The merchant of Venice,Act 3,Scene II:
So may the outward shows be least themselves:
The world is still deceived with ornament.
In law,what plea so tainted and corrupt,
But,being seasoned with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil? In religion,
What damned error,but some sober brow
Will bless it and approve it with a text,
Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?
There is no vice so simple but assumes
Some mark of virtue on his outward parts:
How many cowards,whose hearts are all as false
As stairs of sand,wear yet upon their chins
The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars;
Who,inward search’d,have livers white as milk;
And these assume but valour’s excrement
To render them redoubted! Look on beauty,
And you shall see ’tis purchased by the weight;
Which therein works a miracle in nature,
Making them lightest that wear most of it:
So are those crisped snaky golden locks
Which make such wanton gambols with the wind,
Upon supposed fairness,often known
To be the dowry of a second head,
The skull that bred them in the sepulchre.
Thus ornament is but the guiled shore
To a most dangerous sea;the beauteous scarf
Veiling an Indian beauty;in a word,
The seeming truth which cunning times put on
To entrap the wisest. Therefore,thou gaudy gold,
Hard food for Midas,I will none of thee;
Nor none of thee,thou pale and common drudge
‘Tween man and man:but thou,thou meagre lead,
Which rather threatenest than dost promise aught,
Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence;
And here choose I;joy be the consequence!
And the rest from William here.
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