PORTIA. Thus hath the candle sing’d the moth. O, these deliberate fools! When they do choose, They have the wisdom by their wit to lose. NERISSA. The ancient saying is no heresy: Hanging and wiving goes by destiny. PORTIA. Come, draw the curtain, Nerissa. Enter a Messenger. MESSENGER. Where is my lady? PORTIA. Here. What would my lord? MESSENGER. Madam, there is alighted at your gate A young Venetian, one that comes before To signify th’ approaching of his lord, From whom he bringeth sensible regreets; To wit (besides commends and courteous breath) Gifts of rich value; yet I have not seen So likely an ambassador of love. A day in April never came so sweet, To show how costly summer was at hand, As this fore-spurrer comes before his lord. PORTIA. No more, I pray thee. I am half afeard Thou wilt say anon he is some kin to thee, Thou spend’st such high-day wit in praising him. Come, come, Nerissa, for I long to see Quick Cupid’s post that comes so mannerly. NERISSA. Bassanio, Lord Love, if thy will it be! [_Exeunt._] ACT III SCENE I. Venice. A street. Enter Solanio and Salarino. SOLANIO. Now, what news on the Rialto? SALARINO. Why, yet it lives there unchecked that Antonio hath a ship of rich lading wrack’d on the narrow seas; the Goodwins, I think they call the place, a very dangerous flat and fatal, where the carcasses of many a tall ship lie buried, as they say, if my gossip Report be an honest woman of her word. SOLANIO. I would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever knapped ginger or made her neighbours believe she wept for the death of a third husband. But it is true, without any slips of prolixity or crossing the plain highway of talk, that the good Antonio, the honest Antonio,—O that I had a title good enough to keep his name company!— SALARINO. Come, the full stop. SOLANIO. Ha, what sayest thou? Why, the end is, he hath lost a ship. SALARINO. I would it might prove the end of his losses. SOLANIO. Let me say “amen” betimes, lest the devil cross my prayer, for here he comes in the likeness of a Jew. Enter Shylock. How now, Shylock, what news among the merchants? SHYLOCK. You knew, none so well, none so well as you, of my daughter’s flight. SALARINO. That’s certain, I, for my part, knew the tailor that made the wings she flew withal. SOLANIO. And Shylock, for his own part, knew the bird was fledged; and then it is the complexion of them all to leave the dam. SHYLOCK. She is damn’d for it. SALARINO. That’s certain, if the devil may be her judge. SHYLOCK. My own flesh and blood to rebel! SOLANIO. Out upon it, old carrion! Rebels it at these years? SHYLOCK. I say my daughter is my flesh and my blood. SALARINO. There is more difference between thy flesh and hers than between jet and ivory, more between your bloods than there is between red wine and Rhenish. But tell us, do you hear whether Antonio have had any loss at sea or no?