I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano,- --- The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1. Why should a man, whose blood is warm within, Ibid. There are a sort of men whose visages Ibid. I am Sir Oracle, And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark! Ibid. Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search. Ibid. In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft, The selfsame way, with more advised watch, To find the other forth; and by adventuring both, Ibid. They are as sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing. Sc. 2. Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer. Ibid. If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces.1 Ibid. 1 For the good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree. Ibid. The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 2. He doth nothing but talk of his horse. God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. Ibid. When he is best, he is a little worse than a man; and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast. I dote on his very absence. Ibid. Ibid. My meaning in saying he is a good man, is to have you understand me that he is sufficient. Sc. 3. Ships are but boards, sailors but men: there be landrats and water-rats, water-thieves and land-thieves. you, Ibid. walk I will buy with sell with you, talk with you, with you, and so following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you. What news on the Rialto? I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him. The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. A goodly apple rotten at the heart: Ibid. Many a time and oft In the Rialto you have rated me. Ibid. For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe. Ibid. You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog, Ibid. Shall I bend low, and in a bondman's key, For when did friendship take A breed for barren metal of his friend? Ibid. Ibid. O father Abram! what these Christians are, The thoughts of others! The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 3. Mislike me not for my complexion, The shadow'd livery of the burnish'd sun. Act ii. Sc. 1. The young gentleman, according to Fates and Destinies and such odd sayings, the Sisters Three and such branches of learning, is indeed deceased; or, as you would say in plain terms, gone to heaven. Sc. 2. The very staff of my age, my very prop. Ibid. It is a wise father that knows his own child. Ibid. An honest exceeding poor man. Ibid. Truth will come to sight; murder cannot be hid long. Ibid. In the twinkling of an eye. Ibid. And the vile squeaking of the wry-necked fife. Sc. 5. All things that are, Are with more spirit chased than enjoy'd. How like a younker or a prodigal The scarfed bark puts from her native bay, With over-weather'd ribs and ragged sails, Lean, rent, and beggar'd by the strumpet wind! Sc. 6. Hanging and wiving goes by destiny. 1 The Merchant of Venice. Act ii. Sc. 9. If my gossip Report be an honest woman of her word. Act iii. Sc. 1. If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. Ibid. I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Ibid. The villany you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard, but I will better the instruction. Makes a swan-like end, Ibid. Fading in music.2 Tell me where is fancy bred, Or in the heart or in the head? Reply, reply. In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt There is no vice so simple but assumes Sc. 2. Ibid. Ibid. Some mark of virtue in his outward parts. Ibid. Thus ornament is but the guiled shore To a most dangerous sea. Ibid. The seeming truth which cunning times put on Ibid. 1 See Heywood, page 10. I will play the swan and die in music. - Othello, act v. sc. 2. I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan, Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death. King John, act v. sc. 7. There, swan-like, let me sing and die. - BYRON: Don Juan, canto iii. st. 86. You think that upon the score of fore-knowledge and divining I am infinitely inferior to the swans. When they perceive approaching death merrily than before, because of the joy they have in going to the God they serve. -SOCRATES: In Phaedo, 77. they sing more An unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractised; Happy in this, she is not yet so old But she may learn.1 The Merchant of Venice. Act iii. Sc. 2. Here are a few of the unpleasant'st words That ever blotted paper! Ibid. The kindest man, The best-condition'd and unwearied spirit In doing courtesies. Ibid. Thus when I shun Scylla, your father, I fall into Charybdis, your mother.2 Sc. 5. Let it serve for table-talk. Ibid. A harmless necessary cat. Act iv. Sc. 1. What! wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice? Ibid. I am a tainted wether of the flock, Meetest for death: the weakest kind of fruit Drops earliest to the ground. Ibid. I never knew so young a body with so old a head. Ibid. The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven It is an attribute to God himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God's, 1 It is better to learn late than never. - PUBLIUS SYRUS: Maxim 864. 2 Incidis in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdim (One falls into Scylla in seeking to avoid Charybdis).- PHILLIPPE GUALTIER: Alexandreis, book line 301. Circa 1300. |