The Merchant of Venice


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shoe him himself. I am much afeard my lady his  
mother played false with a smith.  
NERISSA  
Then there is the County Palatine.  
PORTIA  
He doth nothing but frown, as who should say '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 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!  
NERISSA  
How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon?  
PORTIA  
God made him, and therefore let him pass for a 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 every man in no man; if a  
throstle sing, he falls straight a 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, I  
shall never requite him.  
NERISSA  
What say you, then, to Falconbridge, the young baron  
of England?  
PORTIA  
You know I say nothing to him, for he understands  
not me, nor I him: he hath neither Latin, French,  
nor Italian, and you will come into the court and  
swear that I have a poor pennyworth in the English.  
He is a proper man's picture, but, alas, who can  
converse with a dumb-show? How oddly he is suited!  
I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round  
hose in France, his bonnet in Germany and his  
behavior every where.  
NERISSA  
What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour?  
PORTIA  
That he hath a neighbourly charity in him, for he  
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.  
NERISSA  
How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony's nephew?  


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