Act 3 - Scene 1

Venice. A street.

Enter SALANIO and SALARINO

SALANIO

Now, what news on the Rialto?

SALARINO

Why, yet it lives there uncheck'd that Antonio hath
a ship of rich lading wrecked on the narrow seas;
the Goodwins, I think they call the place; a very
dangerous flat and fatal, where the carcasses of many
a tall ship lie buried, as they say, if my gossip
Report be an honest woman of her word.

SALANIO

I would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever
knapped ginger or made her neighbours believe she
wept for the death of a third husband. But it is
true, without any slips of prolixity or crossing the
plain highway of talk, that the good Antonio, the
honest Antonio, –O that I had a title good enough
to keep his name company!–

SALARINO

Come, the full stop.

SALANIO

Ha! what sayest thou? Why, the end is, he hath
lost a ship.

SALARINO

I would it might prove the end of his losses.

SALANIO

Let me say 'amen' betimes, lest the devil cross my
prayer, for here he comes in the likeness of a Jew.

Enter SHYLOCK

How now, Shylock! what news among the merchants?

SHYLOCK

You know, none so well, none so well as you, of my
daughter's flight.

SALARINO

That's certain: I, for my part, knew the tailor
that made the wings she flew withal.

SALANIO

And Shylock, for his own part, knew the bird was
fledged; and then it is the complexion of them all
to leave the dam.

SHYLOCK

She is damned for it.