The Merchant of Venice

Now, what news on the Rialto?

Why, yet it lives there unchecked that Antonio hath a ship of rich lading wracked 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.

I would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever knapped ginger or made her neighbors 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—oh, that I had a title good enough to keep his name company!—

Come, the full stop.

I would it might prove the end of his losses.

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