Act IIScene V
The same. Before Shylock’s house
Enter Shylock the Jew and Launcelet his man that was the clown.
Shylock
Well, thou shalt see, thy eyes shall be thy judge,The difference of old Shylock and Bassanio.—What, Jessica!—Thou shalt not gormandizeAs thou hast done with me;—What, Jessica!—And sleep, and snore, and rend apparel out.Why, Jessica, I say!
Launcelet
Why, Jessica!
Shylock
Who bids thee call? I do not bid thee call.
Launcelet
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 uponThe 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.
Launcelet
I beseech you, sir, go. My young master doth expect your reproach.
Shylock
So do I his.
Launcelet
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’ th’ morning, falling out that year on Ash-Wednesday was four year in th’ afternoon.
Shylock
What, are there masques? Hear you me, Jessica,Lock up my doors, and when you hear the drumAnd the vile squealing of the wry-neck’d fife,Clamber not you up to the casements then,Nor thrust your head into the public streetTo 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 enterMy sober house. By Jacob’s staff I swearI have no mind of feasting forth tonight.But I will go. Go you before me, sirrah.Say I will come.
Launcelet
I will go before, sir.Mistress, look out at window for all this.There will come a Christian byWill be worth a Jewess’ eye.
Exit Launcelet.
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 dayMore than the wild-cat. Drones hive not with me,Therefore I part with him, and part with himTo one that I would have him help to wasteHis borrowed 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.