Page:Merchant of Venice (1923) Yale.djvu/64

50

Let fortune go to hell for it, not I.

I speak too long; but 'tis to peise the time,

To eke it and to draw it out in length,

To stay you from election.

Bass.Let me choose;

For as I am, I live upon the rack.

Por. Upon the rack, Bassanio! then confess

What treason there is mingled with your love.

Bass. None but that ugly treason of mistrust,

Which makes me fear th' enjoying of my love:

There may as well be amity and life

"Tween snow and fire, as treason and my love.

Por. Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack,

Where men enforced do speak anything.

Bass. Promise me life, and I'll confess the truth.

Por. Well then, confess, and live.

Bass.'Confess' and 'love'

Had been the very sum of my confession:

O happy torment, when my torturer

Doth teach me answers for deliverance!

But 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.

Nerissa and the rest, stand all aloof.

Let music sound while he doth make his choice;

Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,

Fading in music: that the comparison

May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream

And watery death-bed for him. He may win;

And what is music then? then music is

Even as the flourish when true subjects bow

To a new-crowned monarch: such it is

 22 peise: weigh down, retard

23 eke: add to

28 mistrust: doubt, uncertainty

29 fear: feel apprehensive about

30 amity and life: affectionate intercourse

49 flourish: trumpets at coronations 