By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world
Portia
By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary
of this great world.
Nerissa
You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries
were in the same abundance as your good fortunes
are. And yet, for aught I see, they are as sick that
surfeit with too much as they that starve with
nothing.Alliosis It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be
seated in the mean.Antanaclesis Superfluity comes sooner by
white hairs, but competency lives longer.Alliosis
It is a good divine
that follows his own instructions.
Portia
Good sentences, and well pronounced.Anapodoton
Nerissa
They would be better if well followed.
Portia
If to do were as easy as to know what were
good to do,Epanalepsis chapels had been churches, and Ellipsispoor
men's cottages princes' palaces.Analogy It is a good divine
that follows his own instructions. I can easier teach
twenty what were good to be done than to be one of
the twenty to follow mine own teaching.Alliosis The brain
may devise laws for Synecdochethe blood,Synecdoche but a hot temper
leaps o'er a cold decree:Personification such a hare is madness the
youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel the
cripple.Metaphor But this reasoning is not in the fashion to
choose me a husband. O, me, the word “choose”! I
may neither choose who I would nor refuse who I
dislike.Alliosis So is the will of a living daughter curbed by
the will of a dead father.Antanaclesis Is it not hard, Nerissa, that
I cannot choose one, nor refuse none?Alliosis
Nerissa
Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men
at their death have good inspirations. Therefore the
lottery that he hath devised in these three chests of
gold, silver, and lead, whereof who chooses his
meaning chooses you, will no doubt never be
chosen by any rightly but one who you shall rightly
love. But what warmth is there in your affection
towards any of these princely suitors that are already
come?