Shakespeare's play of the Merchant of Venice · William Shakespeare
SCENE III.--SALOON OF THE CASKETS, IN PORTIA'S HOUSE, AT BELMONT.
BASSANIO, PORTIA, GRATIANO, NERISSA, _and Attendants_. _Por_. I pray you, tarry; pause a day or two, Before you hazard; for, in choosing wrong I lose your company; I could teach you How to choose right, but then I am forsworn; So will I never be: so may you miss me; But if you do, you'll make me wish a sin, That I had been forsworn. _Bas_. Let me choose; For, as I am, I live upon the rack. Come, let me to my fortune and the caskets. _Por_. Away then: I am lock'd in one of them; If you do love me, you will find me out. Let music sound, while he doth make his choice: Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end, Fading in music.(B)--That the comparison May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream And wat'ry death-bed for him. [_Music, whilst_ BASSANIO _comments on the Caskets to himself_.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.