Love's Labour's Lost (version 2) - Free Audiobook

000 Scene II. Belmont. A room in Portia’s house.

TMOV I. 2 Enter Portia and Nerissa.

001 Por. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world.

Ner. You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same abundance as your good fortunes are: and 005 yet, for aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit with too 006 much, as they that starve with nothing. It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean: superfluity comes sooner by white hairs; but competency lives longer.

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?

050 Por. God made him, and therefore let him pass for a 051 man. In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker: but, he! —why, he hath a horse better than the Neapolitan’s; a better bad habit of frowning than the Count Palatine: he is 054 every man in no man; if a throstle sing, he falls straight a 055 capering: he will fence with his own shadow: if I should marry him, I should marry twenty husbands. If he would despise me, I would forgive him; for if he love me to madness, 058 I shall never requite him.

059 Ner. What say you, then, to Falconbridge, the young 060 baron of England?

Por. You know I say nothing to him; for he understands not me, nor I him: he hath neither Latin, French, 063 nor Italian; and you will come into the court and swear 064 that I have a poor pennyworth in the English. He is a 065 proper man’s picture; but, alas, who can converse with a dumbshow? How oddly he is suited! I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour every where.

069 Ner. What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour?

070 Por. That he hath a neighbourly charity in him; for he 071 borrowed a box of the ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay him again when he was able: I think the Frenchman became his surety, and sealed under for another.

075 Ner. How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony’s nephew?

Por. Very vilely in the morning, when he is sober; and most vilely in the afternoon, when he is drunk: when he is best, he is a little worse than a man; and when he is worst, 079 he is little better than a beast: an the worst fall that ever 080 fell, I hope I shall make shift to go without him.

Ner. If he should offer to choose, and choose the right casket, you should refuse to perform your father’s will, if you should refuse to accept him.

Por. Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee, set a 085 deep glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket; for, if the devil be within and that temptation without, I know 087 he will choose it. I will do any thing, Nerissa, ere I’ll be married to a sponge.

Ner. You need not fear, lady, the having any of these 090 lords: they have acquainted me with their determinations; which is, indeed, to return to their home, and to trouble you with no more suit, unless you may be won by some 093 other sort than your father’s imposition, depending on the caskets.

095 Por. If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner of my father’s will. I am glad this parcel of wooers are so reasonable; for there is not one among them but I dote on his 099 very absence; and I pray God grant them a fair departure.

100 Ner. Do you not remember, lady, in your father’s 101 time, a Venetian, a scholar, and a soldier, that came hither in company of the Marquis of Montferrat?

103 Por. Yes, yes, it was Bassanio; as I think he was so called.

105 Ner. True, madam: he, of all the men that ever my foolish eyes looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady.

Por. I remember him well; and I remember him worthy of thy praise.

Enter a Serving-man.

109 How now! what news?

110 Serv. The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take their leave: and there is a forerunner come from a fifth, the Prince of Morocco; who brings word, the prince his master will be here to-night.

114 Por. If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good a 115 heart as I can bid the other four farewell, I should be glad of his approach: if he have the condition of a saint and the complexion of a devil, I had rather he should shrive me than wive me.

118 Come, Nerissa. Sirrah, go before.

Whiles we shut the gates upon one wooer, another knocks 120 at the door. [Exeunt.