Page 497 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

Not that, I hope, which you received of me. [185]

BASSANIO
If I could add a lie unto a fault,
I would deny it, but you see my finger
Hath not the ring upon it, it is gone.

PORTIA
Even so void is your false heart of truth.

By heaven, I will ne’er come in your bed [190]
Until I see the ring!

NERISSA
Nor I in yours
Till I again see mine!

BASSANIO
Sweet Portia,

If you did know to whom I gave the ring,
If you did know for whom I gave the ring
And would conceive for what I gave the ring [195]
And how unwillingly I left the ring

When naught would be accepted but the ring,
You would abate the strength of your displeasure.

PORTIA
If you had known the virtue of the ring,
Or half her worthiness that gave the ring, [200]

Or your own honour to contain the ring,
You would not then have parted with the ring.
What man is there so much unreasonable,
If you had pleased to have defended it
With any terms of zeal, wanted the modesty [205]

To urge the thing held as a ceremony?
Nerissa teaches me what to believe;
I’ll die for’t but some woman had the ring!