The Merchant of Venice - Shakespeare Right Now!

And now, as the young men have expected, they see Antonio’s chief associate striding toward
them, with two more gentlemen of their circle.
“Here come Bassanio, our most noble kinsman, and Gratiano and Lorenzo. Fare ye well! We
leave you now with better company!”
“I would have stayed till I had made you merry,” says Salerio courteously, “if worthier
friends had not prevented me!”
“Your worth is very dear in my regard,” says Antonio kindly. “I take it your own business
calls you on, and you embrace the occasion to depart.”
“Good morrow, my good lords!” Salerio tells the older men as they approach.
“Good signiors both, when shall we laugh?” chides Bassanio—as if he hadn’t spoken with
them just yesterday. “Say when! You grow exceeding distant! Must it be so?” Turning away from
Antonio’s view, he winks.
“We’ll make our leisures to attend on yours,” says Salerio, playing along. He and Solanio
bow as they leave.
Says handsome Lorenzo, a poetic young soul, and a lover of music, “My Lord Bassanio,
since you have found Antonio, we two will leave you. But at dinner-time, I pray you, have in
mind where we must meet.”
“I will not fail you,” says Bassanio, tall and distinguished-looking at thirty. The prosperous
gentlemen all intend to surprise Antonio, their generous patron, with some lighthearted revelries
at a supper this very evening.
Gratiano—impulsive and frank at twenty-seven—notes their friend’s persisting dejection.
“You look not well, Signior Antonio; you have too much reflected upon the world! They lose it
that do buy it with too much care!” he cautions the older man, clearly concerned. “Believe me,
you are marvellously changed.”
Antonio sighs. “I hold the world as but a stage, Gratiano, a world where every man must play
a part—and mine a sad one.”
“Let me play the fool!” says Gratiano. “From mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come, and
let my liver rather heat with wine than my heart cool with mortifying groans! Why should a man
whose blood is warm within”—who is ripe for courting—“sit like his grandsire cut in
alabaster?—sleep when he wakes, and creep into a jaundice by being peevish!
“I tell thee what, Antonio—I love thee, and ’tis my love that speaks—there is a sort of men
whose visages do green in mantle like a standing pond, and do a wilful stillness entertain, with
purpose to be dressed in an opinion of wisdom, gravity, profound thinking—as if to say, ‘I am Sir
Oracle, and when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!’
“Oh, my Antonio, I do know of some therefore reputed wise only for saying nothing!—who,
I am very sure, if they should speak, would almost dam up those ears which their hearing brothers
would call fools!”
Gratiano spots Lorenzo’s brief, surreptitious frown; Bassanio has urgent matters to discuss
with his older friend.
“I’ll tell thee more of this another time,” says the garrulous Gratiano. “But fish not with this
melancholy bait for the foolish minnow opinion! Come, good Lorenzo.
“Fare ye well a while,” he tells Antonio. “I’ll end my exhortation after supper,” he adds.
Lorenzo grins. “Well, we will leave you then till supper-time,” he tells Antonio. “I must be
one of these same silent wisemen, for Gratiano never lets me speak!”
Gratiano laughs. “Well, keep me company but two years and thou shalt not know the sound
of thine own tongue!”
Even Antonio smiles at that. “Farewell. I’ll grow into a talker for this gear!”—after your
effort.
Gratiano bows, “Thanks, i’ faith!—for silence is commendable only in a neat’s-tongue dried,
and a maid not vendible!” He and Lorenzo stride away.
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