Nerissa

“ NERISSA.
If he should offer to choose, and choose the right casket, you should refuse to perform your father’s will, if you should refuse to accept him.
PORTIA.
Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee set a deep glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket, for if the devil be within and that temptation without, I know he will choose it. I will do anything, Nerissa, ere I will be married to a sponge. ”

“ Marcus, seeking Nerissa to give the kettle to her, came to the garden, and stood in the entrance and looked across it. Further than this even he dared not venture, since all the space within was sacred to the lord's daughter and her women. Opposite him, across the open lawn, were the wide steps, white in the moonlight, leading to the tessellated walk above. Beyond this, light shone softly from Lady Varia's chamber, half screened by the tall slender columns of the gallery. The two windows, reaching to the floor and giving upon the terrace, were open to the warm air ”

“ Portia dressed herself and her maid Nerissa in men's apparel, and putting on the robes of a counsellor, she took Nerissa along with her as her clerk; and setting out immediately, they arrived at Venice on the very day of the trial. ”

“ On this Portia affected to be affronted, and left the court, saying, "You teach me, sir, how a begar should be answered."
"Dear Bassanio," said Anthonio, "let him have the ring; let my love and the great service he has done for me be valued against your wife's displeasure." Bassanio, ashamed to appear so ungrateful, yielded, and sent Gratiano after Portia with the ring; and then the clerk Nerissa, who had also given Gratiano a ring, she begged his ring, and Gratiano (not choosing to be outdone in generosity by his lord) gave it to her. ”

“ Portia, when she returned, was in that happy temper of mind which never fails to attend the consciousness of having performed a good action; her cheerful spirits enjoyed every thing she saw: the moon never seemed to shine so bright before; and when that pleasant moon was hid behind a cloud, then a light which she saw from her house at Belmont as well pleased her charmed fancy, and she said to Nerissa, "That light we see is burning in my hall ”

“ Madam, I goe with all conuenient speed
Por. Come on Nerissa, I haue worke in hand That you yet know not of; wee'll see our husbands Before they thinke of vs? Nerrissa. Shall they see vs? Portia. They shall Nerrissa: but in such a habit, That they shall thinke we are accomplished With that we lacke; Ile hold thee any wager When we are both accoutered like yong men, Ile proue the prettier fellow of the two, And weare my dagger with the brauer grace, And speake betweene the change of man and boy, With a reede voyce, and turne two minsing steps Into a manly stride ”

“ See—it is done; again Nobili retires behind Nera's chair, to wait the moment when he shall claim her himself.
How the men drag at the ribbons, whirling round and round, hand-in-hand!—Nera's small hand can scarcely hold them—the men whirling round every instant faster—tumbling over each other, indeed; each moment the ribbons are dragged harder. Nera laughs; she sways from side to side, her arms extended. Faster and more furiously the men whirl round—like runaway horses now, bearing dead upon the reins. The strain is too great, Nera lets fall the ring. The cavaliere claps his hands. ”

“ The only persons left at home were Nereus and others who, being Christians, avoided giving the smallest sanction to pagan ceremonies. The house was still as the grave in the noontide, when the youth glided into the cell of the sleeping Nereus, and deftly abstracted from his tunic the key which he wanted. Armed with this, he slipped into the tablinum, or private room, of Pudens—whom he knew to be on duty at the Palace—and had already opened the casket in which he kept his money, when he was startled by a low voice and a gliding footstep. ”

“ Why choose her niece?"
"Because I liked her." Nobili was driven to bay. "A man chooses the woman he likes."
"How strange!" exclaimed Nera, throwing up her hands. "How strange!—A pale-faced school-girl! But—ha! ha!"— (that discordant laugh almost betrayed her) —"she is not so, it seems."
Nobili changed color. With every word Nera uttered, he grew hot or cold, soothed or wild, by turns. Nera watched it all. She read Nobili like a book.
"How cunning Enrica Guinigi must be!—very cunning!" Nera repeated as if the idea had just struck her. "The marchesa's tool!—They are so poor!—Her niece! ”

“ Enrica's distrust of him, her silence, her tears, cut Nobili to the soul. He knows he deserves it. Ah!—with her there before him, how he curses himself for ever having doubted her! Every justification suddenly leaves him. He is utterly confounded. The gossip of the club—Count Marescotti and his miserable verses—the marchesa herself—what are they all beside the purity of those saint-like eyes? Nera, too—false, fickle, sensual Nera—a mere thing of flesh and blood—he had left her for Nera! ”

“ Nero rose in a passion. Fearful lest she should goad him too far, Poppæa called him to her side and changed her tone.
‘Your home is empty, Nero,’ she said. ‘No child will succeed you. I have a little son. Octavia must be dismissed, if you would have an heir to be Emperor of Rome.’
‘How can I dismiss her?’ said Nero gloomily. ‘Even my freedmen espouse her cause. Doryphorus is for her, and Pallas.’
‘Doryphorus! Pallas!’ she repeated, with a laugh of ringing scorn. ‘An effeminate slave-minion; a miserly dotard! Tush, Cæsar! be a man. Sweep aside these flies. Poison them both ”

“ Little Nerina alone gave him that unquestioning, blind belief which is so dear to the soul of man. Nerina was convinced that at his call the whole of the Valdedera would rise full-armed, and that no hostile power on earth would dare to touch the water. ”

“ Then Junia fled back through the deserted streets. Nereus had begun to be anxious at her long delay, and listened to her story with a grave face. He had never liked Onesimus, and the youth’s many sins and errors might well have shaken his confidence. But he and Junia had read not long before the letter which Paul of Tarsus had written to their brother-Christians in Corinth; and, if he wavered for a moment, he was decided in the cause of mercy by Junia’s whispered words, ‘Love suffereth long and is kind; love thinketh no evil; beareth all things; believeth all things; endureth all things ”

“ There were points in it which might perhaps have touched the heart of Nero if Poppæa and Tigellinus had not been at his elbow as the evil genii of his degradation. But, when the tablets of Octavia came, Nero was sitting with the enchantress. Taking them out of his hands, she turned the letter into such ridicule, and laughed over it so sweetly and so immoderately, and mixed her silvery laughter with so many acts of fascination, that the fear of her ridicule—to which, like all vain persons, Nero was inordinately sensitive—quenched in his heart all thoughts of mercy. ”

“ Hylas, Hylas, speak,
Nerina calls thee! speak to thy Nerina!
Mir. What cannot love do? It revives the dead,
He's come to himself again!
Hyl. What god is it
That has the power to return my soul
From the Elysian fields?
Mir. It is no god:
A goddess rather, Hylas. 'Tis Nerina,
Look where she is!
Hyl. Ah! then I do not wonder
I cannot die, when my best soul comes to me:
Shall we live ever thus? ”

“ Nerina was mute. To dispute what Don Silverio said was like blasphemy to her; she honoured him with all her soul, but she loved Adone.
She loved the Edera water too; that fair green rippling water, on whose bank she had sat naked under the dock leaves the day the two rams had fought. That which was threatened was an unholy, wicked, cruel robbery. Was it indeed necessary to yield to it in submission?
She remembered a saying of Baruffo's: "If a man stand up to me I leave him some coins in his pocket, some life in his body; but if he crouch and cringe I stick him in the throat. ”

“ Nera was dead to him. Dead?—Fool!—And did he think that any thing can die? Do not our very thoughts rise up and haunt us in some subtile consequence of after-life? Nothing dies—nothing is isolated. Each act of daily intercourse—the merest trifle, as the gravest issue—makes up the chain of life. Link by link that chain draws on, weighted with good or ill, and clings about us to the very grave.
Thinking of Nera, Nobili's color changed—a dark look clouded his ready smile. Enrica asked, "What pains you?" ”

“ In these somewhat meagre accounts of the Lamia of the Sea, there are several points in harmony with the general conception of Nereids. She is beautiful; she seeks the love of young men, even though that love mean death to them; she is sweet of voice and untiring in dance; and she passes to and fro in waterspout or whirlwind. It is not surprising then to find that in Elis she is actually named queen of the Nereids [443] , that is, without doubt, of the sea-nymphs only, since she herself has her domain only in the sea. ”

“ She was la bimba to them all; a brave little soul and honest; they respected her as if she were one of their own children, or one of their own sisters, and Nernia coming through the starlight, with an old musket slung at her back, which Adone had taught her to use, and her small, bronzed feet leaping over the ground like a young goat's, was a figure which soon became familiar and welcome to the people. She seemed to them like a harbinger of hope; she had few words, but those words reverberated with courage and energy ”

“ But, Octavia, something—some voice like that of a god within me—tells me that it will be happier to die than to live.’
That evening, when Tigellinus left him, Nero first realised, with a start of horror, that he was on the eve of a fearful crime. By a rare accident he was alone. One of the reasons why he knew so little of himself was that he scarcely ever endured a moment’s solitude. From the time that he awoke in the morning till the latest hour of his nightly revels, he was surrounded by flatterers and favourites, by dissolute young nobles or adoring slaves. ”

“ What say you, comrades? It will be a novel excitement to toss a girl.’
‘Brutes!’ said Pudens, ‘whoever you are—brutes and not Romans! Would you insult and injure a modest maiden, slave though she be? Stand back at your peril.’
But Nero, excited with wine, and closely followed by Pollio and Sagitta, was still endeavouring to drag away Junia, who clung convulsively to her father, when a blow from the strong hand of Pudens sent him staggering to the wall. He stumbled over a stone in the street, the mask slipped down from his face, and Pudens saw who it was. ”

“ The Nereides were the daughters of Nereus and Doris, and were nymphs of the Mediterranean Sea.
They are similar in appearance to the Oceanides, but their beauty is of a less shadowy order, and is more like that of mortals. They wear a flowing, pale green robe; their liquid eyes resemble, in their clear depths, the lucid waters of the sea they inhabit; their hair floats carelessly over their shoulders, and assumes the greenish tint of the water itself, which, far from deteriorating from their beauty, greatly adds to its effect. ”

“ Was it the people who had broken into sedition? Not at all. It was only the clientage and varletry of Octavia who had dared to assume the people’s name. If they had but found a leader, who could say whether Nero might not by this time have been a fugitive or a mangled corpse?
‘The tumult has been aimed at you,’ she cried, ‘not at me. What harm have I done to any one, that they should hate me? Do they hate me because I shall give Cæsar a genuine heir? Do they prefer the offspring of Octavia and some Egyptian flute-player? Be a man, Nero! ”

“ Nero was more than three years his senior, and in superficial qualities and graces outshone him; but keen observers whispered that though Britannicus could not sing or paint or drive a chariot like his stepbrother, and was less fascinating in manner and appearance, he would far surpass Nero in all manly and Roman virtues. The heart of Octavia was full of unspeakable misgivings. Motherless, unloved, neglected, she had known no aspect of life except its tragedy, and none had as yet taught her any possible region in which to look for comfort under the burden of the intolerable mystery. ”

“ And again, moved by strong passion, he spurned him with his foot.
‘Is there one house in Rome, father,’ she said, ‘in which there are not thieves? in which there are not men—aye, and women too—who steal, and would murder if they could? Is he worse than thousands whom yet we do not see chained in the prisons or rotting on the crosses? And have we not all sinned? and did not Jesus say, “Forgive one another your trespasses”?’
A half-suppressed groan from Onesimus stopped the conversation.
‘I know not what to do,’ said Nereus. ‘Go back, my child, to your cell and to your distaff. ”

“ Firmly, but not ungently, he laid his hand on the young prince’s mouth.
‘Hush,’ he said, ‘ere you do yourself fatal harm. Boy, these questions are not for you or me to settle. They are for the Senate, and the Prætorians, and the Roman people. If the soldiers have elected Nero, and the senators have confirmed their choice, he is your Emperor, and you must obey.’
‘It is useless to resist, my brother,’ said Octavia, sadly. ‘Our father is dead. Narcissus has been sent away. We have none to help us.’
‘None to help you, ungrateful girl!’ said Agrippina. ‘Are not you now the Empress? ”