This page contains the original text of Act 3 of The Merchant of
Venice. Shakespeare’s original The Merchant of Venice text is
extremely long, so we’ve split the text into one Act per page.
All Acts are listed on the The Merchant of Venice text page, or
linked to from the bottom of this page. THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
ACT 3, SCENE 1: Venice. A street. Enter SALANIO and SALARINO
Now, what news on the Rialto? Why, yet it lives there uncheck’d
that Antonio hath a ship of rich lading wrecked on the narrow
seas; the Goodwins, I think they call the place; a very
dangerous flat and fatal, where the carcasses of many a tall
ship lie buried, as they say, if my gossip Report be an honest
woman of her word. I would she were as lying a gossip in that as
ever knapped ginger or made her neighbours believe she wept for
the death of a third husband. But it is true, without any slips
of prolixity or crossing the plain highway of talk, that the
good Antonio, the honest Antonio,–O that I had a title good
enough to keep his name co