my clerk has some good comfort for you as well.

Yes, and I'll give it to him without charging a fee. (handing him a paper)

There I give to you and Jessica,

from the rich Jew, a signed deed of gift

of everything he owns at his death.

Fair ladies, you're dropping manna in the path

of starving people. (Manna is the food God sent the Israelites in the desert. He uses a Jewish miracle to give thanks for a Jew's confiscated estate. Jessica is standing beside him and does not speak — she has said nothing for three hundred lines, and says nothing for the rest of the play.)

It's nearly morning,

and I'm sure you aren't yet satisfied

with the full account of all this. Let's go inside,

put us on formal oath there with your questions,

and we'll answer everything truthfully.

Let's do that. And the first question

my Nerissa shall be sworn on is

whether she'd rather wait until tomorrow night

or go to bed now, with two hours till daylight.

But if daybreak came, I'd wish it dark again

until I was lying down with the lawyer's clerk.

Well — as long as I live I'll fear nothing else

so much as keeping Nerissa's ring safe. (The last line of the play is a dirty joke: 'ring' had the obvious second meaning. Shylock is not mentioned again after Lorenzo's thanks for his estate, and nobody asks where he went.)