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PORTIA.By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world.NERISSA.You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same abundance as your good fortunesare. And yet, for aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve withnothing. It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean. Superfluity come sooner bywhite hairs, but competency lives longer.PORTIA.Good sentences, and well pronounc'd.NERISSA.They would be better if well followed.PORTIA.If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men'scottages princes' palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions; I can easier teachtwenty what were good to be done than to be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. Thebrain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree; such a hare ismadness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel the cripple. But this reasoning is not inthe fashion to choose me a husband. O me, the word choose ! I may neither choose who I wouldnor refuse who I dislike, so is the will of a living daughter curb'd by the will of a dead father. Is itnot hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refuse none?NERISSA.Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their death have good inspirations. Therefore thelott'ry that he hath devised in these three chests of gold, silver, and lead, whereof who chooses hismeaning chooses you, will no doubt never be chosen by any rightly but one who you shall rightlylove. But what warmth is there in your affection towards any of these princely suitors that arealready come?PORTIA.I pray thee over-name them, and as thou namest them, I will describe them, and according to mydescription level at my affection.NERISSA.First, there is the Neapolitan prince.PORTIA.Ay, that's a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of his horse, and he makes it a greatappropriation to his own good parts that he can shoe him himself. I am much afeard my lady hismother play'd false with a smith.10NERISSA.Then is there the County Palatine.PORTIA.He doth nothing but frown, as who should say And you will not have me, choose. He hearsmerry tales and smiles not. I fear he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old, beingso full of unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather be married to a death's-head with a bone inhis mouth than to either of these. God defend me from these two!NERISSA.How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon?PORTIA.God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker, buthe! why, he hath a horse better than the Neapolitan's, a better bad habit of frowning than the CountPalatine. He is every man in no man. If a throstle sing, he falls straight a-cap'ring. He will fence withhis own shadow. If I should marry him, I should marry twenty husbands. If he would despise me, Iwould forgive him, for if he love me to madness, I shall never requite him.

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