Enter Portia and Nerissa
Line 1 to 2;Speech of Portia:
By my faith Nerissa my little body is tired of tired of this great world.
Line 3 to 10;Speech of Nerissa:
You would be happy if your miseries were in same amount as your good fortunes and I had seen people who are as much gloomy having every facilities as people having nothing.Your happiness would not decrease if your status is in mid way between poverty and riches.Those who have too much of anything will age sooner but those who have enough lives longer.
Line 11;Speech of Portia:
Good sentences and told in proper way.
Line 12;Speech of Nerissa:
They would be better if these sentences are followed or obeyed.
Line 13 to 29;Speech of Portia:
If knowing the good advice was as easy as to follow then chapels would have been churches and poor men’s cottages would have been prince’s palaces.It is a good preacher who follows his own advices.I can easily teach these twenty people than being one of them to follow my own teaching.The brain may devise laws for body but the heat of desire over leaps these cold laws.Youthful high spirits are like hare which easily leaps over the nets of limping good advice.But this reasoning is not enough to choose a husband for me.Oh, me the word “choose”,I may neither choose whom I like nor refuse whom I dislike.Therefore the will of the living daughter curbed by will of a dead father.Is it not hard Nerissa that I can Neither choose nor refuse.
Line 30 to 40; Speech of Nerissa:
Your father was always virtuous and holy men at their matured age have divine guidance. Therefore the lottery he had devised for you in these three casket of gold ,silver and lead is for choosing the person who shall rightly love you. The meaning of the line inscribed on each casket must understand the meaning.but what warmth is there in your feeling toward these suitors that have already come here.
Line 41 to 44 ; Speech of Portia:
I request you to name them and as you name them I will describe them and According to my description level my affection for them.
Line 45 ; Speech of Nerissa:
First there is Neapolitan prince
Line 46 to 49; Speech of Portia:
Ay that an inexperienced young man like young horse , For he does nothing but talk only of his horse and he thinks it an appreciable job that he can shoe his own horse.
Line 50 ; Speech of Nerissa:
Then is the County Palatine
Line 51 to 59; Speech of Portia:
He does nothing but frown as if he would say “An you will not have me?choose”He hears merry tales and smiles not .I fear he will become the most weeping man when he will grow older being so full of unpleasant gloom in his youth.I would rather like to marry to a dead white skull with bones in his mouth than either of these two .God protect me from these two.
Line 60 ; Speech of Nerissa:
How about the French lord Monsieur Le Bon?
Line 61 to 72; Speech of Portia:
God made him and let he be accepted as a man.In truth I know it is sin to be a mocker .But he has a horse better than Neapolitan and a better habit of frowing than the county one.He has other men characteristics but no personality of his own.If a throstle(thrush; a common English Bird) sings he immediately starts to jump up and down and fights with his own shadow with his sword. If I will marry him I am going to marry Twenty husbands as he has characters of twenty men in him.If he despise me I will forgive him but if he loves me passionately then I will not be able to return his love.
Line 73 to 74 ; Speech of Nerissa:
What about Falconbridge, the young Baron of England?
Line 75 to 84; Speech of Portia:
You know I don’t speak to him for he does not understand my language nor I him.He knew neither Latin,French nor Italian and you are the witness in the case that I have very little knowledge in English.He is a fine young man but who is going to talk to a dumb-show.He dresses himself very strangely-I think He bought his jacket from Italy his breeches from France his hat from Germany and his manners from everywhere.
Line 85;Speech of nerissa :
What you think about the Scottish Lord his neighbour?
Line 86 to 92; Speech of Portia :
He had a charity for his neighbour for he borrowed a blow on his ear from the englishman and he sweared he would pay him again when he was able.THe Frenchman gurranteed that he would repay the debt.
Line 93 to 94; Speech of Nerissa:
How did you like the young German the Duke of Saxony’s nephew?
Line 95 to 101; Speech of Portia :
Very bad condition in the morning when he is sober(normal) and in most bad condition when he is drunk in the afternoon .When he is in best condition then he is little worse than a man and when he is in worst condition then he is little better than a beast.If the worst thing that could ever happen that should happen but I hope I could manage to go with him.
Line 102 to 105; Speech of Nerissa:
If he chooses the right casket then if you refuse him then you are refusing to accept your father’s will.
Line 106 to 111;Speech of Portia :
THerefore for the fear of the worst I request you to set a glass of Rhenish wine glass on the opposite casket for if the devil be within him and if he is not drunk then I know he will the casket with wine .I will do anything Nerissa but I don’t want to get married to a drunkard.
Line 112 to 118; Speech of Nerissa:
You need not to fear lady that you will have to accept any of these lords ,they themselves acquainted to me their decision is to return to their home instead of troubling you unless to win by some other means other than this casket method.
Line 119 to 125; Speech of Portia :
If I have to live as old as Sibylla then I will live as pure as Diana unless I aam obtained by someone else by the method of my father’s will.I am glad this crowd of suitors are reasonable for there is not one among them for whom I do not wish to be absent.I pray to God to grant them a fair departure.
Line 126 to 129; Speech of Nerissa:
Do you remember lady in your father’s time a Venetian ,a scholar and a soldier that came in the company of Marquis of Montferrat?
Line 130 to 131;Speech of Portia :
Yes ,yes It was Bassanio I think it was his name.
Line 132 to 134;Speech of Nerissa:
True madam he of all the men that ever my foolish eyes looked upon was the best for deserving a fair lady.
Line 135 to 137;Speech of Portia :
I remember him well and I know he is worthy of your praise. [enter a servant] How now ,what’s news?
Line 138 to 142 ; Speech of Servant :
The four strangers are expecting you madame to take their leave and there is a messenger the fifth one came from morocco ; who has been representative of his master and said that his master will be here tonight.
Line 139 to 151; Speech of Portia :
If I could welcome the fifth one as I am happy as to bid the other four farewell then I should be glad of his arrival .If he has the condition of a saint and complexion of a devil then he should rather shrive me than wive me While we shut on door for the suitor then another knocks at the door.
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