The Merchant of Venice: the Rings, and Act V

In such a night

Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew,

And with an unthrift love did run from Venice

As far as Belmont.

She answers that in such a night young Lorenzo swore he loved her well, stealing her soul with many vows of faith, and never a true one. The tone is playful and the content is not: every one of the classical pairs they name ends in betrayal or death, and they have just put their own elopement in that list.

The music speech. Lorenzo calls for music and speaks the passage most often quoted from this act: the floor of heaven thick inlaid with patens of bright gold, every orb singing like an angel, and the harmony that immortal souls have but which we cannot hear while the muddy vesture of decay closes it in. He ends with a judgment that the play means seriously.

The man that hath no music in himself,

Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,

Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils.

Remember that in Act II Shylock ordered his house shut against the drum and the wry-necked fife. Shakespeare has built a test that Shylock has already failed, offstage, three acts earlier.

Portia's arrival. She sees a candle burning in her hall and speaks two lines that a student should keep: "How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world." Nerissa points out that when the moon shone they did not see the candle, and Portia takes the thought further: a substitute shines brightly as a king until a king is by. The whole exchange is about things being valued by their setting, which is what she has just done to Shylock's bond.

The quarrel over the rings

Gratiano and Nerissa are already arguing when Portia notices. Nerissa's complaint is exact: he swore to wear the ring till his hour of death and that it should lie with him in his grave, and he gave it to a judge's clerk. Gratiano's defence is that it was a prating boy who begged it as a fee, and he could not for his heart deny him.

Portia rebukes him and, in doing so, sets her own trap: she says she gave her love a ring and made him swear never to part with it, and she dare be sworn he would not leave it for the wealth that the world masters. Bassanio's aside is one of the funniest lines in Shakespeare: "Why, I were best to cut my left hand off, and swear I lost the ring defending it."

The truth comes out. Portia's response escalates from anger to a threat that is the mirror of his own fault: since the doctor has the jewel she loved, she will deny him nothing she has, not her body nor her husband's bed. Nerissa says the same about the clerk.

Bassanio's defence, and why it is a real one. He explains that no woman had it but a civil doctor, who refused three thousand ducats and begged the ring, whom he had first denied and allowed to go displeased away, and who had held up the very life of his dear friend. He says he was beset with shame and courtesy, and that his honour would not let ingratitude besmear it.

That is a genuine conflict of duties, and the play knows it. He owes an oath to his wife and a debt of gratitude to the man who saved Antonio, and the two cannot both be honoured. It is the same shape as the trial: a promise that is clear, against a good reason for breaking it.

Antonio's surety. Antonio then does something that closes his own story. He says he once lent his body for Bassanio's wealth, and offers to be bound again, his soul upon the forfeit, that Bassanio will never break faith. Portia accepts him as surety and hands him a ring to give Bassanio, and it is the same ring.

The revelation, and the letters

Portia lets the confusion run for a few lines, saying the doctor lay with her and Nerissa saying the clerk lay with her, before she produces the proof: a letter from Bellario at Padua showing that Portia was the doctor and Nerissa her clerk, with Lorenzo as witness that they set out as soon as the men did.

Two more pieces of paper follow. Antonio is given a letter, and its contents are the play's last surprise: three of his argosies are richly come to harbour. Portia refuses to explain how she came by it. Lorenzo and Jessica are given the deed of gift from Shylock, of all he dies possessed of, and Lorenzo says the ladies drop manna in the way of starved people.

The play ends with Gratiano's joke that while he lives he will fear no other thing so sore as keeping safe Nerissa's ring.

Why there is a fifth act at all

This is a real examination question, and there are four answers worth giving. Use two or three of them.

Because the play is a comedy. A comedy has to end in harmony, and the trial ends in a man being stripped of his religion and his money. Shakespeare needs a whole act of moonlight and music to change the key, and the audience is sent home from Belmont and not from the courtroom.

Because the ring plot is unfinished. The oath was made in Act III, broken in Act IV, and must be resolved. Dramatically it also lets Portia keep her power for one more act: she is the only person on stage who knows everything.

Because it repeats the trial in a lower key, and reverses the verdict. Consider the parallel. A solemn oath is broken. The injured party has an absolute right to complain. She presses the letter of the promise, threatens the worst, and could have humiliated her husband in front of the whole household. Then she forgives, and hands back what was lost. Portia does in Belmont exactly what the court refused to do in Venice, and the play sets the two side by side without a word of comment.

Because it lets the play look at its own winners. Nothing in Act V is quite clean. The lovers' duet is full of betrayals, Jessica's silence after Lorenzo's speech about the deed of gift is famous among readers, and the men are forgiven only after being frightened. The act is beautiful and slightly uneasy, and a good answer says so.

What beginners get wrong

They think the ring plot is a comic subplot. It is the machinery by which the play tests whether Bassanio values his wife's word above his obligations to other men, and he fails.

They forget Antonio stands surety twice. In Act I he pledged his body for Bassanio's fortune. In Act V he pledges his soul for Bassanio's faithfulness. The rhyme between the two is deliberate and worth a sentence in any answer on Antonio.

They ignore the news of the ships. Antonio's ruin, on which the entire plot rested, is undone by a letter that Portia will not explain. It is worth noticing how casually the play repairs the loss it spent four acts building.

They say Jessica is happy at the end. She is given a deed of gift from her father's estate. She says nothing after it. Whether that silence is contentment or something else is a question the text leaves open, and either answer is arguable if you notice the silence.

A worked answer

Question. "Why does Shakespeare add a fifth act after the trial?"

A model answer in four sentences. Because the play is a comedy and must end in harmony, and the trial ends with a man stripped of his money and his religion, so a whole act of moonlight, music and marriage is needed to change the key before the audience goes home. Because the ring plot, begun in Act III Scene ii when Portia gave the ring on an express condition and continued at the end of the trial when she begged it back in disguise, is unfinished. Because it repeats the trial in a lower key and reverses its verdict: an absolute promise is broken, the injured party presses the letter of it, and then forgives and restores what was lost. And because it lets the play look at its winners, in a scene whose lovers name Troilus, Thisbe, Dido and Medea, every one of whom ended in betrayal.

The technique to notice. Each sentence is a separate reason with its own evidence. Four such sentences are a complete short answer, and they expand into four paragraphs for a thirteen-mark essay.

Quick revision

Portia, still as Balthazar, refuses payment but begs the ring; Bassanio refuses, then sends Gratiano after her with it on Antonio's urging.

IV.ii: the deed of gift is taken to Shylock's house; Nerissa sets out to get Gratiano's ring too.

V.i: Lorenzo and Jessica trade "In such a night" speeches; the music speech and "The man that hath no music in himself"; Portia's candle in a naughty world.

The quarrel: both men have given the rings away; both wives threaten to give themselves to the doctor and the clerk.

Antonio stands surety a second time, soul upon the forfeit, and the ring is returned through him.

The letter from Bellario reveals the disguise. Antonio learns three argosies are safe. Lorenzo and Jessica get the deed of gift.

Test yourself

1. How does Portia get the ring from Bassanio? By refusing payment for her services, then asking for a remembrance rather than a fee, and choosing the ring. Bassanio refuses until Antonio urges him to weigh the doctor's deserving and his own love against his wife's commandment, and then he sends Gratiano after her with it.

2. What is the condition attached to the ring when it is first given? That when he parts from it, loses it, or gives it away, it shall presage the ruin of their love and be Portia's advantage to exclaim against him. Bassanio swore that when the ring parted from his finger, life would part from him.

3. Why does Bassanio's defence deserve to be taken seriously? Because he faced two genuine duties. He had sworn an oath to his wife, and he owed gratitude to the man who had just saved his friend's life and who had refused any payment. The play deliberately gives him a real conflict rather than a simple failure.

4. What is the connection between Act V and the trial scene? Both are about the strict enforcement of a promise. In court, the letter of the bond is enforced without mercy and destroys a man. At Belmont, a broken oath is pressed hard and then forgiven, and the marriage survives. The second scene answers the first.

5. Why does Lorenzo's speech about music matter to a reading of Shylock? Because Lorenzo says the man who has no music in himself is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils, and Shylock has already ordered his doors shut against the fife and the drum. The play convicts him by a standard he was never present to answer.