No Fear Shakespeare
The Merchant of Venice
Get this No Fear to go!
Act 3, Scene 1
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Enter SOLANIO and SALARINO
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SOLANIO and SALARINO
enter |
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SOLANIO
Now, what news on the Rialto?
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SOLANIO
So, what’s the news on the Rialto?
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SALARINO
Why, yet it lives there unchecked that Antonio hath a
ship of rich lading wracked 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.
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SALARINO
Well, there’s a rumor that Antonio had a ship carrying expensive cargo that
shipwrecked in the English Channel on the Goodwin Sands, a very dangerous sandbar. Many
ships have sunk there, according to rumors.
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SOLANIO
I would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever knapped
ginger or made her neighbors 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—oh, that I had a title
good enough to keep his name company!—
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SOLANIO
I hope this new rumor is a lie, like the gossiping widow’s claim that she was
sorry her third husband died! But it’s true—I don’t want to
get all mushy and go on and on, but the good Antonio, the honest Antonio—oh, if
I only had a title good enough to match his!—
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SALARINO
Come, the full stop.
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SALARINO
Come on, get to the point.
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SOLANIO
Ha, what sayest thou? Why, the end is he hath lost a ship.
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SOLANIO
What are you saying? Well, the point is, he’s lost a ship.
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SALARINO
I would it might prove the end of his losses.
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SALARINO
I hope that’s all he loses.
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SOLANIO
Let me say “Amen” betimes, lest the devil cross my
prayer, for here he comes in the likeness of a Jew.
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SOLANIO
Let me say “amen” quickly, before the devil comes in and stops
my prayer—because here comes the devil, disguised as a Jew.
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Enter SHYLOCK
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SHYLOCK enters. |
