The Merchant of Venice: Act 3

Question 1

Antonio hath a ship of rich lading wracked on the narrow seas.

Answer 1

Salerio to Solanio

Question 2

My own flesh and blood to rebel!

Answer 2

Shylock to Selerio

Question 3

I say my daughter is my flesh and blood.

Answer 3

Shylock to Salerio

Question 4

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

Answer 4

Salarnio to Shylock

Question 5

But tell us, do you hear whether Antonio have had any loss at sea or no?

Answer 5

Solanio to Shylock

Question 6

There I have another bad match!—a bankrupt, a prodigal who dare scarce show his head on the Rialto,

Answer 6

Shylock to Salerio

Question 7

Let him look to his bond. He was wont to call me usurer; let him look to his bond. He was wont to lend money for a Christian courtesy; let him look to his bond.

Answer 7

Shylock to Salerio

Question 8

To bait fish withal. If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me and hindered me half a million, laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies—and what’s his reason? I am a Jew.

Answer 8

Shylock to Salerio

Question 9

Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is?

Answer 9

Shylock to Salerio

Question 10

If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge

Answer 10

Shylock to Salerio

Question 11

If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me I will execute—and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

Answer 11

Shylock to Salerio

Question 12

A diamond gone cost me two thousand ducats in Frankfurt—the curse never fell upon our nation till now!

Answer 12

Shylock to Tubal

Question 13

I would my daughter were dead at my foot and the jewels in her ear!

Answer 13

Shylock to Tubal

Question 14

Why thou, loss upon loss! The thief gone with so much, and so much to find the thief—and no satisfaction, no revenge. Nor no ill luck stirring but what lights o’ my shoulders, no sighs but o’ my breathing, no tears but o’ my shedding.

Answer 14

Shylock to Tubal

Question 15

Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, in one night fourscore ducats.

Answer 15

Tubal to Shylock

Question 16

Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal. It was my turquoise. I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor. I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.

Answer 16

Shylock to Tubal

Question 17

I pray you, tarry. Pause a day or two
Before you hazard, for in choosing wrong
I lose your company.

Answer 17

Portia to Bassanio

Question 18

I would detain you here some month or two

Before you venture for me.

Answer 18

Portia to Bassanio

Question 19

Oh, these naughty times
Put bars between the owners and their rights!
And so, though yours, not yours. Prove it so.
Let Fortune go to hell for it, not I.

Answer 19

Portia to Bassanio

Question 20

So may the outward shows be least themselves.
The world is still deceived with ornament.
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt
But, being seasoned with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil?

Answer 20

Bassanio to Portia

Question 21

So are those crispèd snaky golden locks
Which maketh such wanton gambols with the wind,
Upon supposèd fairness, often known
To be the dowry of a second head,

Answer 21

Bassanio to Portia

Question 22

Thus ornament is but the guilèd shore

To a most dangerous sea

Answer 22

Bassanio to Portia

Question 23

But thou, thou meagre lead,
Which rather threaten’st than dost promise aught,
Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence,
And here choose I. Joy be the consequence!

Answer 23

Bassanio to Portia

Question 24

I would be trebled twenty times myself—
A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich—
That only to stand high in your account

Answer 24

Portia to Bassanio

Question 25

But the full sum of me
Is sum of something which, to term in gross,
Is an unlessoned girl, unschooled, unpracticèd;

Answer 25

Portia to Bassanio

Question 26

Myself and what is mine to you and yours

Is now converted

Answer 26

Portia to Bassanio

Question 27

This house, these servants, and this same myself
Are yours, my lord’s. I give them with this ring,
Which when you part from, lose, or give away,
Let it presage the ruin of your love

Answer 27

Portia to Bassanio

Question 28

But when this ring
Parts from this finger, then parts life from hence.
O, then be bold to say Bassanio’s dead!

Answer 28

Bassanio to Portia

Question 29

The bargain of your faith, I do beseech you

Even at that time I may be married too.

Answer 29

Gratiano to Bassanio

Question 30

There are some shrewd contents in yond same paper

That steals the color from Bassanio’s cheek.

Answer 30

Portia to Bassanio

Question 31

O sweet Portia,
Here are a few of the unpleasant’st words
That ever blotted paper.

Answer 31

Bassanio to Portia

Question 32

When I told you
My state was nothing, I should then have told you
That I was worse than nothing, for indeed
I have engaged myself to a dear friend,
Engaged my friend to his mere enemy
To feed my means.

Answer 32

Bassanio to Portia

Question 33

Here is a letter, lady,
The paper as the body of my friend,
And every word in it a gaping wound,
Issuing life blood.—But is it true, Salerio?
Have all his ventures failed?

Answer 33

Bassanio to Portia

Question 34

Besides, it should appear that if he had
The present money to discharge the Jew,
He would not take it.

Answer 34

Salerio to Bassanio

Question 35

He plies the duke at morning and at night,
And doth impeach the freedom of the state
If they deny him justice.

Answer 35

He plies the duke at morning and at night,
And doth impeach the freedom of the state
If they deny him justice. Twenty merchants,
The duke himself, and the magnificoes
Of greatest port have all persuaded with him.
But none can drive him from the envious plea
Of forfeiture, of justice, and his bond.

Question 36

When I was with him I have heard him swear
To Tubal and to Chus, his countrymen,
That he would rather have Antonio’s flesh
Than twenty times the value of the sum
That he did owe him.

Answer 36

Jessica to Bassanio

Question 37

The dearest friend to me, the kindest man,
The best conditioned and unwearied spirit
In doing courtesies, and one in whom
The ancient Roman honor more appears
Than any that draws breath in Italy.

Answer 37

Bassanio to Portia

Question 38

For me, three thousand ducats.

Answer 38

Bassanio to Portia

Question 39

Pay him six thousand and deface the bond!

Double six thousand, and then treble that,

Answer 39

Portia to Bassanio

Question 40

Before a friend of this description
Shall lose a hair through Bassanio’s fault.
First go with me to church and call me wife,
And then away to Venice to your friend.
For never shall you lie by Portia’s side
With an unquiet soul.

Answer 40

Portia to Bassanio

Question 41

“Sweet Bassanio, my ships have all miscarried. My creditors grow cruel. My estate is very low. My bond to the Jew is forfeit. And since in paying it, it is impossible I should live, all debts are cleared between you and I if I might but see you at my death. Notwithstanding, use your pleasure. If your love do not persuade you to come, let not my letter.”

Answer 41

Bassanio to Portia

Question 42

Tell not me of mercy.
This is the fool that lent out money gratis.
Jailer, look to him

Answer 42

Shylock to Antonio/Jailer

Question 43

Thou calledst me dog before thou hadst a cause.

But since I am a dog, beware my fangs.

Answer 43

Shylock to Antonio

Question 44

I’ll have my bond. I will not hear thee speak.

I’ll have my bond, and therefore speak no more.

Answer 44

Shylock to Antonio

Question 45

It is the most impenetrable cur

That ever kept with men.

Answer 45

Solanio to Antonio

Question 46

He seeks my life. His reason well I know.
I oft delivered from his forfeitures
Many that have at times made moan to me.
Therefore he hates me

Answer 46

Antonio to Solanio

Question 47

Pray God Bassanio come

To see me pay his debt, and then I care not.

Answer 47

Antonio to Solanio

Question 48

For mine own part,
I have toward heaven breathed a secret vow
To live in prayer and contemplation,
Only attended by Nerissa here
Until her husband and my lord’s return.
There is a monastery two miles off,

Answer 48

Portia to Lorenzo

Question 49

Now, Balthazar,
As I have ever found thee honest true,
So let me find thee still.
(gives BALTHAZAR a letter)
    Take this same letter,
And use thou all th' endeavour of a man
In speed to Padua. See thou render this
Into my cousin’s hands, Doctor Bellario.

Answer 49

Portia to Balthasar

Question 50

Come on, Nerissa, I have work in hand
That you yet know not of. We’ll see our husbands
Before they think of us.

Answer 50

Portia to Nerissa

Question 51

I’ll hold thee any wager,
When we are both accoutred like young men,
I’ll prove the prettier fellow of the two

Answer 51

Portia to Nerissa