marvellous scene, we must go along with Portia as well as with Shylock;
we must understand her concealed purpose, keep in mind her noble
motives, and pursue in our fancy the under current of feeling, working
in her mind throughout. The terror and the power of Shylock's
character,--his deadly and inexorable malice,--would be too oppressive;
the pain and pity too intolerable, and the horror of the possible issue
too overwhelming, but for the intellectual relief afforded by this
double source of interest and contemplation.
I come now to that capacity for warm and generous affection, that
tenderness of heart, which render Portia not less lovable as a woman,
than admirable for her mental endowments. The affections are to the
intellect, what the forge is to the metal; it is they which temper and
shape it to all good purposes, and soften, strengthen, and purify it.
What an exquisite stroke of judgment in the poet, to make the mutual
passion of Portia and Bassanio, though unacknowledged to each other,
anterior to the opening of the play! Bassanio's confession very properly
comes first:--
BASSANIO.
In Belmont is a lady richly left,
And she is fair, and fairer than that word,
Of wond'rous virtues: sometimes from her eyes
I did receive fair speechless messages;
* * * *
and prepares us for Portia's half betrayed, unconscious election of this
most graceful and chivalrous admirer--
NERISSA.
Do you not remember, lady, in your father's time, a
Venetian, a scholar, and a soldier, that came hither in
company of the Marquis of Montferrat?
PORTIA.
Yes, yes, it was Bassanio; as I think, so he was called.
NERISSA.
True, madam; he of all the men that ever my foolish
eyes looked upon, was the best deserving a fair
lady.
PORTIA.
I remember him well; and I remember him worthy of
thy praise.
Our interest is thus awakened for the lovers from the very first; and
what shall be said of the casket-scene with Bassanio, where every line
which Portia speaks is so worthy of herself, so full of sentiment and
beauty, and poetry and passion? Too naturally frank for disguise, too
modest to confess her depth of love while the issue of the trial remains
in suspense, the conflict between love and fear, and maidenly dignity,
cause the most delicious confusion that ever tinged a woman's cheek, or
dropped in broken utterance from her lips.
I pray you, tarry, pause a day or two,
Before you hazard; for in choosing wrong,
I lose your company; therefore, forbear awhile;
There's something tells me, (but it is not love,)
I would not lose you; and you know yourself,
Hate counsels not in such a quality:
But lest you should not understand me well,
(And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought)
I would detain you here some month or two
Before you venture for me. I could teach you
How to choose right,--but then I am forsworn;--
So will I never be: so you may miss me;--
But if you do, you'll make me wish a sin,
That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes,
They have o'erlooked me, and divided me:
One half of me is yours, the other half yours,--
Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours,
And so all yours!
The short dialogue between the lovers is exquisite.
BASSANIO.
Let me choose,
For, as I am, I live upon the rack.
PORTIA.
Upon the rack, Bassanio? Then confess
What treason there is mingled with your love.
BASSANIO.
None, but that ugly treason of mistrust,
Which makes me fear the enjoying of my love.
There may as well be amity and life
'Tween snow and fire, as treason and my love.
PORTIA.
Ay! but I fear you speak upon the rack,
Where men enforced do speak any thing.
BASSANIO.
Promise me life, and I'll confess the truth.
PORTIA.
Well then, confess, and live.
BASSANIO.
Confess and love
Had been the very sum of my confession!
O happy torment, when my torturer
Doth teach me answers for deliverance!
A prominent feature in Portia's character is that confiding, buoyant
spirit, which mingles with all her thoughts and affections. And here let
me observe, that I never yet met in real life, nor ever read in tale or
history, of any woman, distinguished for intellect of the highest
order, who was not also remarkable for this trusting spirit, this
hopefulness and cheerfulness of temper, which is compatible with the
most serious habits of thought, and the most profound sensibility. Lady
Wortley Montagu was one instance; and Madame de Stael furnishes another
much more memorable. In her Corinne, whom she drew from herself, this
natural brightness of temper is a prominent part of the character. A
disposition to doubt, to suspect, and to despond, in the young, argues,
in general, some inherent weakness, moral or physical, or some miserable
and radical error of education; in the old, it is one of the first
symptoms of age; it speaks of the influence of sorrow and experience,
and foreshows the decay of the stronger and more generous powers of the
soul. Portia's strength of intellect takes a natural tinge from the
flush and bloom of her young and prosperous existence, and from her
fervent imagination. In the casket-scene, she fears indeed the issue of
the trial; on which more than her life is hazarded but while she
trembles, her hope is stronger than her fear. While Bassanio is
contemplating the caskets, she suffers herself to dwell for one moment
on the possibility of disappointment and misery.
Let music sound while he doth make his choice;
Then if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,
Fading in music: that the comparison
May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream
And watery death-bed for him.
Then, immediately follows that revulsion of feeling, so beautifully
characteristic of the hopeful, trusting, mounting spirit of this noble
creature.
But he may win!
And what is music then?--then music is
Even as the flourish, when true subjects bow
To a new-crowned monarch: such it is
As are those dulcet sounds at break of day,
That creep into the dreaming bridegroom's ear,
And summon him to marriage. Now he goes
With no less presence, but with much more love
Than young Alcides, when he did redeem
The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy
To the sea monster. I stand here for sacrifice.
Here, not only the feeling itself, born of the elastic and sanguine
spirit which had never been touched by grief, but the images in which it
comes arrayed to her fancy,--the bridegroom waked by music on his
wedding-morn,--the new-crowned monarch,--the comparison of Bassanio to
the young Alcides, and of herself to the daughter of Laomedon,--are all
precisely what would have suggested themselves to the fine poetical
imagination of Portia in such a moment.
Her passionate exclamations of delight, when Bassanio has fixed on the
right casket, are as strong as though she had despaired before. Fear and
doubt she could repel; the native elasticity of her mind bore up against
them; yet she makes us feel, that, as the sudden joy overpowers her
almost to fainting, the disappointment would as certainly have killed
her.
How all the other passions fleet to air,
As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embraced despair,
And shudd'ring fear, and green-eyed jealousy?
O love! be moderate, allay thy ecstasy;
In measure rain thy joy scant this excess;
I feel too much thy blessing: make it less,
For fear I surfeit!
Her subsequent surrender of herself in heart and soul, of her maiden
freedom, and her vast possessions, can never be read without deep
emotions; for not only all the tenderness and delicacy of a devoted
woman, are here blended with all the dignity which becomes the princely
heiress of Belmont, but the serious, measured self-possession of her
address to her lover, when all suspense is over, and all concealment
superfluous, is most beautifully consistent with the character. It is,
in truth, an awful moment, that in which a gifted woman first discovers,
that besides talents and powers, she has also passions and affections;
when she first begins to suspect their vast importance in the sum of her
existence; when she first confesses that her happiness is no longer in
her own keeping, but is surrendered forever and forever into the
dominion of another! The possession of uncommon powers of mind are so
far from affording relief or resource in the first intoxicating
surprise--I had almost said terror--of such a revolution, that they
render it more intense. The sources of thought multiply beyond
calculation the sources of feeling; and mingled, they rush together, a
torrent deep as strong. Because Portia is endued with that enlarged
comprehension which looks before and after, she does not feel the less,
but the more: because from the height of her commanding intellect she
can contemplate the force, the tendency, the consequences of her own
sentiments--because she is fully sensible of her own situation, and the
value of all she concedes--the concession is not made with less
entireness and devotion of heart, less confidence in the truth and worth
of her lover, than when Juliet, in a similar moment, but without any
such intrusive reflections--any check but the instinctive delicacy of
her sex, flings herself and her fortunes at the feet of her lover:
And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay,
And follow thee, my lord, through all the world.[11]
In Portia's confession, which is not breathed from a moonlit balcony,
but spoken openly in the presence of her attendants and vassals, there
is nothing of the passionate self-abandonment of Juliet, nor of the
artless simplicity of Miranda, but a consciousness and a tender
seriousness, approaching to solemnity, which are not less touching.
You see me, Lord Bassanio, 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 in 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; and happier than this,
She is not bred so dull but she can learn;
Happiest of all is, that her gentle spirit
Commits 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.
We must also remark that the sweetness, the solicitude, the subdued
fondness which she afterwards displays, relative to the letter, are as
true to the softness of her sex, as the generous self-denial with which
she urges the departure of Bassanio, (having first given him a husband's
right over herself and all her countless wealth,) is consistent with a
reflecting mind, and a spirit at once tender, reasonable, and
magnanimous.
It is not only in the trial scene that Portia's acuteness, eloquence,
and lively intelligence are revealed to us; they are displayed in the
first instance, and kept up consistently to the end. Her reflections,
arising from the most usual aspects of nature, and from the commonest
incidents of life are in such a poetical spirit, and are at the same
time so pointed, so profound, that they have passed into familiar and
daily application, with all the force of proverbs.
If to do, were as easy as to know what were good to do,
chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes'
palaces.
I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be
one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.
The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark,
When neither is attended; and, I think,
The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.
How many things by season, seasoned are
To their right praise and true perfection!
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
A substitute shines as brightly as a king,
Until a king be by; and then his state
Empties itself, as doth an inland brook,
Into the main of waters.
Her reflections on the friendship between her husband and Antonio are as
full of deep meaning as of tenderness; and her portrait of a young
coxcomb, in the same scene, is touched with a truth and spirit which
show with what a keen observing eye she has looked upon men and things.
----I'll hold thee any wager,
When we are both accouter'd like young men.
I'll prove the prettier fellow of the two,
And wear my dagger with the braver grace
And speak, between the change of man and boy
With a reed voice; and turn two mincing steps
Into a manly stride; and speak of frays,
Like a fine bragging youth; and tell quaint lies--
How honorable ladies sought my love,
Which I denying, they fell sick and died;
I could not do withal: then I'll repent,
And wish, for all that, that I had not killed them;
And twenty of these puny lies I'll tell,
That men should swear, I have discontinued school
Above a twelvemonth!
And in the description of her various suitors, in the first scene with
Nerissa, what infinite power, wit, and vivacity! She half checks herself
as she is about to give the reins to her sportive humor: "In truth, I
know it is a sin to be a mocker."--But if it carries her away, if is so
perfectly good-natured, so temperately bright, so lady-like, it is ever
without offence; and so far, most unlike the satirical, poignant,
unsparing wit of Beatrice, "misprising what she looks on." In fact, I
can scarce conceive a greater contrast than between the vivacity of
Portia and the vivacity of Beatrice. Portia, with all her airy
brilliance, is supremely soft and dignified; every thing she says or
does, displays her capability for profound thought and feeling, as well
as her lively and romantic disposition; and as I have seen in an Italian
garden a fountain flinging round its wreaths of showery light, while the
many-colored Iris hung brooding above it, in its calm and soul-felt
glory; so in Portia the wit is ever kept subordinate to the poetry, and
we still feel the tender, the intellectual, and the imaginative part of
the character, as superior to, and presiding over its spirit and
vivacity.
In the last act, Shylock and his machinations being dismissed from our
thoughts, and the rest of the _dramatis personae_ assembled together at
Belmont, all our interest and all our attention are riveted on Portia,
and the conclusion leaves the most delightful impression on the fancy.
The playful equivoque of the rings, the sportive trick she puts on her
husband, and her thorough enjoyment of the jest, which she checks just
as it is proceeding beyond the bounds of propriety, show how little she
was displeased by the sacrifice of her gift, and are all consistent with
her bright and buoyant spirit. In conclusion; when Portia invites her
company to enter her palace to refresh themselves after their travels,
and talk over "these events at full," the imagination, unwilling to lose
sight of the brilliant group, follows them in gay procession from the
lovely moonlight garden to marble halls and princely revels, to splendor
and festive mirth, to love and happiness.
Many women have possessed many of those qualities which render Portia so
delightful. She is in herself a piece of reality, in whose possible
existence we have no doubt: and yet a human being, in whom the moral,
intellectual, and sentient faculties should be so exquisitely blended
and proportioned to each other; and these again, in harmony with all
outward aspects and influences probably never existed--certainly could
not now exist. A woman constituted like Portia, and placed in this age,
and in the actual state of society, would find society armed against
her; and instead of being like Portia, a gracious, happy, beloved, and
loving creature, would be a victim, immolated in fire to that
multitudinous Moloch termed Opinion. With her, the world without would
be at war with the world within; in the perpetual strife, either her
nature would "be subdued to the element it worked in," and bending to a
necessity it could neither escape nor approve, lose at last something of
its original brightness; or otherwise--a perpetual spirit of resistance,
cherished as a safeguard, might perhaps in the end destroy the
equipoise; firmness would become pride and self-assurance; and the soft,
sweet, feminine texture of the mind, settle into rigidity. Is there then
no sanctuary for such a mind?--Where shall it find a refuge from the
world?--Where seek for strength against itself? Where, but in heaven?
Camiola, in Massinger's Maid of Honor, is said to emulate Portia; and
the real story of Camiola (for she is an historical personage) is very
beautiful. She was a lady of Messina, who lived in the beginning of the
fourteenth century; and was the contemporary of Queen Joanna, of
Petrarch and Boccaccio. It fell out in those days, that Prince Orlando
of Arragon, the younger brother of the King of Sicily, having taken the
command of a naval armament against the Neapolitans, was defeated,
wounded, taken prisoner, and confined by Robert of Naples (the father of
Queen Joanna) in one of his strongest castles. As the prince had
distinguished himself by his enmity to the Neapolitans, and by many
exploits against them, his ransom was fixed at an exorbitant sum, and
his captivity was unusually severe; while the King of Sicily, who had
some cause of displeasure against his brother, and imputed to him the
defeat of his armament, refused either to negotiate for his release, or
to pay the ransom demanded.
Orlando, who was celebrated for his fine person and reckless valour, was
apparently doomed to languish away the rest of his life in a dungeon,
when Camiola Turinga, a rich Sicilian heiress, devoted the half of her
fortune to release him. But as such an action might expose her to evil
comments, she made it a condition, that Orlando should marry her. The
prince gladly accepted the terms, and sent her the contract of marriage,
signed by his hand; but no sooner was he at liberty, than he refused to
fulfil it, and even denied all knowledge of his benefactress.
Camiola appealed to the tribunal of state, produced the written
contract, and described the obligations she had heaped on this
ungrateful and ungenerous man; sentence was given against him, and he
was adjudged to Camiola, not only as her rightful husband, but as a
property which, according to the laws of war in that age, she had
purchased with her gold. The day of marriage was fixed; Orlando
presented himself with a splendid retinue; Camiola also appeared,
decorated as for her bridal; but instead of bestowing her hand on the
recreant, she reproached him in the presence of all with his breach of
faith, declared her utter contempt for his baseness; and then freely
bestowing on him the sum paid for his ransom, as a gift worthy of his
mean soul, she turned away, and dedicated herself and her heart to
heaven. In this resolution she remained inflexible, though the king and
all the court united in entreaties to soften her. She took the veil; and
Orlando, henceforth regarded as one who had stained his knighthood, and
violated his faith, passed the rest of his life as a dishonored man, and
died in obscurity.
Camiola, in "The Maid of Honor," is, like Portia, a wealthy heiress,
surrounded by suitors, and "queen o'er herself:" the character is
constructed upon the same principles, as great intellectual power,
magnanimity of temper, and feminine tenderness; but not only do pain and
disquiet, and the change induced by unkind and inauspicious influences,
enter into this sweet picture to mar and cloud its happy beauty,--but
the portrait itself may be pronounced out of drawing;--for Massinger
apparently had not sufficient delicacy of sentiment to work out his own
conception of the character with perfect consistency. In his adaptation
of the story he represents the mutual love of Orlando and Camiola as
existing previous to the captivity of the former, and on his part
declared with many vows of eternal faith, yet she requires a written
contract of marriage before she liberates him. It will perhaps be said
that she has penetrated his weakness, and anticipates his falsehood:
miserable excuse!--how could a magnanimous woman love a man, whose
falsehood she believes but _possible_?--or loving him, how could she
deign to secure herself by such means against the consequences?
Shakspeare and Nature never committed such a solecism. Camiola doubts
before she has been wronged; the firmness and assurance in herself
border on harshness. What in Portia is the gentle wisdom of a noble
nature, appears, in Camiola, too much a spirit of calculation: it savors
a little of the counting house. As Portia is the heiress of Belmont, and
Camiola a merchant's daughter, the distinction may be proper and
characteristic, but it is not in favor of Camiola. The contrast may be
thus illustrated:
CAMIOLA.
You have heard of Bertoldo's captivity and the king's
neglect, the greatness of his ransom; _fifty thousand
crowns_, Adorni! _Two parts of my estate!_ Yet I so love the
gentleman, for to you I will confess my weakness, that I
purpose now, when he is forsaken by the king and his own
hopes, to ransom him.
_Maid of Honor_, _Act. 3_.
PORTIA.
What sum owes he the Jew?
BASSANIO.
For me--three thousand ducats.
PORTIA.
What! _no more!_
Pay him six thousand and deface the bond,
Double six thousand, and then treble that,
Before a friend of this description
Shall lose a hair thro' my Bassanio's fault.
----You shall have gold
To pay the _petty debt_ twenty times o'er.
_Merchant of Venice._
Camiola, who is a Sicilian, might as well have been born at Amsterdam:
Portia could have only existed in Italy. Portia is profound as she is
brilliant; Camiola is sensible and sententious; she asserts her dignity
very successfully; but we cannot for a moment imagine Portia as reduced
to the necessity of asserting hers. The idiot Sylli, in "The Maid of
Honor," who follows Camiola like one of the deformed dwarfs of old time,
is an intolerable violation of taste and propriety, and it sensibly
lowers our impression of the principal character. Shakspeare would never
have placed Sir Andrew Aguecheek in constant and immediate approximation
with such a woman as Portia.
Lastly, the charm of the poetical coloring is wholly wanting in Camiola,
so that when she is placed in contrast with the glowing eloquence, the
luxuriant grace, the buoyant spirit of Portia, the effect is somewhat
that of coldness and formality. Notwithstanding the dignity and the
beauty of Massinger's delineation, and the noble self-devotion of
Camiola, which I acknowledge and admire, the two characters will admit
of no comparison as sources of contemplation and pleasure.
* * * * *
It is observable that something of the intellectual brilliance of Portia
is reflected on the other female characters of the "Merchant of Venice,"
so as to preserve in the midst of contrast a certain harmony and
keeping. Thus Jessica, though properly kept subordinate, is certainly
A most beautiful pagan--a most sweet Jew.
She cannot be called a sketch--or if a sketch, she is like one of those
dashed off in glowing colors from the rainbow pallette of a Rubens; she
has a rich tinge of orientalism shed over her, worthy of her eastern
origin. In any other play, and in any other companionship than that of
the matchless Portia, Jessica would make a very beautiful heroine of
herself. Nothing can be more poetically, more classically fanciful and
elegant, than the scenes between her and Lorenzo;--the celebrated
moonlight dialogue, for instance, which we all have by heart. Every
sentiment she utters interests us for her:--more particularly her
bashful self-reproach, when flying in the disguise of a page;--
I am glad 'tis night, you do not look upon me,
For I am much asham'd of my exchange;
But love is blind, and lovers cannot see
The pretty follies that themselves commit;
For if they could, Cupid himself would blush
To see me thus transformed to a boy.