Merchant of Venice | Act 2.5

The same. Before
SHYLOCK’S house.

[Enter SHYLOCK and LAUNCELOT]

SHYLOCK
Well, thou shalt see, thy eyes shall be thy judge,

The difference of old Shylock and Bassanio:–
What, Jessica!–thou shalt not gormandise,
As thou hast done with me:–What, Jessica!–
And sleep and snore, and rend apparel out;–
Why, Jessica, I say!

LAUNCELOT      Why, Jessica!

SHYLOCK     Who bids thee call? I do not bid thee call.

LAUNCELOT       Your worship was wont to tell me that
I could do nothing without bidding.

[Enter Jessica]

JESSICA      Call you? what is your will?

SHYLOCK      I am bid forth to supper, Jessica:
There are my keys. But wherefore should I go?
I am not bid for love; they flatter me:
But yet I’ll go in hate, to feed upon
The prodigal Christian. Jessica, my girl,
Look to my house. I am right loath to go:
There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest,
For I did dream of money-bags to-night.

LAUNCELOT      I beseech you, sir, go: my young
master doth expect your reproach.

SHYLOCK      So do I his.

LAUNCELOT      An they have conspired together,
I will not say you shall see a masque; but if you do,
then it was not for nothing that my nose fell a-bleeding
on Black-Monday last at six o’clock i’ the morning,

falling out that year on Ash-Wednesday was four
year, in the afternoon.

SHYLOCK      What, are there masques? Hear you me, Jessica:
Lock up my doors; and when you hear the drum
And the vile squealing of the wry-neck’d fife,
Clamber not you up to the casements then,
Nor thrust your head into the public street
To gaze on Christian fools with varnish’d faces,
But stop my house’s ears, I mean my casements:
Let not the sound of shallow foppery enter
My sober house. By Jacob’s staff, I swear,
I have no mind of feasting forth to-night:
But I will go. Go you before me, sirrah;
Say I will come.

LAUNCELOT       I will go before, sir. Mistress, look out at
window, for all this, There will come a Christian
boy, will be worth a Jewess’ eye.

[Exit]

SHYLOCK       What says that fool of Hagar’s offspring, ha?

JESSICA      His words were ‘Farewell mistress;’ nothing else.

SHYLOCK       The patch is kind enough, but a huge feeder;
Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by day
More than the wild-cat: drones hive not with me;
Therefore I part with him, and part with him
To one that would have him help to waste
His borrow’d purse. Well, Jessica, go in;
Perhaps I will return immediately:
Do as I bid you; shut doors after you:
Fast bind, fast find;
A proverb never stale in thrifty mind.

[Exit]

JESSICA       Farewell; and if my fortune be not crost,
I have a father, you a daughter, lost.

 

[Exit] Act 2.4 | Act 2.6


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Updated: April 26, 2021 — 4:44 pm