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SCENE 2. Belmont. A room in PORTIA ' s house. [ Enter BASSANIO, PORTIA, GRATIANO, NERISSA, and Attendants.]
PORTIA. I pray you tarry; pause a day or two Before you hazard; for, in choosing wrong, I lose your company; therefore forbear a while. There ' s something tells me, but it is not love, I would not lose you; and you know yourself Hate counsels not in such a quality. But lest you should not understand me well,-- And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought,-- I would detain you here some month or two Before you venture for me. I could teach you How to choose right, but then I am forsworn; So will I never be; so may you miss me; But if you do, you ' ll make me wish a sin, That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes, They have o ' erlook ' d me and divided me: One half of me is yours, the other half yours, Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours, And so all yours. O! these naughty times Puts bars between the owners and their rights; And so, though yours, not yours. Prove it so, Let fortune go to hell for it, not I. I speak too long, but ' tis to peise the time, To eke it, and to draw it out in length, To stay you from election.
BASSANIO. Let me choose; For as I am, I live upon the rack.
PORTIA. Upon the rack, Bassanio! Then confess