The Merchant of Venice: Act I

Act I Scene ii: Belmont, a room in Portia's house

What happens. Portia tells Nerissa that her little body is aweary of this great world. Nerissa answers that people are as sick who have too much as those who have nothing, and that happiness lies in the mean, and Portia agrees that good advice is easier to give than to follow.

Then comes her real complaint. Her dead father's will forbids her to choose or refuse a husband for herself.

I may neither choose who I would nor refuse who I dislike, so is the will of a living daughter curb'd by the will of a dead father.

Nerissa explains the mechanism: her father devised a lottery of three chests, of gold, silver and lead, and whoever chooses the chest that holds his meaning wins her. The two women then run through the suitors already at Belmont, and Portia dismisses each with a joke: the Neapolitan prince who talks only of his horse, the County Palatine who never smiles, the French lord who is every man in no man, the young English baron who speaks no language she speaks, the Scottish lord, and the German who is drunk in the afternoon. Nerissa remembers a Venetian scholar and soldier who once came to Belmont, and Portia remembers him too: Bassanio. Word arrives that the Prince of Morocco is on his way.

Why it matters. The scene is funny and it is also the second cage in the play. Antonio is caught by his own generosity, and Portia by a dead man's document. The pun in the line above is deliberate: the word "will" means both what her father wanted and the legal instrument that says so. A woman of great fortune and greater intelligence is bound by a piece of writing she had no part in making, which is the same problem Antonio is about to create for himself.

A distinction worth having ready. Portia never breaks the will. She hints, she delays, she has music played while Bassanio chooses, but she keeps the terms. That matters when you come to judge what she does to Shylock's document in Act IV, because the play's heroine is a woman who obeys the letter of an instrument she dislikes.

Act I Scene iii: Venice, a public place, and the making of the bond

This is the scene the whole play stands on, and it is worth knowing in stages.

Stage one, the terms. Bassanio and Shylock are already in conversation, and the first eight lines settle the deal in commercial form: three thousand ducats, for three months, and Antonio shall be bound. "Bound" means made legally liable, and Antonio is the surety, the person who answers for another's debt.

Stage two, the credit check. Shylock is not sentimental about it. Antonio, he says, is "a good man", and immediately explains that he means only that he is sufficient, that is, good for the money. He then lists the risks: an argosy to Tripolis, another to the Indies, a third at Mexico, a fourth for England, and the perils of waters, winds and rocks. This is a working moneylender assessing security, and it is also the play telling the audience, early and clearly, that ships are lost.

Stage three, the grudge. Antonio arrives, and Shylock says in an aside what he will not say to his face.

I hate him for he is a Christian,

But more for that in low simplicity

He lends out money gratis, and brings down

The rate of usance here with us in Venice.

Read that carefully, because examiners set it. Shylock gives two reasons and says the second is the stronger: Antonio lends without interest and so undercuts him. Religion and business are tangled together, and the play does not let you separate them.

Stage four, the argument about interest. Shylock tells the story of Jacob grazing Laban's sheep, and how Jacob arranged that the parti-coloured lambs should be born and fall to him as his hire, ending with a proverb: "thrift is blessing if men steal it not." Antonio's reply is that Jacob's gain was a venture that heaven decided, not interest, and then he says the line that is quoted about Shylock more than any other.

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

Stage five, the reproach. Shylock stops arguing and speaks about how he has been treated. He has been rated on the Rialto about his moneys and his usances, called misbeliever and cut-throat dog, spat upon, and had his Jewish gaberdine, his cloak, fouled. And now Antonio wants money from him. Should he answer, he asks, in a bondman's key, with bated breath and whispering humbleness?

Antonio's answer is not an apology.

I am as like to call thee so again,

To spet on thee again, to spurn thee too.

If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not

As to thy friends, for when did friendship take

A breed for barren metal of his friend?

But lend it rather to thine enemy,

Who if he break, thou mayst with better face

Exact the penalty.

Stage six, the merry bond. Shylock offers friendship instead. He will take no interest at all. He asks only that they go to a notary and seal a single bond, and that, in a merry sport, if the money is not repaid on the day and at the place named, the forfeit be an equal pound of Antonio's fair flesh, to be cut off and taken in whatever part of his body pleases Shylock.

Antonio accepts at once: "Content, in faith, I'll seal to such a bond, and say there is much kindness in the Jew." Bassanio objects, and says he would rather stay poor. Antonio overrules him, on a fact the audience will remember for four acts: his ships will return a full month before the bond falls due.

Stage seven, the exit. Shylock asks what he would gain by exacting the forfeiture, since a pound of man's flesh is not so profitable as flesh of muttons, beefs or goats. He leaves to fetch the money. Antonio calls him a gentle Jew and says this Hebrew will turn Christian, he grows kind. Bassanio's last line of the act is the correct reading.

I like not fair terms and a villain's mind.

The bond, read as a lawyer would read it

Set out as a document, the agreement has these parts.

Two observations to carry into the trial chapter. First, everything about this bond is regular except the forfeit: it is in writing, sealed, before a public officer, for value received, with the terms read aloud in front of witnesses. Second, the forfeit is a penalty, meaning a consequence of breach fixed in advance that bears no relation to the loss suffered. Shylock says himself that a pound of flesh is worth less to him than mutton. A modern court would refuse to enforce it for exactly that reason, and this is dealt with fully in the chapter on the bond as a contract.

What beginners get wrong in this act

They say Shylock tricked Antonio. He did not. He stated the forfeit plainly, in front of Bassanio, who understood it well enough to object. Antonio accepted with his eyes open and called it kindness.

They say Antonio is innocent. He admits, in the scene itself, that he has spat on Shylock and will do it again. The play puts that admission immediately before the bond is proposed, and the order is not accidental.

They treat "merry sport" as proof of a trap. It may be, and the ending suggests it is, but at this point in the play it is a form of words that makes a monstrous term sound like a joke, and both Christians accept it as one.

A worked answer

Question. Reference to context: "Content, in faith, I'll seal to such a bond, and say there is much kindness in the Jew."

The answer, in the two sentences the paper allows. These words are spoken by Antonio in Act I Scene iii of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, accepting Shylock's proposal that the forfeit for non-payment be an equal pound of his flesh, cut off in a part of the body Shylock chooses. He calls the term a kindness because Shylock has waived all interest, and because he expects his ships home a month before the bond falls due, so he does not believe the forfeiture can ever arise.

Why the second sentence matters. The examiner's question will usually be why Antonio agreed. The answer is not stupidity: it is the waiver of interest plus his own calculation of the shipping, and both are in the scene.

Quick revision

Scene i: Antonio is sad, his wealth is all at sea, Bassanio asks for a loan to court Portia, Antonio sends him to try his credit in Venice.

Scene ii: Portia is bound by her father's will and the lottery of the gold, silver and lead caskets; she mocks six suitors and remembers Bassanio.

Scene iii: three thousand ducats, three months, Antonio bound. Shylock's aside about hating Antonio for lending gratis. The Jacob and Laban argument. Antonio's refusal to apologise. The bond, with a pound of flesh as the forfeit, sealed before a notary.

Two lines you should be able to place: "The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose", Antonio in I.iii; "I like not fair terms and a villain's mind", Bassanio, the last line of the act.

The bond is valid in form and monstrous in content. That combination is the play.

Test yourself

1. Why does Antonio have to borrow at all? Because his wealth is in cargo at sea and he has neither money nor commodity to raise a present sum. He says so in Act I Scene i.

2. What exactly does Shylock mean by calling Antonio "a good man"? Not that he is virtuous. He explains at once that he means Antonio is sufficient, that is, good enough security for three thousand ducats, and he then lists the risks to Antonio's ships.

3. State the two reasons Shylock gives for hating Antonio, in his own order. That he is a Christian, and, more strongly, that he lends money without interest and so brings down the rate of usance in Venice.

4. Is the bond a valid agreement on its face? On its face, yes. There is value given, a fixed time, a named place of payment, a condition, and a sealed instrument before a notary. The defect is not in the making of it but in the nature of the forfeit, which is a penalty out of all proportion to the debt.

5. What does Portia's complaint in Act I Scene ii have in common with Antonio's position? Both are bound by a document. She cannot choose or refuse a husband because of her dead father's will, and he cannot escape a term he agreed to. The play sets a person against a piece of writing twice before the trial ever begins.