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AFFECTED GRAVITY.

I tell thee what, Antonio,

I love thee, and it is my love that speaks;-
There are a sort of men, whose visages

Do cream and mantle, like a standing pond;
And do a wilful stillness entertain,
With purpose to be dressed in an opinion
Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit;
As who should say, I am Sir Oracle,
And, when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!
O, my Antonio, I do know of these,
That therefore only are reputed wise,
For saying nothing.

GRAVITY ASSUMED.

Signior Bassanio, hear me :

If I do not put on a sober habit,

Talk with respect, and swear but now and then, Wear prayer-books in my pocket, look demurely; Nay more, while grace is saying, hood mine eyes Thus with my hat, and sigh, and say, Amen; Use all the observance of civility,

Like one well studied in a sad ostent*

To please his grandam, never trust me more.

THE JEW'S COMMANDS TO HIS DAUGHTER.

Lock up my doors; and when you hear the drum,
And the vile squeaking 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 foppery enter
My sober house.

*Serious demeanour.

NOTHING GOOD OUT OF SEASON.

The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark,
When neither is attended: and, I think,
The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.
How many things by season season'd are
To their right praise, and true perfection!
Peace, hoa! the moon sleeps with Endymion,
And would not be awaked!

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From the four corners of the earth they come,
To kiss this shrine, this mortal breathing saint.
The Hyrcanian deserts, and the vasty wilds
Of wide Arabia, are as throughfares now,
For princes to come view fair Portia :
The watery kingdom, whose ambitious head
Spits in the face of heaven, is no bar
To stop the foreign spirits; but they come,
As o'er a brook, to see fair Portia.

D

MUSIC.

I am never merry when I hear sweet music.
Lor. The reason is, your spirits are attentive:
For do but note a wild and wanton herd,
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,
Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud,
Which is the hot condition of their blood;
If they but hear, perchance, a trumpet sound,
Or any air of music touch their ears,

You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their savage eyes turned to a modest gaze,
By the sweet power of music: therefore, the poet
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;
Since naught so stockish, hard and full of rage,
But music for time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils :
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:

Let no such man be trusted.

LOVE'S MESSENGER COMPARED TO AN APRIL DAY.

I have not seen

So likely an embassador of love:

A day in April never came so sweet,

To show how costly summer was at hand,

As this fore-spurrer comes before his lord.

MOONLIGHT.

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness, and the night,
Become the touches of sweet harmony.

Sit, Jessica look, how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines* of bright gold;
There's not the smallest orb, which thou behold'st,
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins:
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

MERCY.

The quality of mercy is not strain'd;
It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath it is twice bless'd;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes ·
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this scepter'd sway,

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;

It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.

HYPOCRISY.

Mark you this, Bassanio,

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul, producing holy witness,
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek;
A goodly apple rotten at the heart;
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

* A small flat dish, used in the administration of the Eucharist.

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I am that merry wanderer of the night,
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a silly foal:
And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab;
And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her wither'd dew-lap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
And tailor cries, and falls into a cough;

And when the whole quire hold their hips, and loffe;
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear;
A merrier hour was never wasted there.

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