SCENE VIII.

_A room in the palace at Naples._

[_Enter_ FERDINAND _and_ MIRANDA.

MIRANDA. O Ferdinand, my love, last night I slept And sleeping dream’d, and in my dream I saw The isle where first you knew me, where we told Each to the other our fond loves. Methought I was by you companion’d and the hours Did move to music while there pass’d before Our wond’ring eyes, as for our sole delight, A many folk, strange sorted, who did talk Together, and at whiles as ’twere a play And we beholding it. ’Twas wondrous strange.

FERDINAND. O, my Miranda, sure some power we wot Not of doth play with us as we at chess Do move the pieces this way first and that, Because our will is to’t. Know then that I Did dream the fellow unto yours (if it In very truth were that and nothing more). Like you, I vis’ted that sweet spot, with you Beside the while, and did behold, as on A stage a company of players strut Their hour or two, a band of merry folk With some that wept and cried out upon fate. Who knoweth, my Miranda, what doth hap To us when we do sleep? At whiles we note In slumber tokens of a life apart From this, alike, yet not alike, and who May say how far the spirit wanders when The body sleeps?

MIRANDA. Would all my dreams were like To this we’ve wak’d from, for ’twas sweet, yet sad, And not so sad but that ’twas sweet the more. I would it were to dream again.

FERDINAND. Who knows, Sweet Saint Miranda, but it will return?

_Soft music again heard._

[_Exeunt_ FERDINAND _and_ MIRANDA.

II

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE:

ACT SIXTH

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE: ACT SIXTH