Serenade to Music
Extraction by Elam Sprenkle from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, Act V
Extraction by Elam Sprenkle from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, Act V
- Lorenzo. How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
Come, ho! and wake Diana with a hymn!
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear,
And draw her home with music.
- Jessica. I am never merry when I hear sweet music.
- Lorenzo. The reason is, your spirits are attentive:
The man that hath no music in himself,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus: - Portia. Music! hark!
- Nerissa. It is your music, madam, of the house.
- Portia. Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.
- Nerissa. Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam.
- Portia. How many things by season season'd are
To their right praise and true perfection!
Peace, ho! the moon sleeps with Endymion
- Soft stillness and the night become the touches of sweet harmony