11-73-65 CONTENTS SENATORS OF VENICE IN THE SENATE HOUSE (From a copyright photograph by W. L. Bourke TITLE-PAGE OF THE QUARTO OF 1600 FRONTISPIECE I THE FRONTISPIECE IS REPRODUCED FROM THE PICTURE BY BEQUEATHED IT TO CHARLES I [See page 159] THE MERCHANT OF VENICE I For the text of this play we have pretty plain sailing; being left with three not very dissimilar versions amid which to steer, and now enabled by labour and ingenuity of previous students to arrange them strictly in order of merit. They are two Quartos and the 1623 First Folio. The whole question of the provenance of the text, as we have it, will be found very fully discussed in a subsequent Note on the Copy: but the conclusion comes very simply to this. There were two Quartos, both dated 1600, from either of which the 1623 Folio might have derived its authority: but one of these, and the one long taken as the better and called the 'First Quarto,' is now ascertained to have been fraudulently ante-dated on the title-page by Jaggard, who issued it as one of a series in 1619. So we come back for primary reliance on what is generally known as the 'Second' or 'Heyes' Quarto, the title of which is reproduced in facsimile on p. 1. II With the 'sources' of The Merchant of Venice we have (historically) even less reason to worry ourselves. The play includes three plots derived from old story and interwoven or adjusted by Shakespeare as best he could contrive. But these three plots-or two and a half of them are to be found in Il Pecorone (or "The Gaby'), a book of tales by one Ser Giovanni, supposed to have been compiled in 1378 but not published until 15581. 1 An English translation by W. G. Waters was published in 1897, doubtless at the instance of the late A. Ĥ. Bullen. (London: Lawrence & Bullen.) Who this 'Ser Giovanni' was admits anyone who enjoys the licence of conjecture to any width of it. But no one who reads the following brief summary of the First Tale of the Fourth Day (it is worked on the BoccaccioStraparola pattern) will need to seek further for the source of the Merchant of Venice save in excess of that pedantry which is but idleness of the mind. Put in brief, the story comes to this: A youth of Venice, Giannetto, is financed by his godfather Ansaldo on three voyages supposedly to trade at Alexandria, but coasting off a mysterious port of Belmonte he learns from the master of his ship of a lady whose person and riches are to be won at a great peril and determines to try his fortune. The terms of the wooing are curious: he has to remain awake through the night, or he loses the lady and forfeits his cargo. He fails twice: but on the third voyage he succeeds through the warning of a waiting-woman that his wine has been drugged. He avoids the drug and wins the lady. But the trouble is that for this last voyage his godfather has only been able to furnish him by borrowing ten thousand ducats from a Jew, on the unholy contract that if the bond be not met by St John's Day, the creditor shall have, from whatever part of the body he chooses, one pound of Ansaldo's flesh. In the wedding and the festivities that follow, the ingrate Giannetto forgets his godfather's deadly peril; until one evening, on the balcony with his bride, he watches a troop of craftsmen go by bearing torches and on a casual enquiry is told that they are marching to pay their vows at St John's Church on the festival of the Saint. Thereupon he remembers the forfeit and the peril, and is struck with an anguish of remorse. His wife, extracting the story from him, gives him a hundred thousand ducats and bids him ride post to save his godfather at whatever cost; Giannetto does so: but arrives at Venice in a sweat only to find that Ansaldo, though on the hope of bidding him farewell briefly respited, is under the law of Venice a doomed man. The Jew, who has conceded this remand, will have no further mercy. Not for a hundred thousand ducats nor for all the money that rich Venice can raise will he forgo his claim to carve the flesh of this Christian. He holds his bond, and the law of Venice is righteously strict. Better wits are at work. Prompt upon Giannetto and his vain intercession there arrives at an inn in the city a young Doctor of Laws of Bologna, who is of course -let us call her by Shakespeare's name— -Portia in disguise. The host informs her of this desperate affair which is the talk of the city. She commands these good Venetians not to be afraid; by some process has prosecutor and defendant haled into presence, and works the Jew's confusion much as it is worked in our play. Then, much as in our play, the grateful Giannetto visits her with the proffer of a hundred thousand ducats for her conduct of the case. Portia will take no fee at all save on an afterthought that ring on your finger.' Giannetto is loth to part with it, but in the end does so. Thereupon follows the éclaircissement we expect. 'Sir, husband, where is my ring? You have given it to some other woman, to some sweetheart of Venice.' 'I have given it to no woman but to a grave young Doctor of Law.' 'I say you had better have abode in Venice to take your pleasure with your wantons. I hear they all wept when you left them.' Giannetto burst into tears and, greatly troubled, cried, 'You swear to what cannot be true': whereupon the lady, perceiving from his tears that she had struck a knife into his heart, quickly ran to him and embraced him, laughing heartily the while she showed him the ring and told him everything1. 1 The story has been epitomised at greater length and in his own great manner by Dr Johnson, to whose edition we refer the reader. |