Por. Good sentences, and well pronounced.
010 Ner. They would be better, if well followed.
Por. If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages [013] princes’ palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be [015] done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood; but a hot temper leaps o’er a cold decree: such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o’er the meshes of good counsel the cripple. But [019] this reasoning is not in the fashion to choose me a husband. [020] O me, the word ‘choose’! I may neither choose whom I would, nor refuse whom I dislike; so is the will of a living [022] daughter curbed by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refuse none?
Ner. Your father was ever virtuous; and holy men, at 025 their death, have good inspirations: therefore, the lottery, that he hath devised in these three chests of gold, silver, and lead,—whereof who chooses his meaning chooses you,— [028] will, no doubt, never be chosen by any rightly, but one [029] who shall rightly love. But what warmth is there in your 030 affection towards any of these princely suitors that are already come?
[032] Por. I pray thee, over-name them; and as thou namest them, I will describe them; and, according to my description, level at my affection.
035 Ner. First, there is the Neapolitan prince.
[036] Por. Ay, that’s a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but [037] talk of his horse; and he makes it a great appropriation to [038] his own good parts, that he can shoe him himself. I am [039] much afeard my lady his mother played false with a smith.
[040] Ner. 040 Then there is the County Palatine.
Por. He doth nothing but frown; as who should say, [042] ‘if you will not have me, choose:’ he hears merry tales, and smiles not: I fear he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old, being so full of unmannerly sadness in [045] his youth. I had rather be married to a death’s-head with a bone in his mouth than to either of these. God defend me from these two!
Ner. How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le [049] Bon?