Portia.
T’ offend, and judge, are distinct offices,
And of opposèd natures.
Arragon.
What is here?
The fire seven times tried this:
Seven times tried that judgment is
That did never choose amiss.
Some there be, that shadows kiss;
Such have but a shadow’s bliss:
There be fools alive, I wis,
Silver’d o’er; and so was this.
Still more fool I shall appear
By the time I linger here:
With one fool’s head I came to woo,
But I go away with two.—
Sweet, adieu! I’ll keep my oath,
Patiently to bear my wroth.
[Exeunt Arragon and Train.
Enter Bassanio.
Bassanio.
So may the outward shows be least themselves:
The world is still deceived with ornament.
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,
But, being season’d with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil?
. . . . . . . . . .
There is no vice so simple, but assumes
Some mark of virtue on its outward parts:
How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false
As stayers of sand, wear yet upon their chins
The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars;
Who, inward search’d, have livers white as milk!
And these assume but valor’s excrement,
To render them redoubted. Look on beauty,
And you shall see ’t is purchased by the weight;
Which therein works a miracle in nature,
Making them lightest that wear most of it:
So are those crispèd snaky golden locks,
Which make such wanton gambols with the wind,
Upon supposèd fairness, often known
To be the dowry of a second head,
The skull that bred them in the sepulcher.
Thus ornament is but the guilèd shore
To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf
Veiling an Indian feature; in a word,
The seeming truth which cunning times put on
T’ entrap the wisest. Therefore, thou gaudy gold,
Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee:
Nor none of thee, thou stale and common drudge
’Tween man and man: but thou, thou meager lead,
Which rather threatenest, than dost promise aught,
Thy plainness moves me more than eloquence;
And here choose I: Joy be the consequence!
[Opening the leaden casket.
——What find I here?
Fair Portia’s counterfeit!
——Here’s the scroll,
The continent and summary of my fortune:—