LITMIR.BIZ

      SCENE 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 gormandize,

       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 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 tonight.

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

       SHYLOCK.

       So do I his.

       LAUNCELOT. And 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 fopp’ry enter

       My sober house. By Jacob’s staff, I swear

       I have no mind of feasting forth tonight;

       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 by

       Will be worth a Jewess’ eye.

       [Exit LAUNCELOT.]

       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 I 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.]