205. terms of zeal; positive language. wanted the modesty; the subject is 'who,' understood. 206. to urge the thing held as a ceremony; to demand the ring which you held sacred. 210. a civil doctor; a Doctor of Civil Law. 217. I was beset with shame and courtesy; I was attacked at once by shame for refusing the man to whom I owed so much and by courtesy which urged me to grant his request. Bassanio makes a very good defence of his case; but Portia's answer plunges him into still deeper trouble, for she declares that if the Doctor was so irresistible, Bassanio had better keep him away from her. 239. Note Portia's prompt courtesy to Antonio. She is quite willing to tease her husband; but she doesn't want Antonio to think for a moment that he is to blame. 240. this enforced wrong; this wrong I was compelled to do you. 266. Some of the dialogue in this scene is rather too broad for our modern taste, and is omitted from this edition. Just as Gratiano begins to lose his head completely and to shout aloud of his wrongs, Portia, who sees that the jest has gone far enough, stops him and clears up the whole affair of the disguises and the rings. 278. You shall not know by what strange accident. It is, of course, the wish to reward Antonio for his sufferings that leads Shakespeare to add to the original story this incident of his ships having come safe to harbor. There must not be a shadow of loss or disappointment over the happy close of the play. With the same intention the runaway couple, Lorenzo and Jessica, are here presented with a deed of gift conveying to them on Shylock's death his whole fortune. QUESTIONS ON THE SCENE. What is Shakespeare's purpose in opening the scene with this duet by Lorenzo and Jessica? What note is struck by their reminiscences of old stories? Why does Portia travel by night to return to Belmont? What trait of character is shown by Lorenzo's remarks on the music of the spheres? Why does Portia ask her guests and her servants not to let Bassanio know that she had been away from home? How is the mock quarrel about the rings started? How does Portia discover that Bassanio has given away her ring? Why does she insist that he has given the ring to a woman? How is the trick of the rings cleared up? Why does Shakespeare bring Antonio's supposedly lost ships safe to harbor? Why does Portia decline to tell how she had heard of their safe arrival? Why does Shakespeare take this opportunity to let Lorenzo and Jessica know of the fortune that awaits them? What is the general effect of the whole scene as contrasted with the trial scene of the preceding act? 66 Textual Notes. In July, 1598, James Roberts, an enterprising London printer, entered on the Stationers' Registers a booke of the Marchaunt of Venyce or otherwise called the Jewe of Venyce. Provided that yt bee not prynted by the same James Robertes or anye other whatsoever without lycence first had from the Right honourable the lord Chamberlen." Apparently Shakespeare's company, the Lord Chamberlain's men, applied to their patron to refuse the necessary license, for the book did not appear for over two years. In the mean time another printer, Thomas Heyes, appears to have secured another copy of the play, for in October, 1600, we find the following entry credited to Thomas Haies" in the Registers: 'Entred for his copie . . . by Consent of master Robertes. A booke called the booke of the merchant of Venyce." Shakespeare's company apparently no longer wished to prevent the play from appearing in print, and both copies came out in quarto form in the same year, 1600. Roberts must have secured the job of printing Heyes's copy,—the title-page states that it was printed by I. R. (James Roberts) for Thomas Heyes—in consideration of his allowing it to appear. He apparently entrusted the work to a more careless compositor than the man who set up his own copy. Consequently certain editors, among them Dr. Furness, consider that Q1 (Roberts's Quarto) is on the whole the more trustworthy text. There are, however, certain differences, which will be pointed out in the following notes, that have convinced some critics, especially Dr. Furnivall, that Q2 (Heyes's Quarto) contains a few corrections due to Shakespeare himself. The two copies were probably printed from two separate transcripts of the original manuscript. The company apparently kept a copy of Heyes's Quarto by them, introduced from time to time a few changes, and when Heming and Condell were gathering materials for the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays turned over to them this play-house copy. The Merchant of Venice in the First Folio is clearly printed from the Heyes Quarto. It is plain from the above that the three old editions of the text go back to a common source, the original manuscript— probably in Shakespeare's handwriting-of the drama. It has been well said by Dr. Furness that they may be treated as "proof-sheets out of which we may, with what power of insight Nature has vouchsafed to us, prepare our own text with an abounding charity for those who do not agree with us, which in all likelihood will comprise the rest of mankind." АСТ І. The 27. dock'd. Q1 has dockes; the other old texts, docks. change made by Rowe to dock'd has been generally received by modern editors. Furness believes that the word originally written was dockd and that this was misprinted docks. 84. alabaster. All the old editions read alablaster, the usual spelling in Shakespeare's day. The change was made by Pope. 93. The text follows the Qq; Ff, I am Sir an Oracle. All editors since Rowe follow the Qq. 66 95. these, the reading of Q2 F1, is preferable to those of Q1, since it maintains the connection, which is broken by the latter, between the sort of men “whose visages do cream and mantle,' and the men who are only reputed wise for saying nothing.” 113. All the old editions read: “It is that anything now.” Of the various attempts to correct the evident mistake, Rowe's alone has met with general approbation and is adopted in the present text. Johnson suggested new for now; but this does not so well connect the speech with the following words. 115. The Ff omit as. All editors except Rowe and Knight follow the Qq. 155. Here again F, has dropped a word, now, from the line. Scene II. 7. It is no mean happiness. So the Qq; Ff It is no small happiness, thus destroying the characteristically Shakesperian play on words. 18. The awkward reading of the Qq, then to be, is corrected by F, into then be. 1 23. reasoning. For this reading of the Qq, F1 substitutes reason, which Dr. Furness prefers, taking reason in the sense of 'speech,'' discourse,' 'talk.' It seems best, however, to follow all modern editors and adopt the reading of the Qq, taking reasoning as alluding to the debate which Portia has been carrying on with Nerissa. 25-26. Modern editors follow the Ff in reading whom in both these lines instead of the ungrammatical, but characteristically Elizabethan, who, of the Qq. 27. Is it. So the Qq. The it is of the F1 is a manifest error. 36. Editors are divided as to whether to print the you of QF, between who and shall of this line, or to omit it with Q1. Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, Warburton, Collier, Rolfe, Delius, and Furnivall approve the reading of Q2F1, while Johnson, Hudson, the Cambridge editors, Furness, Verity, and Gummere follow Q1 The Cambridge editors hold that, ceteris paribus, Q, is the higher authority; Dr. Furness maintains that in this instance it gives us the better text. On the other hand, Furnivall cites this very line as an instance where Q2 supplies a necessary word. omitted in Q1 (Forewords to Griggs' Reprint of Q1, p. v). A consideration of the whole passage in Q1 leaves no doubt as to the corruptness of that text. The passage reads there as follows: "therefore the lottery that he hath devised in these three chests of gold, silver, and leade, wherof who chooses his meaning chooses you, no doubt you will never be chosen by any rightly, but one who shall rightly love." It seems plain that the you which in Q2 follows who was by the printer of this passage in Qı misplaced and set after no doubt. The editors who follow Q, in |