书城公版Merchant of Venice
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第12章

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 gormandise, 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 that 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 to-night. LAUNCELOT I beseech you, sir, go: my young master doth expect your reproach. SHYLOCK So do I his. LAUNCELOT An 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 foppery enter My sober house. By Jacob's staff, I swear, I have no mind of feasting forth to-night:

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 boy, will be worth a Jewess' eye.

Exit 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 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.