Isaac Asimov - Asimov’s Guide To Shakespear. Volume 1

The present Western liberal tradition considers such forced conversions in any direction to be abhorrent, but the Elizabethans would not find it so. To force a Jew to turn Christian was, in their view, a crowning mercy, since it rescued him from the certainty of hell and placed him on the route to salvation. Many in the Elizabethan audience may well have thought Antonio was being entirely too softhearted, and it is not impossible to suppose that Shakespeare himself wanted to do Shylock this favor out of a sneaking affection for this full-rounded villain he had managed to create. After all, Marlowe had given his Jew in The Jew of Malta an unrepentant and horrible death.

After the tension of the trial, there is a final act of idyllic happiness back in Belmont, where Lorenzo and Jessica are continuing their blissful honeymoon. The night is glorious and they hymn it alternately in classical allusion to sad and tragic loves, as a delicious contrast to their own happy one.

Lorenzo says:

—Act V, scene i, lines 3-6

The tale of Troilus and Cressida was handled by Shakespeare five years after the writing of The Merchant of Venice (see page I-71 ff). Jessica responds:

—Act V, scene i, lines 6-9

Shakespeare had treated the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe, in burlesque form, a year or two earlier in A Midsummer Night's Dream (see page I-48).

Lorenzo says:

—Act V, scene i, lines 9-12

The sad tale of Dido and Aeneas (see page I-20) is one of Shakespeare's favorites.

But then Jessica comes up with an allusion that doesn't fit at all. She says:

—Act V, scene i, lines 12-14

Medea was the archetype of the powerful witch in Grecian myth, a woman of passionate desires who would stop at no crime to gratify them. She was the daughter of Aeetes, to whose guardianship the Golden Fleece (see page I-161) was entrusted. When Jason and his companions came searching for it, she fell in love with Jason and betrayed her father. She returned to Jason's kingdom with him and, according to one tale, restored the youth of Jason's old father, Aeson, by the use of her enchantments.

Medea might be included in the list of tragic loves because Jason tired of her eventually and abandoned her. In rage, she killed her own children by the faithless Jason. Still, it is odd that Jessica should refer to the tale of a woman who betrayed her father for her lover and who was regarded not as a heroine by the Greeks but as a villainess, and who came to so bad an end besides. Might we argue that Shakespeare's sneaking sympathy for Shy-lock shows itself here yet again?

Lorenzo and Jessica are interrupted by messengers reporting that Portia and Nerissa on one hand and Bassanio and Gratiano on the other are returning. (They are arriving separately; the young men don't know even yet that their wives were at the trial in masculine guise.) Yet Lorenzo cannot bear to leave the night. He says:

—Act V, scene i, lines 58-65

This notion of the "music of the spheres" (see page I-199), first advanced by Pythagoras, was still extant in Shakespeare's time. The great German astronomer Johann Kepler tried to figure out the exact notes being sounded by the various planets. This was done just about the time Shakespeare was writing The Merchant of Venice. Could Shakespeare have heard about it and could he have been inspired by it to write this lyrical passage?

Portia, returning, is also captivated by the night, saying:

—Act V, scene i, lines 109-10

Endymion, in the Greek myths, was a handsome prince who, asleep in a cave one night, was spied by Selene, goddess of the moon. Ravished by his beauty, she descended to the cave and kissed the sleeping youth. She wanted no more and, throwing him into a magic, eternal slumber, she returned night after night to kiss him and sleep awhile by his side.

Portia has returned home before her husband and gives orders that no one is to reveal the fact she has been away at all. She is ready for the last complication of the play.

After Antonio had been saved, Bassanio, in gratitude, had offered the young judge (whom he did not recognize to be his wife) some reward. She would take nothing but the ring which Portia had given him and which he had sworn not to surrender. Reluctantly, Bassanio (recognizing his debt to Antonio) gave up the ring. Doubling the fun, Nerissa made Gratiano give up his ring too.

(Surely one must see the contrast with Shylock, who would not have given up his wife's ring for anything.)

When Bassanio and Gratiano come, bringing Antonio with them, the women at once ask for the rings. Naturally, they refuse to believe their husbands' explanations and pretend to be sure the rings were given to other women.

Portia, in particular, swears that if Bassanio did give her ring to some man, as he says, then she would take that man for her bedmate. She says:

—Act V, scene i, lines 230-33

(Of course she will. If she is alone, she will sleep with herself as the only person in the bed.)

Argus was a giant in Greek mythology, whose special monstrous attribute was a hundred eyes, some of which were always open (see page I-86).

But then, before the quarrel can grow more fierce than suffices to amuse the audience, the truth is revealed, Lorenzo and Jessica learn they will be Shylock's heirs, and all ends in a blaze of happiness.

Much ado about nothing is among the pleasantest of Shakespeare's plays. It was written about 1599 and is the first of a cluster of three comedies, written in the space of a year or so, that represent Shakespeare's comic genius at its height.

The play opens with Leonato, the governor of Messina, speaking with a Messenger who has just brought hima letter. Leonato says:

—Act I, scene i, lines 1-2

Messina is one of the principal cities of the island of Sicily. It is located in the northeastern comer of that triangular island just at the narrow strait that separates Sicily from Italy. As for Aragon, that is a medieval kingdom that was located in eastern Spain (see page I-526).

But what was Don Pedro of Aragon doing in Sicily?