The Merchant of Venice: Act III

One of them showed me a ring that he had of your daughter for a monkey.

His answer names his dead wife: it was his turquoise, he had it of Leah when he was a bachelor, and he would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys. Two lines later he tells Tubal to fee an officer, a court officer, and bespeak him a fortnight before, because he will have the heart of Antonio if he forfeits.

Why the ring matters. It is the single detail that makes Shylock a man rather than a figure. A daughter has sold her dead mother's ring for a monkey, and the loss he cannot bear is not the money. Every serious answer on Shylock's character uses this line, and most candidates have never noticed it.

Act III Scene ii: Belmont, the right casket, and the letter

What happens. Portia asks Bassanio to wait a day or two before choosing, and admits, carefully, that she could teach him how to choose right but will not break her oath. He insists. Music plays while he thinks, and the song asks where fancy is bred and answers that it is engendered in the eyes and dies in the cradle where it lies, which is a warning against choosing by sight.

Bassanio's reasoning. His speech is the play's clearest statement of appearance against reality, and it takes its first example from law.

The world is still deceiv'd with ornament.

In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt

But, being season'd with a gracious voice,

Obscures the show of evil?

He goes on through religion, cowardice and beauty, rejects gold as hard food for Midas and silver as the pale and common drudge between man and man, and chooses lead because it threatens rather than promises. He finds Portia's picture and a scroll telling him to turn to his lady and claim her with a kiss.

The ring. Portia gives herself, her house and her servants, and with them a ring, on an express condition.

I give them with this ring,

Which when you part from, lose, or give away,

Let it presage the ruin of your love,

And be my vantage to exclaim on you.

Bassanio swears that when the ring parts from his finger, life parts from him. Remember that promise, because Act IV will make him break it and Act V is about nothing else. Gratiano then announces that he and Nerissa have made the same match, on the condition that Bassanio won.

The letter. Lorenzo, Jessica and Salerio arrive from Venice with Antonio's letter. Bassanio confesses to Portia that he told her he had nothing, when in truth he was worse than nothing, because he had engaged himself to a dear friend and engaged that friend to his mere enemy. Salerio confirms that not one vessel escaped, from Tripolis, Mexico, England, Lisbon, Barbary and India, and adds the fact that decides the trial.

Besides, it should appear, that if he had

The present money to discharge the Jew,

He would not take it.

Jessica supports it from her own knowledge: she has heard her father swear to Tubal and Chus that he would rather have Antonio's flesh than twenty times the value of the sum. Portia's answer is immediate and generous: pay him six thousand, double six thousand, treble that, but first go with me to church and call me wife. Antonio's own letter is short and is worth knowing, because it is the reason Bassanio leaves on his wedding day: his ships have all miscarried, the bond to the Jew is forfeit, and since in paying it it is impossible he should live, all debts are cleared between them if he might but see him at his death.

Act III Scene iii: the legal centre of the play

Antonio is under arrest, brought out by the gaoler at his own request to speak to Shylock. Shylock will not listen.

I'll have my bond, speak not against my bond.

I have sworn an oath that I will have my bond.

He gives his reason in one line: "Thou call'dst me dog before thou hadst a cause, but since I am a dog, beware my fangs." Antonio, when he has gone, tells Salarino why he cannot be saved, and this is the sentence a law student must be able to reproduce.

The Duke cannot deny the course of law,

For the commodity that strangers have

With us in Venice, if it be denied,

'Twill much impeach the justice of the state,

Since that the trade and profit of the city

Consisteth of all nations.

What it means, in plain English. Foreign merchants trade at Venice because Venetian courts enforce their contracts. If the Duke refuses to enforce this one because the creditor is unpopular, every foreign merchant learns that Venetian justice depends on who you are, and the trade of the city goes elsewhere. So the Duke has no power to release Antonio, however much he wants to. The rule of law is not a favour to Shylock, it is the condition of Venice's existence.

This is why the play is set on a law syllabus. The scene states, better than most textbooks, why a court cannot simply do what seems kind in the case in front of it.

Act III Scene iv: Portia's plan

Portia hands the management of her house to Lorenzo, and says she and Nerissa have vowed to live in prayer and contemplation at a monastery two miles off until their husbands return. That is a lie, and the audience learns so within thirty lines.

She sends her servant Balthazar to Padua, to her cousin Doctor Bellario, with a letter, and tells him to bring back whatever notes and garments Bellario gives him to the common ferry that trades to Venice. Then she tells Nerissa they will see their husbands before their husbands think of them, accoutred like young men, and she runs through a comic list of the tricks she will use to pass as a bragging youth.

Three points to carry into the trial chapter. First, Portia has legal advice in writing before she reaches the court: the notes come from a doctor of laws. Second, she has authority in the form of a letter of introduction from Bellario, which Act IV will show being read out. Third, she arrives disguised, and nobody in court knows who she is.

Act III Scene v: Launcelet and Jessica in the garden

A short comic scene. Launcelet teases Jessica that the sins of the father are laid upon the children so she is damned, and she answers that she is saved by her husband, who has made her a Christian. Launcelet complains that converting Jews will raise the price of pork. Lorenzo joins them and there is joking about Launcelet's word-play.

Why the scene is there. It gives the audience a breath between Antonio's arrest and the trial, and it keeps one uncomfortable question alive: Jessica has changed her religion, and the play keeps making jokes about whether it took. Every reading of the play's antisemitism has to account for this scene, because the mockery here is casual and comes from the characters we are meant to like.

Antisemitism in Act III, stated fairly

An examiner setting an essay on this theme expects the material of this act. Set out the evidence on both sides.

What is said to and about Shylock. He is called "the dog Jew" and "old carrion" by Solanio, spoken of as the devil in the likeness of a Jew, and told by Salarino that there is more difference between his flesh and his daughter's than between jet and ivory. The boys of Venice follow him in the street. Launcelet calls him "the very devil incarnation". Nobody in the play uses his name kindly.

What Shakespeare gives him in return. The speech at the centre of III.i, which no other character in the play could deliver. The turquoise ring. The reason for the hatred, which is stated as a business grievance as much as a religious one. And a case in law that is unanswerable until Act IV.

How to conclude. The honest position is that the play contains both, and that the second does not cancel the first. Shakespeare gives a hated figure the strongest speech in the play and then destroys him in a courtroom, and it is possible to read that as sympathy, as cruelty, or as a writer showing exactly how a society treats a man it has already decided about. An answer that argues one of those three, with the evidence above, will score. An answer that says only that Shakespeare was a man of his time has not read the act.

What beginners get wrong in this act

They quote "Hath not a Jew eyes" as a plea for tolerance. It ends in a promise of revenge.

They forget the ring in III.ii. Portia's ring is given under an express condition, and every question on Act V depends on knowing that.

They think the Duke could have stopped it. Antonio himself says the opposite, and explains why in six lines. Not knowing this is the commonest way of misreading the trial.

They miss that Shylock refuses the money before the trial. Salerio reports it in III.ii. By the time court sits, everybody knows he will not take payment.

A worked answer

Question. Reference to context: "Hath not a Jew eyes?"

A weak answer. Spoken by Shylock. It shows that all human beings are equal and that we should not hate anybody for their religion.

Why it is weak. It stops at the middle of the speech and turns it into a sentiment the speech does not express.

A strong answer. Spoken by Shylock to Salarino and Solanio in a street in Venice in Act III Scene i, after they ask him what a pound of Antonio's flesh could possibly be good for. He argues that a Jew is identical to a Christian in body and feeling, and completes the argument by insisting that the identity extends to revenge, since the villainy he will execute is what Christian example has taught him.

The test of a good answer here. It reports where the speech ends. Any answer that leaves out the revenge has described a different speech.

Quick revision

III.i: the wreck on the Goodwins; "let him look to his bond"; "Hath not a Jew eyes"; Tubal's alternating news; the diamond of two thousand ducats; fourscore ducats in one night; the turquoise ring had of Leah, sold for a monkey; "fee me an officer".

III.ii: Portia delays; the song; Bassanio's speech on ornament, beginning with a corrupt plea in law; he chooses lead; the ring is given on condition; Antonio's letter; Portia offers to pay many times the debt.

III.iii: "I'll have my bond" three times; Antonio explains that the Duke cannot deny the course of law because Venice lives on foreign trade.

III.iv: Portia pretends to go to a monastery and sends Balthazar to Doctor Bellario at Padua for notes and garments.

III.v: Launcelet and Jessica joke about conversion.

Test yourself

1. Why does Shylock refuse three thousand ducats and more? Because after Jessica's flight he wants revenge rather than payment. Salerio reports that he would not take the money if it were offered, and Jessica has heard him swear he would rather have Antonio's flesh than twenty times the sum.

2. What is the significance of the turquoise ring? It was his wife Leah's gift to him before their marriage, and Jessica traded it for a monkey. It is the detail that shows Shylock's grief is not only about money, and it is the strongest single piece of evidence in a sympathetic character sketch.

3. Reproduce Antonio's explanation of why the Duke cannot save him. That the Duke cannot deny the course of law, because if the rights that foreign merchants have in Venice are denied it will much impeach the justice of the state, since the trade and profit of the city consists of all nations.

4. Why does Bassanio choose the leaden casket? Because he reasons that the world is deceived by ornament, giving examples from law, religion, courage and beauty, and that a casket which threatens rather than promises is more likely to be true. The song played while he thinks also warns against love bred in the eyes.

5. What preparation does Portia make in III.iv, and why does it matter? She sends Balthazar to her cousin Doctor Bellario of Padua for legal notes and garments, and plans to appear disguised as a young man. It matters because she arrives in court not as an untrained woman with a clever idea but as a person carrying a doctor of laws' written opinion and his introduction.