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The Merchant of Venice: Act 2 Scene 5

Scene V 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.

[Exit]

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