4. stuff. Compare Tempest, iv. 1. 156:

“We are such stuff
As dreams are made on.”

5. I am [yet] to learn, is the fuller modern phrase. Elizabethan English often thus omits a word. Compare The Two Gentlemen of Verona, ii. I. 59.

8. ocean. Pronounced as three syllables.

9. argosies. An argosy was usually a large merchantman; and the word was probably derived from the town of Ragusa or Arragosa, which enjoyed a large trade with England in the sixteenth century.

11. pageants. The pageant was the stage on which the old popular plays were acted in the streets. The word was often used of the plays themselves. Shakespeare here likens the lofty merchantmen with sails spread to these tall and decorated structures.

13. curtsy. “Suggested by the rocking, ducking motion in the petty traffiquers caused by the wake of the argosy as it sails past them” (Furness).

15. venture. What is risked in a merchant’s voyage.

18. Plucking the grass, to test the direction of the wind by dropping it from the hand.

25. hour-glass. An hour-glass, placed near the pulpit, was commonly used to mark the duration of the sermon in Shakespeare’s day.

27. Andrew, the name of the ship.

35. worth this. The thought is probably here completed by a gesture of the actor.

50. Janus, the Roman guardian deity of gates, represented with two heads because every door looks two ways.

56. Nestor, the oldest and hence the gravest of the heroes.

67. You grow exceeding strange. Compare the modern, “You are becoming quite a stranger.”

67. must it be so? Must you really go? or, perhaps, Must you continue such a stranger?

74. You have too much respect upon the world. You have too much regard for the world’s opinion.

75. They lose it. It here refers to the opinion of the world.

78. a stage, etc. Compare the famous passage: “All the world’s a stage,” As You Like It, ii. 7. 139.

79. play the fool. The fool, with his cap, bells, and bauble, was a favorite character in the old comedy.

84. grandsire cut in alabaster, an allusion to the tombs of old time, of which a stone or alabaster figure of the deceased formed a conspicuous part.

85. jaundice. This disease was supposed to cause everything to appear yellow to the person afflicted with it. Compare Troilus and Cressida, i. 3. 2.

89. cream and mantle, thicken in scum on the surface and completely cover. Notice the Elizabethan freedom which compels the noun, without change in form, to do service as a verb.

93. As who shall say, in modern phrase, “As if one should say.” An old idiom very common in Shakespeare. See below, i. 2. 50.

93. I am, sir, an oracle. This is the reading of the folios; the quartos read Sir Oracle.

96, 97. reputed wise For saying nothing. Compare Proverbs, xvii. 28: “Even a fool when he holdeth his peace is counted wise; and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.”

98. If they should speak, [they] would, etc. Shakespeare often omits the nominative when the sense will easily supply it, as here. See Hamlet, ii. 2. 67; iii. I. 8. This passage contains an allusion to Matthew, v. 22: “Whosoever shall say to his brother … ‘Thou fool,’ shall be in danger of hell fire.”

101. melancholy bait, i.e. melancholy as a bait.

125. continuance, i.e. continuance of.

126. make moan to be abridged, complain that I am cut short.

137. Within the eye of honor, within the limits of what can be considered honorable.

139. occasions, to be pronounced as four syllables. The terminations ion and ian are commonly pronounced as two syllables; see ocean above, i. I. 8.

141. fellow of the self-same flight, an arrow of the same length, weight, and feathering, calculated to carry the same distance.

143. To find the other forth, to find out the other. Compare Comedy of Errors, i. 2. 37. This line is two syllables longer than the usual decasyllabic line of English blank verse; but it runs easily off the tongue in precisely the interval of time required for a verse of ten syllables. Shakespeare wrote for the ear, and not for the eye; and these “irregularities,” as they are sometimes called, are not only true to the speech of his day, but are often real beauties from the variety which they give to the versification.

145. pure innocence, childish foolishness. Bassanio is anxious that his friend, Antonio, shall understand that he himself fully appreciates the real folly of his plan to throw good money after bad.

156. In making question of my uttermost, in doubting my readiness to do my utmost in your service.

165, 166. nothing undervalued To … Brutus’ Portia, i.e. when brought to the side of, and compared with Brutus’s Portia. See below, ii. 7. 53. Portia, wife of Brutus, a woman of renown for her greatness of spirit, figures in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.

171. Colchos’ strand, in allusion to the story of Jason, the famous leader of the Argonauts, who sought and found the golden fleece in Colchos by the aid of Medea, whom he made his wife and brought back to Greece.

175. a mind presages. Note the omission of the relative, a common Shakespearean idiom. See Measure for Measure, ii. 2. 23; Richard II, ii. 2. 128.

185. of my trust or for my sake, in consequence of my credit or for the sake of my friendship.

7, 8. no mean happiness … in the mean. It is no happiness to be despised, therefore, to be stationed in life between the extremes of poverty and overabundant wealth. Shakespeare shared with his age a fondness for playing on words. See below, lines 26, 27, the will [wish, desire] of a living daughter curbed by the will [testament] of a dead father.

28. cannot choose one nor refuse none. In modern English, “Can neither choose one nor refuse any.” Nor is often used after not. See Macbeth, ii. 3. 69: “Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee.” For the double negative, see King John, v. 7. 112.

35. No doubt you will never be chosen, etc. Compare Portia’s words to Bassanio, below (iii. 2. 41): “If you do love me, you will find me out.” This is the reading of the first quarto of The Merchant of Venice; that of the folio is inferior.

44. a colt, a wild, headstrong youth. As the Neapolitans were notably skilled in horsemanship in Shakespeare’s day, there is a play on the word colt.

50. as who should say. Compare i. I. 93, above, and the note thereon.

51. ‘If you will not have me, choose‘ [whom you will, and regret your choice]. The sense is plainly: “Whom could you think of choosing beside such a paragon as I?”

53. the weeping philosopher, Heraclitus of Ephesus, who flourished about 500 B.C.

58. How say you by the French lord. What say you with reference to, etc. See below, ii. 9. 26: “By the fool multitude”; and compare the phrase: “Do as you would be done by” [i.e. with reference to].

66. a capering. A is often equal to “on” before verbal nouns. Compare King Lear, v. 3. 274: “The slave that was a hanging there.”

73. Portia playfully twists Nerissa’s word, say, into a different sense.

76. a poor pennyworth in the English, little knowledge of the English tongue.

80. doublet … round hose. The doublet was the close-fitting jacket worn by men in Shakespeare’s day. The familiar figure, Punch, still wears a doublet. Round hose were trousers made very large and sometimes stuffed, or “bombasted,” as it was called, to make them stand out.

81. bonnet, commonly used for a man’s hat. See Richard II, i. 4. 31: “Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench.”

88. the Frenchman became his surety. In allusion to the assistance frequently offered by France to Scotland in her quarrels with England, before the union of the two countries under Elizabeth’s successor, King James.

89. sealed under for another [box on the ear]. The principal, or person entering into a bond, was said to “seal to” the bond; his surety, i.e. the man who agreed to pay the debt if the principal did not, was said to ” seal under.”

100. you should refuse to perform, in modern usage, “You would refuse.” Should is the past tense of shall, and has undergone the same modifications of meaning. Should is not now used with the second person to denote mere futurity, because it suggests a duty if not a compulsion. But we retain this use of should in the conditional clause, “If you should refuse,” because there can be no question of compulsion in that case. Shakespeare did not make this distinction.

109. the having. The article often precedes a verbal noun when the latter is followed by an object, as here. Compare Macbeth, i. 4, 7: “Nothing in his life Became him like the leaving it.”

113. by some other sort, by some other method or manner.

114. your father’s imposition, the condition imposed by your father.

116. Sibylla, used erroneously by Shakespeare as a proper name. There were several prophetic women known as sibyls in ancient times. Of them the Cumaean sibyl, consulted by Aeneas, was the most famous. It was this sibyl that obtained from Apollo a promise that her years should be as many as the grains of sand she was holding in her hand.

134. four strangers, six were enumerated. The plays of Shakespeare’s time were subject to constant revision, and sometimes little inadvertences, such as this, remain. There may have been but four suitors named in an earlier version of this play.

135. forerunner, footman.

140, 141. so … as. As is a contraction of all-so (alse, als, as). We still say: “As I expected so it happened.” The Elizabethans frequently used the reverse order. See Romeo and Juliet, i. 1. 140: “All so soon as.”

146, 147. It is a common device of plays of this time to end a scene with a rhyming couplet, as here. This has been supposed by some to offer a cue to the opening of a new scene, but as such rhyming tags occur elsewhere this is not certain.