Enter Bassanio, Portia, Gratiano, Nerissa, and their attendants, including musicians with their instruments. The attendants bring on three caskets, made from lead, silver and gold.

I pray you tarry. Pause a day or two
Before you hazard, for in choosing wrong
I lose your company. Therefore, forbear a while.
There’s something tells me (but it is not love)
I would not lose you, and, (you know yourself,)
Hate counsels not in such a quality.
But lest you should not understand me well,
(And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought)
I would detain you here some month or two
Before you venture for me. I could teach you
How to choose right, but then I am forsworn.
So will I never be. So may you miss me,
But if you do, you’ll make me wish a sin,
That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes!,
They have o’erlooked me and divided me. 
One half of me is yours, the other half yours
(Mine own I would say, but if mine then yours,
And so all yours). O, these naughty times
Put bars between the owners and their rights!
And so, though yours, not yours. Prove it so.
Let Fortune go to hell for it, not I.
I speak too long, but ‘tis to peise the time,
To eke it, and to draw it out in length,
To stay you from election.

Let me choose,
For as I am, I live upon the rack.

Upon the rack, Bassanio? Then confess
What treason there is mingled with your love.

None but that ugly treason of mistrust,
Which makes me fear the enjoying of my love.
There may as well be amity and life
’Tween snow and fire, as treason and my love.

Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack,
Where men enforcèd do speak anything.

Promise me life, and I’ll confess the truth.

Well then, confess and live.

Confess and love
Had been the very sum of my confession.
O happy torment, when my torturer
Doth teach me answers for deliverance!
But let me to my fortune and the caskets.

Away then, I am locked in one of them.
If you do love me, you will find me out.
Nerissa and the rest, stand all aloof.
Let music sound while he doth make his choice,
Then if he lose he makes a swan-like end,
Fading in music. That the comparison
May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream
And wat’ry death-bed for him. He may win,
And what is music then? Then music is
Even as the flourish, when true subjects bow
To a new-crownèd monarch. Such it is
As are those dulcet sounds in break of day
That creep into the dreaming bridegroom’s ear,
And summon him to marriage. Now he goes
With no less presence, but with much more love,
Than young Alcides, when he did redeem
The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy
To the sea-monster. I stand for sacrifice,
The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives,
With blearèd visages come forth to view
The issue of th’ exploit. Go Hercules.
Live thou, I live. With much much more dismay
I view the fight, than thou that mak’st the fray.

The musicians play, and one of them sings, whilst Bassanio comments on the caskets to himself.

Tell me where is fancy bred,
Or in the heart, or in the head?
How begot, how nourished?

Reply. reply.

It is engendered in the eyes,
With gazing fed; and fancy dies
In the cradle where it lies.
Let us all ring fancy's knell.
I’ll begin it. Ding, dong, bell.

Ding, dong, bell.

Examining the gold casket.

So may the outward shows be least themselves ,
The world is still deceived with ornament.
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,
But, being seasoned with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil? In religion,
What damnèd error but some sober brow
Will bless it and approve it with a text,
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?
There is no voice so simple, but assumes
Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.
How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false
As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins
The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars,
Who, inward searched , have livers white as milk?
And these assume but Valour’s excrement
To render them redoubted. Look on beauty,
And you shall see ’tis purchased by the weight,
Which therein works a miracle in nature,
Making them lightest that wear most of it.
So are those crisped snaky golden locks
Which make such wanton gambols with the wind
Upon supposed fairness, often known
To be the dowry of a second head,
The skull that bred them in the sepulchre.
Thus ornament is but the guilèd shore
To a most dangerous sea, the beauteous scarf
Veiling an Indian beauty. In a word,
The seeming truth which cunning times put on
To entrap the wisest. Therefore then thou gaudy gold,
Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee.

Turning to the silver casket.

Nor none of thee thou pale and common drudge
’Tween man and man.

Picking up the lead casket.

But thou, thou meagre lead,
Which rather threat’nest than dost promise aught,
Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence,
And here choose I. Joy be the consequence!

Aside. How all the other passions fleet to air,
As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embraced despair,
And shudd’ring fear, and green-eyed jealousy.
O love be moderate, allay thy ecstasy,
In measure rein thy joy, scant this excess.
I feel too much thy blessing, make it less,
For fear I surfeit.

Opening the lead casket.
What find I here?
Fair Portia’s counterfeit. What demi-god
Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes?
Or whether riding on the balls of mine
Seem they in motion? Here are severed lips
Parted with sugar breath, so sweet a bar
Should sunder such sweet friends. Here in her hairs
The painter plays the spider, and hath woven
A golden mesh t’entrap the hearts of men
Faster than gnats in cobwebs. But her eyes!
How could he see to do them? Having made one,
Methinks it should have power to steal both his
And leave itself unfurnished. Yet look how far
The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow
In underprizing it, so far this shadow
Doth limp behind the substance. Here’s the scroll,
The continent and summary of my fortune.

Reading.

You that choose not by the view,
Chance as fair, and choose as true.
Since this fortune falls to you,
Be content, and seek no new,
If you be well pleased with this
And hold your fortune for your bliss,
Turn you where your lady is
And claim her with a loving kiss.

A gentle scroll. Fair lady, by your leave,
I come by note, to give, and to receive.
Like one of two contending in a prize
That thinks he hath done well in people’s eyes,
Hearing applause and universal shout,
Giddy in spirit, still gazing in a doubt
Whether these pearls of praise be his or no.
So, thrice fair lady, stand I even so,
As doubtful whether what I see be true,
Until confirmed, signed, ratified by you.

You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,
Such as I am. Though for myself alone
I would not be ambitious in my wish
To wish myself much better, yet for you,
I would be trebled twenty times myself,
A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times
More rich. That only to stand high in your account,
I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends,
Exceed account. But the full sum of me
Is sum of something: which to term in gross,
Is an unlessoned girl, unschooled, unpractised .
Happy in this, she is not yet so old
But she may learn. Happier than this,
She is not bred so dull but she can learn.
Happiest of all, is that her gentle spirit
Commits itself to yours to be directed,
As from her lord, her governor, her king.
Myself, and what is mine, to you and yours
Is now converted. But now I was the lord
Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,
Queen o’er myself. And even now, but now,
This house, these servants, and this same myself
Are yours, my lord. I give them with this ring,
Which when you part from, lose, or give away,
Let it presage the ruin of your love,
And be my vantage to exclaim on you.

Madam, you have bereft me of all words,
Only my blood speaks to you in my veins.
And there is such confusion in my powers,
As after some oration fairly spoke
By a beloved prince, there doth appear
Among the buzzing pleasèd multitude,
Where every something, being blent together,
Turns to a wild of nothing, save of joy,
Expressed, and not expressed. But when this ring
Parts from this finger, then parts life from hence,
O then be bold to say Bassanio’s dead.

My lord and lady, it is now our time
That have stood by and seen our wishes prosper,
To cry good joy, "good joy, my lord and lady!"

My lord Bassanio, and my gentle lady,
I wish you all the joy that you can wish.
For I am sure you can wish none from me,
And when your honours mean to solemnize
The bargain of your faith, I do beseech you
Even at that time I may be married too.

With all my heart, so thou canst get a wife.

I thank your lordship, you have got me one.
My eyes, my lord, can look as swift as yours:
You saw the mistress, I beheld the maid.
You loved, I loved. For intromission
No more pertains to me, my lord, than you.
Your fortune stood upon the casket there,
And so did mine too, as the matter falls.
For wooing here until I sweat again,
And swearing till my very roof was dry
With oaths of love, at last, if promise last,
I got a promise of this fair one here
To have her love, provided that your fortune
Achieved her mistress.

Is this true, Nerissa?

Madam it is, so you stand pleased withal.

And do you, Gratiano, mean good faith?

Yes, faith, my lord.

Our feast shall be much honoured in your marriage.

We’ll play with them the first boy for a thousand ducats.

What, and stake down?

No, we shall ne’er win at that sport, and stake down.

Enter Lorenzo, Jessica, and Salerio, a Messenger from Venice.

But who comes here? Lorenzo and his infidel? What, and my old Venetian friend Salerio?

Lorenzo and Salerio, welcome hither,
If that the youth of my new interest here
Have power to bid you welcome. By your leave,
I bid my very friends and countrymen,
Sweet Portia, welcome.

So do I my lord,
They are entirely welcome.

I thank your honour. For my part, my lord,
My purpose was not to have seen you here,
But meeting with Salerio by the way,
He did entreat me, past all saying nay
To come with him along.

I did, my lord,
And I have reason for it.

Giving Bassanio a letter.

Signior Antonio
Commends him to you.

Ere I ope his letter,
I pray you tell me how my good friend doth.

Not sick, my lord, unless it be in mind;
Nor well, unless in mind. His letter there
Will show you his estate.

Bassanio opens the letter.

Nerissa, cheer yond stranger, bid her welcome.
Your hand, Salerio. What’s the news from Venice?
How doth that royal merchant, good Antonio?
I know he will be glad of our success,
We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece.

I would you had won the fleece that he hath lost.

There are some shrewd contents in yond same paper
That steals the colour from Bassanio’s cheek.
Some dear friend dead, else nothing in the world
Could turn so much the constitution
Of any constant man. What, worse and worse?
To Bassanio. With leave, Bassanio, I am half yourself,
And I must freely have the half of anything
That this same paper brings you.

O sweet Portia,
Here are a few of the unpleasant’st words
That ever blotted paper. Gentle lady,
When I did first impart my love to you,
I freely told you all the wealth I had
Ran in my veins, I was a gentleman,
And then I told you true. And yet dear lady,
Rating myself at nothing, you shall see
How much I was a braggart. When I told you
My state was nothing, I should then have told you
That I was worse than nothing. For indeed
I have engaged myself to a dear friend,
Engaged my friend to his mere enemy
To feed my means. Here is a letter, lady,
The paper as the body of my friend,
And every word in it a gaping wound
Issuing life-blood. — But is it true, Salerio?
Hath all his ventures failed? What, not one hit?
From Tripolis, from Mexico and England?
From Lisbon, Barbary and India?
And not one vessel ’scape the dreadful touch
Of merchant-marring rocks?

Not one my lord.
Besides, it should appear, that if he had
The present money to discharge the Jew,
He would not take it. Never did I know
A creature, that did bear the shape of man
So keen and greedy to confound a man.
He plies the duke at morning and at night,
And doth impeach the freedom of the state
If they deny him justice. Twenty merchants,
The duke himself, and the magnificoes
Of greatest port have all persuaded with him,
But none can drive him from the envious plea
Of forfeiture, of justice, and his bond.

When I was with him, I have heard him swear
To Tubal and to Chus, his countrymen,
That he would rather have Antonio’s flesh
Than twenty times the value of the sum
That he did owe him. And I know, my lord,
If law, authority and power deny not,
It will go hard with poor Antonio.

Is it your dear friend that is thus in trouble?

The dearest friend to me, the kindest man,
The best-conditioned and unwearied spirit
In doing courtesies, and one in whom
The ancient Roman honour more appears
Than any that draws breath in Italy.

What sum owes he the Jew?

For me three thousand ducats.

What, no more?
Pay him six thousand, and deface the bond.
Double six thousand, and then treble that,
Before a friend of this description
Shall lose a hair through Bassanio’s fault.
First go with me to church and call me wife,
And then away to Venice to your friend,
For never shall you lie by Portia’s side
With an unquiet soul. You shall have gold
To pay the petty debt twenty times over.
When it is paid, bring your true friend along.
My maid Nerissa and myself meantime
Will live as maids and widows. Come away!
For you shall hence upon your wedding-day.
Bid your friends welcome, show a merry cheer,
Since you are dear bought, I will love you dear.
But let me hear the letter of your friend.

Reading.

Sweet Bassanio, my ships have all miscarried, my creditors grow cruel, my estate is very low, my bond to the Jew is forfeit; and since in paying it, it is impossible I should live, all debts are cleared between you and I, if I might but see you at my death. Notwithstanding, use your pleasure, if your love do not persuade you to come, let not my letter.

O love! Dispatch all business, and be gone.

Since I have your good leave to go away,
I will make haste. But till I come again,
No bed shall e’er be guilty of my stay,
No rest be interposer ’twixt us twain.

They all exit.