Act 3, Scene V

SCENE V. The same. A garden.

Enter LAUNCELOT and JESSICA
LAUNCELOT
Yes, truly; for, look you, the sins of the father
are to be laid upon the children: therefore, I
promise ye, I fear you. I was always plain with
you, and so now I speak my agitation of the matter:
therefore be of good cheer, for truly I think you
are damned. There is but one hope in it that can do
you any good; and that is but a kind of bastard
hope neither.

JESSICA
And what hope is that, I pray thee?

LAUNCELOT
Marry, you may partly hope that your father got you
not, that you are not the Jew's daughter.

JESSICA
That were a kind of bastard hope, indeed: so the
sins of my mother should be visited upon me.

LAUNCELOT
Truly then I fear you are damned both by father and
mother: thus when I shun Scylla, your father, I
fall into Charybdis, your mother: well, you are
gone both ways.

JESSICA
I shall be saved by my husband; he hath made me a
Christian.

LAUNCELOT
Truly, the more to blame he: we were Christians
enow before; e'en as many as could well live, one by
another. This making Christians will raise the
price of hogs: if we grow all to be pork-eaters, we
shall not shortly have a rasher on the coals for money.

Enter LORENZO

JESSICA
I'll tell my husband, Launcelot, what you say: here he comes.

LORENZO
I shall grow jealous of you shortly, Launcelot, if
you thus get my wife into corners.

JESSICA
Nay, you need not fear us, Lorenzo: Launcelot and I
are out. He tells me flatly, there is no mercy for
me in heaven, because I am a Jew's daughter: and he
says, you are no good member of the commonwealth,
for in converting Jews to Christians, you raise the
price of pork.

LORENZO
I shall answer that better to the commonwealth than
you can the getting up of the negro's belly: the
Moor is with child by you, Launcelot.

LAUNCELOT
It is much that the Moor should be more than reason:
but if she be less than an honest woman, she is
indeed more than I took her for.

LORENZO
How every fool can play upon the word! I think the
best grace of wit will shortly turn into silence,
and discourse grow commendable in none only but
parrots. Go in, sirrah; bid them prepare for dinner.

LAUNCELOT
That is done, sir; they have all stomachs.

LORENZO
Goodly Lord, what a wit-snapper are you! then bid
them prepare dinner.

LAUNCELOT
That is done too, sir; only 'cover' is the word.

LORENZO
Will you cover then, sir?

LAUNCELOT
Not so, sir, neither; I know my duty.

LORENZO
Yet more quarrelling with occasion! Wilt thou