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Sol. Now what news on the Rialto?

Sal. Why, yet it lives there uncheck’d that Antonio hath a ship of rich lading wrack’d 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.

Sol. I would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever knapp’d 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—O that I had a title good enough to keep his name company!—

Sal. Come, the full stop.

Sol. Ha, what sayest thou? Why, the end is, he hath lost a ship.

Sal. I would it might prove the end of his losses.

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

Enter Shylock.

How now, Shylock, what news among the merchants?

Shy. You knew, none so well, none so well as you, of my daughter’s flight.