William Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice

ACT 3. 1. SCENE I. Venice. A street

[Enter SALANIO and SALARINO.]

SALANIO.
Now, what news on the Rialto?

SALARINO.
Why, yet it lives there unchecked that Antonio hath a ship
of rich lading wrack'd 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.

SALANIO.
I would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever knapped
ginger or made her neighbours 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,--O that I had a title good enough to keep his
name
company!--

SALARINO.
Come, the full stop.

SALANIO.
Ha! What sayest thou? Why, the end is, he hath lost a
ship.

SALARINO.
I would it might prove the end of his losses.

SALANIO.
Let me say 'amen' betimes, lest the devil cross my prayer,
for here he comes in the likeness of a Jew.

[Enter SHYLOCK.]

How now, Shylock! What news among the merchants?

SHYLOCK.
You knew, none so well, none so well as you, of my
daughter's flight.

SALARINO.
That's certain; I, for my part, knew the tailor that made
the wings she flew withal.

SALANIO.
And Shylock, for his own part, knew the bird was fledged;
and then it is the complexion of them all to leave the dam.

SHYLOCK.
She is damned for it.

SALARINO.
That's certain, if the devil may be her judge.

SHYLOCK.
My own flesh and blood to rebel!

SALANIO.
Out upon it, old carrion! Rebels it at these years?