Chapter: SCENE 2.

Belmont. A room in PORTIA'S house

[Enter PORTIA and NERISSA.]

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

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

PORTIA.
Good sentences, and well pronounced.

NERISSA.
They would be better, if well followed.

PORTIA.
If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do,
chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes'
palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions; I
can easier teach twenty what were good to be done than to 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 this reasoning is not in the fashion to
choose me a husband. O me, the word 'choose'! I may neither
choose who I would nor refuse who I dislike; so is the will of a
living daughter curb'd by the will of a dead father. Is it not
hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refuse none?

NERISSA.
Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their death
have good inspirations; therefore the lott'ry that he hath
devised in these three chests, of gold, silver, and lead, whereof
who chooses his meaning chooses you, will no doubt never be
chosen by any rightly but one who you shall rightly love. But
what warmth is there in your affection towards any of these
princely suitors that are already come?

PORTIA.
I pray thee over-name them; and as thou namest them, I will
describe them; and according to my description, level at my
affection.

NERISSA.
First, there is the Neapolitan prince.

PORTIA.
Ay, that's a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of
his horse; and he makes it a great appropriation to his own good
parts that he can shoe him himself; I am much afeard my lady his
mother play'd false with a smith.

NERISSA.
Then is there the County Palatine.

PORTIA.
He doth nothing but frown, as who should say 'An 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 behaviour everywhere.

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?

PORTIA.
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, he is little
better than a beast. An the worst fall that ever fell, I hope I
shall make shift to go without him.

NERISSA.
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.

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

NERISSA.
You need not fear, lady, the having any of these 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 other sort than your father's
imposition, depending on the caskets.

PORTIA.
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 very absence, and I pray God
grant them a fair departure.

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

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

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

PORTIA.
I remember him well, and I remember him worthy of thy praise.

[Enter a SERVANT.]

How now! what news?

SERVANT.
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.

PORTIA.
If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good 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.
Come, Nerissa. Sirrah, go before.
Whiles we shut the gate upon one wooer, another knocks at the
door.

[Exeunt]

 We now meet Portia, who turns out to be more than a spoiled little rich girl. Portia complains to her woman-in-waiting , Nerissa, that she's tired of the world. Nerissa points out that being rich doesn't exempt one from problems. Portia retorts that it's easier to give advice than take it. Then she clues us in about why she's so bummed out. It turns out that Portia can neither choose nor refuse a husband, but must instead follow her dead father's will. Nerissa clears up exactly what was in this dead father's will. It seems that he set up a lottery to determine whom Portia would marry. The lottery involves three chests--one gold, one silver, and one lead. Whoever chooses the correct chest gets Portia. Nerissa is somehow convinced that whoever chooses rightly will truly love Portia, too. Brain snack: Portia isn't the only Shakespeare heroine who doesn't get to choose her own husband. In The Taming of the Shrew, Baptista Minola arranges his daughter's marriage to Petruchio. Although the elaborate lottery Portia's father has arranged is pretty unusual, it was typical for 16th-century dads to choose their daughters' husbands. Nerissa thinks this whole lottery thing is a really good plan because Portia's father was virtuous guy. She adds that Portia's complaints about not being able to choose a man are frivolous, and she asks whether Portia likes any of the suitors she's seen so far. Portia asks Nerissa to list off each of the suitors so she can scorn them each individually. The Neapolitan prince talks only of his horse, which he can shoe himself to his great pleasure. Portia suggests that his mother must have been unfaithful with a smith who shoed horses. Count Palatine is too gloomy, and the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon, has too many personalities for Portia to make fun of each of them. Nerissa continues to list suitors: Falconbridge, the young English baron, doesn't speak any languages that Portia understands; he lacks Latin, French, and Italian, and Portia herself isn't too hot in the English-speaking department. Portia quips that the young English baron has no proper manners, and even worse, dresses in a hodgepodge of clothes from other countries. Portia then rags on the Scottish lord, another of the suitors. She says the best she can say of the Scot is that he took a blow from the Englishman, and very kindly offered to pay it back with the support of the Frenchman. Finally, Portia rails on a German, nephew of the Duke of Saxony. She doesn't like him when he's sober, but she especially doesn't like him when he's drunk, which is every afternoon. Nerissa teases that Portia will have to go through with her father's will and marry the drunk German if he picks the right casket. Regardless, Nerissa promises she isn't worried for Portia; each of the suitors have told her that they intend to leave soon enough, unless some other means of winning Portia's hand should arise. Portia insists she'll accept no man except as dictated by her father's will. Still, there is one man, Nerissa points out, who wasn't all that bad. Bassanio, a scholar and a soldier who once visited Portia's court, seemed like the marrying type. A servant then enters announcing that the suitors are leaving. Score. As the four of them leave, a fifth, the Prince of Morocco, is on his way in, and Portia makes a nasty remark about him. Because he's black like "a devil," Portia says she doesn't care if he's a saint--there's no way she wants to marry him. History Snack: In Shakespeare's England, black skin was often associated with the devil. This racist concept emerges in other plays, like Othello and Titus Andronicus. Here's an example: in a famous book called The Discovery of Witchcraft Reginald Scott wrote, "A damned soule may and dooth take the shape of a black moore Bodin alloweth the divell the shape of a blacke moore, and he saith he used to appear to Mawd Cruse, Kate Darey, and Jone Harviller." Portia heads off to greet the Moroccan prince and complains that as soon as one suitor leaves, another follows quickly to take his place. Life is so hard.

