A Merry Bond

Shunned, hated, despised, insulted, the Jews in the Middle Ages led a cruel and embittered existence among their Christian brethren. But beaten down and oppressed as they were in most of the countries of Europe, they still prospered as far as money matters were concerned, and, in spite of the demands continually levied on them, they contrived to amass large hoards of wealth. When the great nobles or merchant princes of those days got into difficulties, it was to the Jews they turned for help, and the enormous sums charged as interest for the loan enabled the Jews to fill their coffers rapidly.

Shylock was one of the richest Jews in Venice, although he lived in a wretched, penurious style, with only a clownish lad to act as servant. Shylock had one child, a pretty, flighty daughter called Jessica, whose nature was very different from her father’s. Jessica was gay, extravagant, without much heart, and with no respect or affection for her own race and kindred. She longed to free herself from the miserly restraint of her father’s house, and to join in the amusements from which his severity debarred her. Not only this, but she had become acquainted with a handsome young Venetian called Lorenzo. She had secretly promised to become his wife, and intended on the first opportunity to elope with Lorenzo and to give up the Jewish religion.

Shylock hated all Christians, which was scarcely to be wondered at, considering the way in which he had been treated, but the special object of his aversion was a certain wealthy merchant named Antonio. Shylock hated Antonio partly because, whenever they happened to meet, the merchant treated him with contemptuous scorn, but chiefly because Antonio lent out money gratis, and so brought down the rate of usury in Venice. Antonio had also, at different times, released poor people whom Shylock had imprisoned for debt, and often on the Rialto (which was the public place in Venice, where the merchants congregated) Antonio had railed against the grasping avarice of the Jewish extortioner.

Thus Antonio had wounded Shylock in the two most intense passions of his life—his pride of race (for in his own way Shylock was a strict follower of his religion) and his love of money. Shylock brooded over his wrongs, and if ever the opportunity came when he could gratify his ancient grudge, he resolved to be bitterly revenged.

He had long to wait, but at last his chance came.

Antonio had a friend called Bassanio, a gallant, high-spirited gentleman, but one whose open-handed, generous disposition made him spend more freely than his means allowed. Bassanio was in love with a beautiful lady called Portia, and had good reason for believing that he was looked on with an eye of favour. He would gladly have come forward in earnest as a suitor for her hand, but his somewhat extravagant mode of living had for the moment exhausted his means, and it was impossible for him to appear at Belmont, Portia’s house, in the style befitting a suitor.

Antonio, who was devoted to Bassanio, had often helped him before, and on this occasion Bassanio turned to him again. Antonio was more than ready to help, and placed all he possessed at Bassanio’s disposal. But, unfortunately, at that moment he could not lay his hand on a large sum of ready money, for all his fortune was on the high seas. However, he bade Bassanio go forth, and see what his credit could do in Venice; and he promised to become surety to the uttermost of his means, in order that Bassanio might be fittingly equipped on his quest to Belmont.

In his search for money Bassanio came across Shylock, one of the chief usurers in Venice, and to him he applied for a loan. Shylock did not at first appear very willing to grant his request.

“Three thousand ducats;—well?” he said in a pondering, deliberate fashion.

“Ay, sir, for three months,” said Bassanio.

“For three months;—well?”

“For the which, as I told you, Antonio shall be bound.”

“Antonio shall become bound;—well?” echoed Shylock, still in the same slow voice.

“Can you help me? Will you oblige me? Shall I know your answer?” said Bassanio rather impatiently.

“Three thousand ducats—for three months—and Antonio bound,” murmured the Jew reflectively.

“Your answer to that?” demanded Bassanio.

“Antonio is a good man,” mused Shylock.

“Have you heard any imputation to the contrary?”

“Oh, no, no, no, no! My meaning in saying he is a good man is to have you understand me that he is sufficient. Yet his means are in supposition. He hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another to the Indies. I understand, moreover, on the Rialto, he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for England, and other ventures he hath, squandered abroad. But ships are but boards, sailors but men; there be land-rats and water-rats, land-thieves and water-thieves—I mean, pirates; and then there is the peril of waters, winds, and rocks. The man is, notwithstanding, sufficient. I think I may take his bond.”

“Be assured you may,” said Bassanio.

“I will be assured I may,” said Shylock, with a sudden snarl, “and that I will be assured, I will bethink me. May I speak with Antonio?”

“Here he comes,” said Bassanio; and at that moment Antonio joined them.

The merchant repeated the request that Bassanio had already made, and pressed Shylock for his answer. Could he oblige them with the loan? Then for a moment of ungovernable fury Shylock’s long-hoarded venom broke forth. He reminded Antonio of the pitiless contempt with which he had always treated him, of the way in which he had publicly heaped insults and abuse on him.

“It now appears you need my help,” continued Shylock bitterly. “You come to me and you say, ‘Shylock, we would have money’—you say so, that spurned me as you would a stranger cur over your threshold! Money is your suit! What should I say to you? Should I not say, ‘Hath a dog money? Is it possible a cur can lend three thousand ducats?’ Or shall I bend low, like a slave, and, with bated breath and whispering humbleness, say this, ‘Fair sir, you spat on me on Wednesday last; you spurned me such a day; another time you called me dog; and for these courtesies I’ll lend you thus much money’?”

“I am as like to call you so again, to spit on you again, to spurn you, too,” burst out Antonio. “If you will lend me this money, do not lend it as if to a friend, but rather as if to your enemy, from whom, if he fails to pay, you can with better face exact the penalty.”

Then Shylock suddenly turned round, and became very fawning, and pretended that his only wish was to be friends with Antonio and have his love. He would supply his present needs, he said, and not take one farthing of interest. The only condition he imposed was that Antonio should go with him to a notary, and there, in merry sport, sign a bond that if the money were not repaid by a certain day the forfeit should be a pound of flesh, cut off and taken from what part of the merchant’s body it pleased Shylock.

“Content, in faith; I’ll seal to such a bond, and say there is much kindness in the Jew,” said Antonio.

“You shall not seal to such a bond for me,” cried Bassanio, aghast at the idea of such an agreement.

“Why, do not fear, man,” said Antonio; “I will not forfeit it. Within the next two months—that’s a month before the forfeit becomes due—I expect the return of thrice three times this bond.”

And Shylock chimed in, pointing out that even if the bond did become forfeit, what should he gain by exacting the penalty? A pound of man’s flesh would be of no use to him—not nearly so profitable as the flesh of mutton, beef, or goat.

“Yes, Shylock, I will seal this bond,” declared Antonio; and it was useless for Bassanio to argue further, although his mind misgave him at such a sinister agreement.

The Three Caskets

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:

“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:

“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.”

A Pound of Flesh

In the Court of Justice at Venice a great trial was to take place. Shylock the Jew claimed the forfeit of his bond. Antonio had signed the agreement that, if he failed to repay the loan of three thousand ducats by a certain date, the penalty was to be a pound of his own flesh, cut off from whatever part of his body the Jew pleased.

Antonio had failed to repay the money, and Shylock insisted on the terms of the bond being carried out to the very letter.

Terrible as this alternative was, there was no evading it. The Duke of Venice himself had to admit that, if Shylock chose to exact the penalty, there was no law of Venice that could prevent him. In this extremity the Duke sent for the learned doctor, Bellario, at Padua, to come and help them with his counsel, but when the Court opened Bellario had not yet arrived.

The Duke entered and took his seat. He looked round at the assembled people.

“What! is Antonio here?”

“Ready, so please your grace,” came back the quiet answer, and Antonio stepped forward from the place where he stood surrounded by a little band of friends. Bassanio was there, and Gratiano, and many others, who had come to show their sympathy with the merchant, though they could not help him in his dire extremity.

The Duke spoke a few words to Antonio, saying how sorry he was to find him in the power of such a terrible adversary, to which Antonio replied, with quiet dignity, that since Shylock was relentless, and that no lawful means could save him, he was prepared to suffer patiently.

Then Shylock was called into court, and the Duke began the trial by making an appeal to him for mercy. All the world, he said, thought that Shylock only intended to carry his apparent malice up to the hour of execution, and that then, at the last moment, he would show his mercy and remorse, and not only forego the forfeiture, but also forgive a portion of the loan, because of the enormous losses which had lately fallen on Antonio.

“We all expect a gentle answer, Jew,” concluded the Duke.

Grim, stony, immovable, Shylock had listened to the Duke’s appeal. The time for passionate frenzy was past; his venomed rage had settled down into a cold, calm hatred. One determination possessed him, and there was no power in the tongue of man to alter it—he would have his bond. He answered the Duke quietly, but with absolute decision. He was offered twice the amount of his loan.

“If every ducat in six thousand ducats were in six parts, and every part a ducat, I would not draw them; I would have my bond,” was his answer to this offer.

The Duke asked him how he could hope for mercy, since he rendered none.

“What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong?” was Shylock’s retort. “The pound of flesh which I demand of the merchant is dearly bought; it’s mine, and I will have it. I stand here for justice. Answer: shall I have it?”

As far as the decrees of Venice were concerned, Shylock had the law on his side, and the Duke dared not go against them. He had power, however, to defer the trial, and he was thinking of doing this, when he was told that a messenger had arrived from Padua, with letters from Bellario. The Duke bade that the messenger should be called into court, and Nerissa entered, dressed like a lawyer’s clerk.

The letter from Bellario stated that he was too ill to come himself, but that he had sent in his place a very wise and learned young doctor, whom he had thoroughly instructed in the case, and whose wonderful skill and judgment could be thoroughly relied on. The letter ended by saying that the Duke must not mistrust the new-comer because of his lack of years, for Bellario “never knew so young a body with so old a head.”

It was well Bellario had given this warning, for surely no younger-looking Doctor of Laws had ever entered the Court of Justice. Portia’s locks of sunny gold were hidden away beneath the doctor’s cap, but nothing could conceal the youth and beauty of her face. No token of hesitation or inexperience, however, was visible in her handling of the case. She plunged at once into the heart of the matter.

Her first step was to appeal to Shylock on the score of mercy, and in words of the most moving eloquence she tried to soften the Jew’s hard heart, and to show him that higher even than the Justice which he claimed was the quality of Mercy. But Shylock stood there rigid; he might have been cut in granite for any effect that Portia’s words had on him.

“I crave the law, the penalty and forfeit of my bond,” came the usual stubborn response.

Then Portia asked if Antonio had not money to discharge the debt. Yes, replied Bassanio, it was there ready in the court—yea, twice the sum. If that would not suffice, he would bind himself to pay it ten times over. If this did not satisfy the Jew, it was quite evident that he was acting through sheer malice; and Bassanio besought the learned young doctor to wrest the law just a little on this occasion, and, in order to do a great right, do a little wrong.

“It must not be,” replied Portia. Nothing could alter an established decree, for many an error by the same example might creep into the State. The law must be kept; the bond must be fulfilled to the very letter.

“A Daniel come to judgment!” cried the triumphant Shylock. “O wise young judge, how I do honour thee!”

The friends of Antonio stood silent in dismay. Even Gratiano, who had been loud in denunciation of the Jew’s savage cruelty, had no words now.

The bond was forfeit, Portia continued, and the Jew had the right to exact the penalty if he chose. But her winning voice still pleaded:

“Be merciful! Take thrice thy money, bid me tear the bond.”

“When it is paid according to the tenor,” was the grim reply.

Antonio saw that all hope was over; there was no use in prolonging the discussion.

“Most heartily I do beseech the court to give the judgment,” he said earnestly.

But even when acknowledging that the sentence must be carried out, Portia fought every inch of the way to secure some small concession for the unhappy merchant. Shylock had brought a knife into the court to cut the pound of flesh, and scales to weigh it, but he had provided no surgeon to dress the wound afterwards. Portia begged that he would provide one, if only out of charity. Was it so nominated in the bond? No. Therefore Shylock declined. Not the smallest point would he concede. The bond should be kept to the very letter.

Ah, if Shylock had only known what a pitfall he was digging for himself by insisting on this point!

In a clear, firm voice Portia began to pronounce sentence. A pound of the merchant’s flesh was Shylock’s; the court awarded it, and the law gave it. The flesh was to be cut off from his breast—(“nearest his heart,” as Shylock had savagely stipulated)—the law allowed it, and the court awarded it.

“Most learned judge! A sentence! Come, prepare!” cried Shylock; and, rattling his scales, he darted forward, knife in hand, upon the merchant.

But Portia’s voice rang through the court,—“Tarry a little: there is something else!”

Shylock stood still, aghast; Antonio’s friends looked up with sudden hope. It was Portia’s turn now to keep to the letter of the law. The bond gave no mention of the word “blood”; the words expressly were “a pound of flesh.” Let Shylock, then, take his bond, his pound of flesh; but if in the cutting it he shed one drop of Christian blood, his lands and goods were, by the laws of Venice, confiscate to the State of Venice.

“Is that the law?” gasped Shylock; and Portia answered that he should see the act for himself. As he had urged “justice,” let him be assured he should have justice, more than he desired.

“O learned judge!” cried Gratiano, mocking Shylock’s former words of praise. “Mark, Jew, a learned judge!”

“Pay the bond thrice and let the Christian go,” said Shylock.

“Here is the money,” said Bassanio eagerly; but Portia held up her hand.

“Soft! The Jew shall have all justice. Soft, no haste! He shall have nothing but the penalty.”

Shylock was to cut off his pound of flesh, but he was to shed no blood. Nor was he to cut more or less than just one pound. If he cut more or less than a just pound— “If the scale turns even by the weight of a hair, thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate,” pronounced Portia.

[Pg 126]
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“Give me my principal, and let me go,” said Shylock.

“I have it ready for thee; here it is,” said Bassanio, again holding out the bags of gold; and again Portia stayed him.

“He has refused it in the open court; he shall have merely justice and his bond.”

“Shall I not have barely my principal?” demanded the cowed Shylock.

“Thou shalt have nothing but the forfeiture, to be so taken at thy peril, Jew.”

“Why, then, the devil give him good of it! I’ll stay no further question,” cried Shylock, turning to leave the Court in a fury of baffled rage and spite.

But he was not to get off so easily. The law had still another hold on him. He, being an alien, had offended against the laws of Venice by seeking the life of a citizen. The penalty for this was that half his goods went to the citizen, the other half to the coffers of the State, and the offender’s life lay at the mercy of the Duke.

Stunned and crushed by this sudden calamitous turn of affairs, Shylock listened. All through the trial he had claimed nothing but “justice”; he had insisted that the very letter of the law should be fulfilled. The measure he had meted out to Antonio was now to be measured out for himself. But the Duke of Venice was merciful enough to pardon Shylock’s life before he asked it. As for his wealth, half of it would go to Antonio, the other half to the State, but humbleness might remit the latter into a fine.

“Nay, take my life and all; pardon not that,” said Shylock, half dazed. “You take my house when you take the prop that sustains it; you take my life when you take the means whereby I live.”

Antonio said he would resign half the money due to him, provided Shylock would let him keep the other half in use, to render it at Shylock’s death to the husband of his daughter Jessica. Further, for this favour Shylock was to do two things: he was to give up his Jewish religion, and he was to make a will, leaving all his possessions to Lorenzo and his daughter.

“He shall do this,” said the Duke, “or else I will recant the pardon which I lately granted.”

“Art thou contented, Jew? What dost thou say?” asked Portia.

And what was left for Shylock to answer? Baffled of his revenge, stripped of his wealth, forced to disown his faith, his very life forfeited—a hated, despised, miserable old man—he stood alone amidst the hostile throng. Not one face looked at him kindly, not one voice was raised in his behalf. Twice he strove to speak, and twice he failed. Then, in a hoarse whisper through the parched lips, came the faltering words:

“I—am—content.”

The Two Rings

Shylock, crushed and beaten, had left the court, followed by the yells and hooting of the crowds collected to hear the result of the trial, and Antonio and his friends hastened to express their warmest gratitude to the young Doctor of Laws who had so skilfully conducted the case. They begged him to accept a handsome fee, but he refused to take any money payment for his services. Bassanio insisted that he must certainly accept some remembrance, not as a fee, but as a tribute of their gratitude.

Thus urged, the young doctor yielded. He looked at Antonio.

“Give me your gloves; I’ll wear them for your sake.” Then, to Bassanio: “And for your love I’ll take this ring from you.”

But Bassanio drew back. He began to make excuses; the ring was a trifle, he would not shame himself by offering it; it had been given to him by his wife, etc. The more reluctant he showed himself, the more the young doctor insisted. Finally he went off apparently in deep offence. Then Antonio urged Bassanio to give him what he asked, because of the services he had done, and Gratiano was sent after him to present the ring to him.

Lorenzo and Jessica, meanwhile, had been staying at Belmont, but they were very glad to welcome back the lady of the house. It was a lovely moonlight night when Portia and Nerissa came home. Sweet music was sounding, and all was peace and beauty. Their return was speedily followed by the arrival of Bassanio, Antonio, and Gratiano. All was rejoicing, but in the midst of the general gladness sounds of discord were heard. Gratiano and his wife were having a hot dispute.

“A quarrel already? What’s the matter?” asked Portia.

“It’s about a paltry ring that Nerissa gave me, with a motto for all the world like cutlers’ poetry upon a knife, ‘Love me and leave me not,’” said Gratiano.

“Why do you talk of the motto or the value?” cried Nerissa. “You swore to me when I gave it you that you would wear it till the hour of death, and that it should lie with you in your grave. Even if not for my sake, yet because of your oath, you ought to have held it in respect, and kept it. Gave it to a judge’s clerk! No, indeed, the clerk that had it will never wear hair on his face!”

“Yes, he will, if he lives to be a man.”

“Ay, if a woman lives to be a man!” said Nerissa scornfully.

“Now, by this hand. I gave it to a youth,” protested the exasperated Gratiano; “a kind of boy—a little scrubby boy, no higher than yourself, the judge’s clerk, a prating boy that begged it as a fee. I could not find it in my heart to deny him.”

“You were to blame, Gratiano—I must be plain with you—to part so lightly with your wife’s first gift,” said Portia gravely. “I gave my love a ring, and made him swear never to part with it,” she added, looking tenderly at Bassanio. “Here he stands. I dare be sworn he would not give it from his finger for all the wealth contained in the world. Now, in faith, Gratiano, you have given your wife unkind cause for grief. If it were me, I should be mad about it.”

How pleasant for Bassanio to hear this!

“I were best to cut my left hand off, and swear I lost the ring defending it,” he thought ruefully.

“My lord Bassanio gave his ring to the judge, who indeed well deserved it,” said Gratiano, in self-excuse. “And then the boy, his clerk, who took some pains in writing, he begged mine. And neither man nor master would take anything else but the two rings.”

“What ring did you give, my lord?” asked Portia. “Not, I hope, the one you received from me.”

“If I could add a lie to the fault, I would deny it,” said Bassanio. “But, you see, my finger has not the ring upon it; it is gone.”

Portia, on hearing this, pretended to get very angry and jealous, and no excuses that Bassanio made could appease her.

“Sweet Portia,” he said, “if you knew to whom I gave the ring, if you knew for whom I gave the ring, and would understand for what I gave the ring, and how unwillingly I left the ring, when nothing would be accepted but the ring, you would abate the strength of your displeasure.”

“If you had known the virtue of the ring,” retorted Portia, “or half her worthiness that gave the ring, or your own honour to retain the ring, you would not then have parted with the ring.”

Portia thoroughly enjoyed the fun of teasing her husband, and she and Nerissa made the poor men quite unhappy before the secret was revealed. Finally Antonio, distressed at the discord which he imagined he had brought between husband and wife, interceded for Bassanio, and Portia allowed herself to be soothed.

“Since you will be surety for him,” she said to Antonio, “give him this ring, and bid him keep it better than the other.”

“By heaven it is the same I gave the doctor!” cried Bassanio.

So all ended happily. The mystery was explained, and Bassanio and Gratiano were duly forgiven. To add to the general pleasure, news reached Portia that three of Antonio’s argosies had come safely to harbour, so, after all, he was no longer a bankrupt, but once again a rich and prosperous merchant of Venice.