Scene Two
[Belmont. A Room in Portia's House]
Portia with her waiting woman Nerissa.
Por. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is
aweary of this great world.
Ner. You would be, sweet madam, if your
miseries were in the same abundance as your 4
good fortunes are: and yet, for aught I see, they
are as sick that surfeit with too much as they
that starve with nothing. It is no mean happi-
ness therefore to be seated in the mean: 8
superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but
competency lives longer.
Por. Good sentences and well pronounced.
Ner. They would be better if well followed. 12
Por. If to do were as easy as to know what
were good to do, chapels had been churches, and
poor men's cottages princes' palaces. It is a
good divine that follows his own instructions: I 16
can easier teach twenty what were good to be
done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine
own teaching. The brain may devise laws for
the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold 20
decree: such a hare is madness the youth, to
skip o'er the meshes of good counsel the cripple.
But this reasoning is not in the fashion to choose
me a husband. O me, the word 'choose!' I may 24
neither choose whom I would nor refuse whom
I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter
curbed by the will of a dead father. Is it not
8 seated . . . mean: moderately endowed
9 comes . . . by: brings on
11 sentences: sentiments
