Nerissa
Then there is the County Palatine.
Portia
He doth nothing but frown, as who should say “If you will not have me, choose:” he hears merry tales and smiles not: I fear he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old, being so full of unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather be married to a death’s-head with a bone in his mouth than to either of these. God defend me from these two!
Nerissa
How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon?
Portia
God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker: but, he! why, he hath a horse better than the Neapolitan’s, a better bad habit of frowning than the Count Palatine; he is every man in no man; if a throstle sing, he falls straight a capering: he will fence with his own shadow: if I should marry him, I should marry twenty husbands. If he would despise me I would forgive him, for if he love me to madness, I shall never requite him.
Nerissa
What say you, then, to Falconbridge, the young baron of England?