Act 2, Scene 5

The same. Before SHYLOCK'S house

[Enter SHYLOCK and LAUNCELOT.]
Shylock
778 Well, thou shalt see; thy eyes shall be thy judge,
779 The difference of old Shylock and Bassanio:—
780 What, Jessica!—Thou shalt not gormandize,
781 As thou hast done with me;—What, Jessica!—
782 And sleep and snore, and rend apparel out—
783 Why, Jessica, I say!
Launcelot Gobbo
784 Why, Jessica!
Shylock
785 Who bids thee call? I do not bid thee call.
Launcelot Gobbo
786 Your worship was wont to tell me I could do nothing
787 without bidding.
[Enter JESSICA.]
Jessica
788 Call you? What is your will?
Shylock
789 I am bid forth to supper, Jessica:
790 There are my keys. But wherefore should I go?
791 I am not bid for love; they flatter me;
792 But yet I'll go in hate, to feed upon
793 The prodigal Christian. Jessica, my girl,
794 Look to my house. I am right loath to go;
795 There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest,
796 For I did dream of money-bags to-night.
Launcelot Gobbo
797 I beseech you, sir, go: my young master doth expect your
798 reproach.
Shylock
799 So do I his.
Launcelot Gobbo
800 And they have conspired together; I will not say you
801 shall see a masque, but if you do, then it was not for nothing
802 that my nose fell a-bleeding on Black Monday last at six o'clock
803 i' the morning, falling out that year on Ash-Wednesday was four
804 year in the afternoon.
Shylock
805 What! are there masques? Hear you me, Jessica:
806 Lock up my doors, and when you hear the drum,
807 And the vile squealing of the wry-neck'd fife,
808 Clamber not you up to the casements then,
809 Nor thrust your head into the public street
810 To gaze on Christian fools with varnish'd faces;
811 But stop my house's ears- I mean my casements;
812 Let not the sound of shallow fopp'ry enter
813 My sober house. By Jacob's staff, I swear
814 I have no mind of feasting forth to-night;
815 But I will go. Go you before me, sirrah;
816 Say I will come.
Launcelot Gobbo
817 I will go before, sir. Mistress, look out at window for all this;
818 There will come a Christian by
819 Will be worth a Jewess' eye.
[Exit LAUNCELOT.]
Shylock
820 What says that fool of Hagar's offspring, ha?
Jessica
821 His words were 'Farewell, mistress'; nothing else.
Shylock
822 The patch is kind enough, but a huge feeder;
823 Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by day
824 More than the wild-cat; drones hive not with me,
825 Therefore I part with him; and part with him
826 To one that I would have him help to waste
827 His borrow'd purse. Well, Jessica, go in;
828 Perhaps I will return immediately:
829 Do as I bid you, shut doors after you:
830 'Fast bind, fast find,'
831 A proverb never stale in thrifty mind.
[Exit.]
Jessica
832 Farewell; and if my fortune be not crost,
833 I have a father, you a daughter, lost.
[Exit.]

Notes

TLN 792biblical allusion

“feed upon The prodigal Christian”

Shylock's phrase 'the prodigal Christian' alludes to the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32), in which a young man squanders his inheritance in reckless living. Shylock goes to Bassanio's feast not out of friendship but to watch a spendthrift devour borrowed money — Bassanio's purse is in fact funded by the loan Shylock himself has made.

biblical The Prodigal Son

TLN 806historical topical

“when you hear the drum, And the vile squealing of the wry-neck'd fife”

A masque was a fashionable Elizabethan entertainment in which masked gentlemen paraded through the streets with torches, drums, and a fife (a high-pitched flute) before entering a house to dance and woo. Shylock orders Jessica to shut the windows so she cannot watch — he regards the Christian street-revelry as shallow ('shallow fopp'ry') and a threat to his household's quiet.

TLN 813biblical allusion

“By Jacob's staff, I swear”

Shylock swears by 'Jacob's staff,' the walking-stick of the patriarch Jacob. In Genesis 32:10, Jacob tells God: 'with my staff I passed over this Jordan.' For Shylock, swearing by Jacob's staff is a uniquely Jewish oath that signals both his identity and his authority — Jacob is the same ancestor whose cunning with Laban's sheep he cited in Act 1 to defend moneylending.

biblical Jacob and Laban's sheep

TLN 820biblical allusion

“fool of Hagar's offspring”

Hagar was Abraham's Egyptian slave-woman who bore him a son, Ishmael — the ancestor of the Arab peoples. In Jewish and Christian tradition, Hagar's descendants were 'bondservants,' outside the covenant God made with Isaac (the son of Abraham's wife Sarah). By calling Launcelot 'Hagar's offspring' Shylock insults him as a gentile outsider, a slave-born nobody without spiritual standing.

TLN 824archaic vocab

“drones hive not with me”

Drones are male bees that do no work: they eat the honey produced by worker bees and contribute nothing to the hive. 'Drones hive not with me' is Shylock's way of saying he will not house or feed idle servants — Launcelot sleeps by day, eats hugely, and earns little profit. The image is blunt: Launcelot is a parasite, and Shylock is glad to be rid of him.

TLN 830cultural context

“'Fast bind, fast find,' A proverb never stale in thrifty mind”

'Fast bind, fast find' is a proverbial saying meaning 'lock things up securely, and you will be sure to find them when you need them.' Shylock closes the scene quoting it to Jessica as he leaves — urging her to shut the doors tight. The proverb will rebound grimly: within hours, the house he locks will be ransacked by the daughter he trusted to guard it.