how sweet the moonlight

Act V

Scene I Belmont. Avenue to PORTIA'S house.

[....]
LORENZO
	How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Here will we sit and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony. Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold: There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins; Such harmony is in immortal souls; But whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
	[Enter Musicians]
	Come, ho! and wake Diana with a hymn! With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear, And draw her home with music.
	[Music]
JESSICA	I am never merry when I hear sweet music.
LORENZO	The reason is, your spirits are attentive: For do but note a wild and wanton herd, Or race of youthful and unhandled colts, Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud, Which is the hot condition of their blood; If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound, Or any air of music touch their ears, You shall perceive them make a mutual stand, Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods; Since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage, But music for the time doth change his nature. The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night And his affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.
	[Enter PORTIA and NERISSA]
PORTIA	That light we see is burning in my hall. How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
NERISSA	When the moon shone, we did not see the candle.
PORTIA	So doth the greater glory dim the less: A substitute shines brightly as a king Unto the king be by, and then his state Empties itself, as doth an inland brook Into the main of waters. Music! hark!
NERISSA	It is your music, madam, of the house.
PORTIA	Nothing is good, I see, without respect: Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.
NERISSA	Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam.
PORTIA	The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark, When neither is attended, and I think The nightingale, if she should sing by day, When every goose is cackling, would be thought No better a musician than the wren. How many things by season season'd are To their right praise and true perfection! Peace, ho! the moon sleeps with Endymion And would not be awaked.
	[Music ceases]