Speeches (Lines) for All in "The Merchant of Venice"

Total: 1
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# Act / Scene Speech text
1 III / 2
  • Ding, dong, bell.
  • Ding, dong, bell.
  • Portia. 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
    As are those dulcet sounds in break of day
    That creep into the dreaming bridegroom's ear,
    And summon him to marriage. Now he goes,
    With no less presence, but with much more love,
    Than young Alcides, when he did redeem
    The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy
    To the sea-monster: I stand for sacrifice
    The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives,
    With bleared visages, come forth to view
    The issue of the exploit. Go, Hercules!
    Live thou, I live: with much, much more dismay
    I view the fight than thou that makest the fray.
    [Music, whilst BASSANIO comments on the caskets to himself]
    SONG.
    Tell me where is fancy bred,
    Or in the heart, or in the head?
    How begot, how nourished?
    Reply, reply.
    It is engender'd in the eyes,
    With gazing fed; and fancy dies
    In the cradle where it lies.
    Let us all ring fancy's knell
    I'll begin it,--Ding, dong, bell.

    All. Ding, dong, bell.

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