Part 39 (1/2)
And all the wild boys in Venice follow after him mocking him and crying, ”His stones, his daughter and his ducats!”
So finding nowhere love or sympathy but everywhere only mockery and cruel laughter, Shylock vows vengeance. The world has treated him ill, and he will repay the world with ill, and chiefly against Antonio does his anger grow bitter.
Then Antonio's friends shake their heads and say, ”Let him beware the hatred of the Jew.” They look gravely at each other, for it is whispered abroad that ”Antonio hath a s.h.i.+p of rich lading wreck'd on the narrow seas.”
Then let Antonio beware.
”Thou wilt not take his flesh,” says one of the young merchant's friends to Shylock. ”What's that good for?”
”To bait fish withal,” snarls the Jew. ”If it will feed nothing else it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, pa.s.sions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you p.r.i.c.k us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? If you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge.
The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.”
Then let Antonio beware.
Meantime in Belmont many lovers come to woo fair Portia. With high hope they come, with anger and disappointment they go away.
None can win the lady's hand. For there is a riddle here of which none know the meaning.
When a suitor presents himself and asks for the lady's hand in marriage, he is shown three caskets, one of gold, one of silver, and one of lead. Upon the golden one is written the words, ”Who chooseth me, shall gain what many men desire”; upon the silver casket are the words, ”Who chooseth me, shall get as much as he deserves”; and upon the leaden one, ”Who chooseth me, must give and hazard all he hath.” And only whoso chooseth aright, each suitor is told, can win the lady.
This trial of all suitors had been ordered by Portia's father ere he died, so that only a worthy and true man might win his daughter. Some suitors choose the gold, some the silver casket, but all, princes, barons, counts, and dukes, alike choose wrong.
At length Ba.s.sanio comes. Already he loves Portia and she loves him. There is no need of any trail of the caskets. Yet it must be. Her father's will must be obeyed. But what if he choose wrong. That is Portia's fear.
”I pray you, tarry; pause a day or two Before you hazard; for, in choosing wrong, I lose your company,”
she says.
But Ba.s.sanio cannot wait:--
”Let me choose; For, as I am, I live upon the rack.”
And so he stands before the caskets, longing to make a choice, yet fearful. The gold he rejects, the silver too, and lays his hand upon the leaden casket. He opens it. Oh, joy! within is a portrait of his lady. He has chosen aright. yet he can scarce believe his happiness.
”I am,” he says,
”Like one of two contending in a prize, That thinks he hath done well in people's eyes, Hearing applause, and universal shout, Giddy in spirit, still gazing in a doubt Whether those pearls of praise be his or no; So, thrice fair lady, stand I, even so; As doubtful whether what I see be true, Until confirm'd, sign'd, ratifi'd by you.”
And Portia, happy, triumphant, humble, no longer the great lady with untold wealth, with lands and palaces and radiant beauty, but merely a woman who has given her love, answers:--
”You see me, Lord Ba.s.sanio, where I stand, Such as I am: though, for myself alone, I would not be ambitious in my wish, To wish myself much better; yet, for you, I would be trebled twenty times myself; A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times More rich; That only to stand high on your account, I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends, Exceed account: but the full sum of me Is sum of something: which, to term in gross, Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractis'd, Happy in this, she is not yet so old But she may learn; happier than this, She is not bred so dull but she can learn; Happiest of all, is, that her gentle spirit Commite itself to yours to be directed, As from her lord, her governor, her king.
Myself, and what is mine, to you, and yours Is now converted; but now I was the lord Of this fair mansion, master of my servants, Queen o'er myself; and even now, but now, This house, these servants, and this same myself, Are yours, my lord.”
Then as a pledge of all her love Portia gives to Ba.s.sanio a ring, and bids him never part from it so long as he shall live. And Ba.s.sanio taking it, gladly swears to keep it forever.
”But when this ring Parts from this finger, then parts life from hence; O, then be bold to say, Ba.s.sanio's dead.”
And then as if to make the joy complete, it is discovered that Portia's lady in waiting, Nerissa, and Ba.s.sanio's friend, Gratiano, also love each other, and they all agree to be married on the same day.
In the midst of this happiness the runaway couple, Lorenzo and Jessica, arrive from Venice with another of Antonio's friends who brings a letter to Ba.s.sanio. As Ba.s.sanio reads the letter all the gladness fades from his face. He grows pale and trembles.