Portia, the lady whom Bassanio hoped to win for his wife, had
inherited great wealth, but there was one strange clause in her
father’s will. She was not free to choose her own husband. Her father
had ordained that there should be three caskets--one of gold, one of
silver, one of lead--and Portia’s portrait was to be placed in one of
these caskets. Every suitor had to make his choice, and whoever was
fortunate enough to select the one containing the portrait was to be
rewarded with the lady’s hand.
The report of Portia’s wealth and wondrous beauty spread abroad, and
many adventurers came in search of her. Portia liked none of them, and
felt much aggrieved to be so curbed by her dead father’s will. Her
waiting-maid Nerissa tried to console her by reminding her how wise
and good her father had always been. Holy men, she said, had often at
their deaths good inspirations, and it would very likely come to pass
that the casket would never be rightly chosen except by someone who
rightly loved.
Portia listened, but she was scarcely convinced. Among her suitors
there was not one for whom she felt anything but ridicule or contempt.
She was therefore delighted when Nerissa went on to tell her that the
gentlemen were departing to their own homes, and intended to trouble
her no further, unless she could be won by some other means than those
imposed by her father.
“I am glad the parcel of wooers are so reasonable, for there is not
one among them but I doat on his very absence!” said Portia gaily.
“Heaven grant them a fair departure!”
“Do you not remember, lady, in your father’s time, a Venetian, a
scholar and a soldier, that came here in company of the Marquis of
Monferrat?” asked Nerissa.
“Yes, yes, it was Bassanio,” answered Portia quickly; then, more
slowly, as if she would not have Nerissa notice her eagerness, “I
_think_ he was so called.”
“True, madam. He, of all the men that ever my foolish eyes looked
upon, was the best deserving a fair lady.”
“I remember him well, and I remember him worthy of your praise,” said
Portia.
At that moment a serving-man entered to say that four stranger lords
desired to take their leave of the lady Portia, and that a forerunner
had come from a fifth, the Prince of Morocco, who brought word that
his master would be there that night.
“Come, Nerissa,” said Portia, with a little gesture of half-comic
despair. “While we shut the gates upon one wooer, another knocks at
the door.”
* * * * *
The caskets were duly set out in order, and the Prince of Morocco was
to make his choice. The first, of gold, bore this inscription:
=“Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.”=
The second, of silver, carried this promise:
=“Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.”=
The third, dull lead, had this blunt warning:
=“Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.”=
Long and carefully the Prince of Morocco pondered, seeking to discover
the hidden meaning that lay in each mysterious inscription. But at
last his decision was made.
“Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.”
“Why, that’s the lady,” reflected the Prince. “All the world desires
her; they come from the four corners of the earth to behold fair
Portia. One of these three caskets contains her picture. Is it likely
that lead contains her? That is too base a thought. Or shall I think
she is immured in silver, when gold is ten times more valuable? Give
me the key. I choose here.”
“There, take it, Prince,” said Portia, “and if my picture is there,
then I am yours.”
The Prince of Morocco unlocked the golden casket. And what did he
behold?... Not the fair image of the lovely Portia, but a grinning
skull. In the empty eye there was a written scroll, and this is what
it said:
“All that glisters is not gold;
Often you have heard that told:
Many a man his life hath sold
But my outside to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms infold.
Had you been as wise as bold,
Young in limbs, in judgment old,
Your answer had not been inscrolled.
Fare you well; your suit is cold.”
“Cold indeed; and labour lost: then farewell, heat, and welcome,
frost!” sighed the Prince; and there was nothing left for him to do
but to take a dignified departure.
The next suitor to put in an appearance was the Prince of Arragon, but
he was no more fortunate than the Prince of Morocco. His choice fell
on the silver casket, but for all his reward he found the portrait of
a blinking idiot. Portia gladly saw him depart, and at the same moment
arrived a messenger to announce the coming of a young Venetian lord.
Some instinct made Portia guess who was approaching, and she was not
mistaken; it was indeed the lord Bassanio.
Very different were the feelings with which Portia watched this suitor
make his choice from those she had experienced on former occasions.
She had even begged Bassanio to pause for a day or two, for if he
chose wrongly she would lose his company. But Bassanio replied that he
must choose at once, for as matters were now he lived upon the rack.
His chief dread was that Portia might not care for him, but the lady
soon comforted him on that point. Even if he lost the prize, he would
have the consolation of knowing that he was really loved.
Portia bade Nerissa and the rest stand all aloof, and ordered sweet
music to sound while Bassanio made his choice.
Like the Prince of Morocco and the Prince of Arragon, Bassanio
stood long in reflection before the fated caskets. But, unlike
these Princes, he made a happier choice. The gold and the silver he
rejected, for he knew how often appearances were deceitful; but the
humble lead, which rather threatened than promised anything, attracted
his fancy.
“Thou meagre lead, thy paleness moves me more than eloquence,” he
said. “Here I choose; joy be the consequence!”
Bassanio unlocked the leaden casket, and there he found the portrait
of the lady Portia, with her golden hair and her eyes smiling back at
him in greeting.
With the picture was a scroll, on which was written:
“You that choose not by the view,
Chance as fair and choose as true!
Since this fortune falls to you,
Be content and seek no new.
If you be well pleased with this,
And hold your fortune for your bliss,
Turn you where your lady is
And claim her with a loving kiss.”
“A gentle scroll. Fair lady, by your leave I come by note to give and
to receive,” said Bassanio, following the advice of the scroll. He was
almost dazed at his own good fortune, and scarcely dared to believe it
could be true until it was confirmed and ratified by the lady herself.
But Portia left him no doubt on that point, and her love and joy
overflowed in a generous surrender of herself and all her possessions
to her new-found “lord, her governor, her king.”
“This house, these servants, and myself are yours, my lord,” she
ended. “I give them with this ring, which when you part from, lose, or
give away, let it foretell the ruin of your love.”
Bassanio declared he had no words in which to answer; there was
nothing but a wild sense of joy. And as for the ring, he would never
part with it as long as he lived.
The happiness resulting from Bassanio’s choice of the right casket
did not end with themselves, for now another couple stepped forward,
and craved permission to be married at the same time as the lord and
the lady. One of Bassanio’s companions had come with him to Belmont,
a gay, feather-brained young fellow called Gratiano. This lively
chatterer had fixed his affections on Nerissa, the waiting-woman, and
their fate, too, hung on the caskets, for Nerissa promised that if
Bassanio succeeded in winning her mistress, _she_ would consent to
marry Gratiano. Nerissa, further, in imitation of Portia, gave her own
wooer a ring; and Gratiano, like Bassanio, swore that he would never
part with it.
“Revenge!”
Meanwhile, in Venice, things were not going well, either for Shylock
or for Antonio. The three months for which Antonio had borrowed the
money had almost expired, when a dreadful blow fell on the Jew.
Jessica, his only child, fled with a Christian. Not only this, but she
carried off with her rich plunder of money and jewels, stolen from
her father’s hoards. Shylock was almost out of his mind with rage and
grief, and from his frenzied ravings it was difficult to say which
loss he felt the most--that of his ducats or his daughter. Jessica, in
her heedless extravagance, squandered money right and left, and even a
precious turquoise ring which her mother had given to Shylock before
their marriage was not held sacred--Jessica bartered it at Genoa to a
sailor in exchange for a monkey!
The news of his daughter’s reckless prodigality cut Shylock to the
heart, but he had one source of consolation to which he turned with
savage glee. Antonio, the merchant, had met with heavy losses, and
one ship after another had been wrecked at sea. On the Rialto it was
reported that Antonio must certainly be bankrupt.
“Let him look to his bond!” cried Shylock. “He was wont to call me
usurer; let him look to his bond! He was wont to lend money for
Christian courtesy; let him look to his bond!”
“Why,” said one of Antonio’s friends, “I am sure if he forfeit you
will not take his flesh. What’s that good for?”
“To bait fish withal,” said Shylock, with a snarl like a tiger. “If
it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He has 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 my enemies: and what’s his reason? I am a Jew!... Hath not a
Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, senses, affections, passions?
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 prick us, do we not
bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we
not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like
you in the rest, we will resemble you also 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.”
And Shylock’s resolution was like rock--nothing could shake it. When
the bond fell due, and Antonio failed to meet it, Shylock had him
arrested, and insisted on the case being brought to trial before the
Duke of Venice. No arguments could move him, no appeals for mercy--not
even the offer of the money, if Antonio could have got it.
“I’ll have no speaking; I will have my bond,” was his only answer.
The Venetian gentleman with whom Jessica had fled to get
married--Lorenzo--was a friend of Antonio and Bassanio. The young
husband and wife in their flight happened to come across another
friend of theirs who was conveying the news of Antonio’s disaster to
Bassanio, and at his request Lorenzo and Jessica went with him to
Belmont. They reached the house at the very moment when everyone was
in the full tide of joy after the successful choosing of the casket.
Portia made them welcome, and Salerio handed a letter to Bassanio.
The latter turned so pale on reading it that Portia guessed something
terrible must have happened. She claimed her right as promised wife
to share in all that concerned Bassanio, and he told her without
hesitation how matters stood.
“Is it your dear friend who is thus in trouble?” asked Portia, when
she had heard the account of Antonio’s troubles, and how it was for
Bassanio’s sake he had run such a risk.
“The dearest friend to me, the kindest man!” answered Bassanio, “the
most unwearied in doing courtesies, and the most unsullied in honour.”
“What sum does he owe the Jew?”
“For me, three thousand ducats.”
“What! no more? Pay him six thousand and cancel the bond. Double six
thousand, and then treble that, before such a friend shall lose a hair
through Bassanio’s fault!” exclaimed Portia. “First go with me to
church and call me wife, then hasten to Venice, to your friend. You
shall have gold to pay the debt twenty times over.... But let me hear
the letter of your friend.”
“Sweet Bassanio,” ran the letter, “my ships have all miscarried, my
creditors grow cruel, my estate is very low, my bond to the Jew is
forfeit; and since, in paying it, it is impossible I should live,
all debts are cleared between you and me if I might but see you at
my death. Notwithstanding, use your pleasure; if your love do not
persuade you to come, let not my letter.”
“O love, despatch all business and begone!” cried Portia.
The two marriages were hastily solemnised, and then Bassanio and
Gratiano started at once for Venice.
When they were gone, Portia announced to Lorenzo and Jessica
that during her husband’s absence she intended to retire into
seclusion, and she committed the management of her house and estate
into their hands. Then she gave some hurried directions to a
serving-man--Balthasar; he was to carry a letter with all speed to
Padua, to a learned cousin of Portia’s--Doctor Bellario.
“Look what notes and garments he gives you,” she said, “and bring
them with all imaginable speed to Venice, to the public ferry. Waste
no time in words, but get you gone. I shall be there before you....
Come, Nerissa,” she continued, “I have work in hand that you do not
yet know of; we shall see our husbands before they think of us!”
“Shall they see us?” asked Nerissa.
“They shall, Nerissa, but in such a guise they will not know us.
I’ll wager you anything, when we are both dressed like young men,
I’ll prove the prettier fellow of the two, and wear my dagger with a
braver grace! But come, I’ll tell you my whole device when we are in
my coach, which waits for us at the park gates. Hasten, for we must
measure twenty miles to-day.”