[Footnote 14: _--a more swelling port; Port_, in the present instance,
comprehends the idea of expensive equipage, and external pomp of
appearance.]




SCENE II.--BELMONT. A ROOM IN PORTIA'S HOUSE.


_Enter_ PORTIA _and_ NERISSA.

_Por_. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is a-weary of this great
world.

_Ner_. You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same
abundance as your good fortunes are. And yet, for aught I see, they are
as sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing. It
is no small happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean; superfluity
comes sooner by white hairs,[17] but competency lives longer.

_Por_. Good sentences, and well pronounced.

_Ner_. They would be better, if well followed.

_Por_. If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels
had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. It is a
good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty
what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own