[Opening the leaden casket.] Fair Portia’s counterfeit.89 What demi-god90
Hath come so near creation?91 Move these eyes?92 Or whether, riding on the balls of mine, Seem they in motion?93 Here are severed lips Parted with sugar breath. So sweet a bar Should sunder94 such sweet friends.95 Here in her hairs
The painter plays the spider, and hath woven A golden mesh t’entrap the hearts of men Faster than gnats96 in cobwebs. But her eyes— How could he see to do them? Having made one, Methinks97 it should have power to steal both his98
115
89. image/likeness 90. gifted painter 91. Came so close to imitating reality? 92. Are these eyes (of the painting) moving?
93. (lines 117–118) Or it is just the movement of my own eyes that makes them seem to be moving?
120
94. Keep apart 95. (lines 119–120) The breath (‘sweet bar’) that separates Portia’s lips (‘sweet friends’).