Page 495 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

No more than I am well acquitted of.

PORTIA
Sir, you are very welcome to our house;
It must appear in other ways than words, [140]
Therefore I scant this breathing courtesy.

GRATIANO
(to Nerissa)

By yonder moon I swear you do me wrong!
In faith, I gave it to the judge’s clerk.
Would he were gelt that had it for my part
Since you do take it, love, so much at heart. [145]

PORTIA

A quarrel ho, already! What’s the matter?

GRATIANO

About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring
That she did give me, whose posy was
For all the world like cutler’s poetry
Upon a knife, ‘Love me, and leave me not’. [150]

NERISSA
What talk you of the posy or the value?

You swore to me when I did give it you
That you would wear it till your hour of death,
And that it should lie with you in your grave.

Though not for me, yet for your vehement oaths, [155]
You should have been respective and have kept it.
Gave it a judge’s clerk! No, God’s my judge,
The clerk will ne’er wear hair on’s face that had it!

GRATIANO
He will, an if he live to be a man.

NERISSA