Page 448 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

Who inward searched, have livers white as milk,
And these assume but valour’s excrement
To render them redoubted. Look on beauty,
And you shall see ’tis purchased by the weight,

Which therein works a miracle in nature, [90]
Making them lightest that wear most of it:
So are those crispèd snaky golden locks,
Which make such wanton gambols with the wind

Upon supposèd fairness, often known
To be the dowry of a second head, [95]
The skull that bred them in the sepulchre.
Thus ornament is but the guilèd shore

To a most dangerous sea, the beauteous scarf
Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,
The seeming truth which cunning times put on [100]
To entrap the wisest. Therefore thou gaudy gold,

Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee;
Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge
’Tween man and man. But thou, thou meagre lead
Which rather threaten’st than dost promise aught, [105]

Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence,
And here choose I. Joy be the consequence!

PORTIA
(aside)
How all the other passions fleet to air:

As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embraced despair,
And shudd’ring fear, and green-eyed jealousy. [110]
O love, be moderate, allay thy ecstasy,
In measure rain thy joy, scant this excess,
I feel too much thy blessing, make it less

For fear I surfeit.

BASSANIO
(opening the leaden casket)
What find I here?
Fair Portia’s counterfeit! What demigod [115]

Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes?