The Merchant of Venice - Shakespeare Right Now!

Solanio’s amusement is fading. “Let good Antonio look he keep his day,”—return the
borrowing timely, “or he shall pay for this!”
“Marry, well remembered,” says Salerio. “I conversed with a Frenchman yesterday who told
me that, in the narrow seas which part the French and English, there miscarried a vessel of our
country, richly fraught. I thought upon Antonio when he told me—and hoped in silence that it
were not his!”
“You were best to tell Antonio what you hear,” Solanio advises. “Yet do not suddenly, for it
may grieve him.”
“A kinder gentleman treads not the earth! I saw Bassanio and Antonio part. Bassanio told him
he would make some speed for his return; he answered, ‘Do not so! Slubber not business for my
sake, Bassanio, but await the very riping of the time! And as for the Jew’s bond which he hath of
me, let it not enter in your mind of love!
“‘Be merry, and employ your chiefest thoughts to courtship, and such fair ostents of love as
shall usefully become you there!’
“And even then, his eye being big with tears, turning his face he put his hand before him, and
with affection wondrously apparent, he wrung Bassanio’s hand. And so they parted.”
“I think he only loves the world for him,” says Solanio. “I pray thee, let us go and find him
out, and quicken his embracèd heaviness with some delight or other!”
“Do we so!”
A
t Portia’s mansion, Nerissa dashes into the hall of three caskets. “Quick, quick, I pray
thee, draw the curtain straight!” she tells a servant. “The Prince of Aragon hath ta’en his
oath, and comes to his election presently!”
A flourish of cornets announces the prince, a tall, red-faced man with white hair and a trim,
pointed white beard. He sweeps into the room beside Lady Portia, as their trains follow.
“Behold, there stand the caskets, noble prince,” says she. “If you choose that wherein I am
contained, straight shall our nuptial rites be solemnized. But if you fail, without more speech, my
lord, you must be gone from hence immediately.”
Aragon, dignified and erect, nods curtly. “I am enjoined by oath to observe three things. First,
never to unfold to anyone which casket ’twas I chose; next, if I fail of the right casket, never in
my life to woo a maid in way of marriage; lastly, if I do fail in fortune of my choice, immediately
to leave you and be gone.” Clearly he is chafed, unaccustomed to restrictions.
Notes Portia, “To these injunctions, every one doth swear who comes to hazard for my
worthless self.”
“And so have I addressed me,” says Aragon. Nerissa almost laughs, noting his gaffe: he
would demur at Portia’s purely polite attempt to sooth, were he concerned about anyone but
himself. He steps toward the three locked chests. “Fortune now to my heart’s hope!
“Gold, silver—and base lead. ‘Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.’” He
sniffs. ”You shall look fairer, ere I give or hazard.
“What says the golden chest, eh? Let me see. ‘Who chooseth me shall gain what many men
desire.’ What many men desire!” But he strokes his beard. “By that ‘many’ may be meant the
fool multitude that choose by show, not learning more than the fond eye doth teach—which pries
not to the interior, but, like the martlet, builds in the weather on the outward wall, even in the
road and force of casualty.
“I will not choose what many men desire, because I will not jump with common spirits, and
rank me with the barbarous multitudes!
“Why, then to thee, thou silver treasure-house! Tell me once more what title thou dost bear:
‘Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.’ And well said, too!—for some shall go
about to cozen fortune and seem honourable. Let none without the stamp of merit presume to
wear an undeservèd dignity!
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