Enter Solanio and Salarino.
SOLANIO.
Now, what news on the Rialto?
SALARINO.
Why, yet it lives there unchecked that Antonio hath a ship of rich lading wrack’d on the narrow seas; the Goodwins, I think they call the place, a very dangerous flat and fatal, where the carcasses of many a tall ship lie buried, as they say, if my gossip Report be an honest woman of her word.
SOLANIO.
I would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever knapped ginger or made her neighbours believe she wept for the death of a third husband. But it is true, without any slips of prolixity or crossing the plain highway of talk, that the good Antonio, the honest Antonio,—O that I had a title good enough to keep his name company!—
SALARINO.
Come, the full stop.
SOLANIO.
Ha, what sayest thou? Why, the end is, he hath lost a ship.
SALARINO.
I would it might prove the end of his losses.
SOLANIO.
Let me say “amen” betimes, lest the devil cross my prayer, for here he comes in the likeness of a Jew.
Enter Shylock.
How now, Shylock, what news among the merchants?