2.Disguise in the merchant of Venice
Diciembre 1, 2011
To refresh the plot of ‘The Merchant of Venice’ you can go to this site:
http://www.bardweb.net/plays/venice.html
In the Merchant of Venice we find the disguise not in all the play but in a very important part of it. Those who are disguised are Portia and Nerissa.
Portia disguises herself as a male then assumes the role of a lawyer’s apprentice whereby she saves the life of Bassanio’s friend, Antonio, in court. She also disguises herself as Balthazar, a young doctor of law.
And Nerissa became Stephano which is Nerissa disguised as ‘Balthazar’s law clerk.
The fragment in which the two girls decided to disguise is Act 3, scene IV:
I thank you for your wish, and am well pleased
To wish it back on you: fare you well Jessica.Exeunt JESSICA and LORENZO
Now, Balthasar,
As I have ever found thee honest-true,
So let me find thee still. Take this same letter,
And use thou all the endeavour of a man
In speed to Padua: see thou render this
Into my cousin’s hand, Doctor Bellario;
And, look, what notes and garments he doth give thee,
Bring them, I pray thee, with imagined speed
Unto the tranect, to the common ferry
Which trades to Venice. Waste no time in words,
But get thee gone: I shall be there before thee.Exit
Come on, Nerissa; I have work in hand
That you yet know not of: we’ll see our husbands
Before they think of us.They shall, Nerissa; but in such a habit,
That they shall think we are accomplished
With that we lack. I’ll hold thee any wager,
When we are both accoutred like young men,
I’ll prove the prettier fellow of the two,
And wear my dagger with the braver grace,
And speak between the change of man and boy
With a reed voice, and turn two mincing steps
Into a manly stride, and speak of frays
Like a fine bragging youth, and tell quaint lies,
How honourable ladies sought my love,
Which I denying, they fell sick and died;
I could not do withal; then I’ll repent,
And wish for all that, that I had not killed them;
And twenty of these puny lies I’ll tell,
That men shall swear I have discontinued school
Above a twelvemonth. I have within my mind
A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks,
Which I will practise.Fie, what a question’s that,
If thou wert near a lewd interpreter!
But come, I’ll tell thee all my whole device
When I am in my coach, which stays for us
At the park gate; and therefore haste away,
For we must measure twenty miles to-day.
After deciding this we see the ‘two disguised woman in performance’ in the climax of the play, in the court of the Duke of Venice. The Duke, wishing to save Antonio but unwilling to set a dangerous legal precedent of nullifying a contract, refers the case to a visitor who introduces himself as Balthazar, a young male “doctor of the law”, bearing a letter of recommendation to the Duke from the learned lawyer Bellario. The “doctor” is actually Portia in disguise, and the “law clerk” who accompanies her is actually Nerissa, also in disguise. Portia, as “Balthazar”, asks Shylock to show mercy in a famous speech, in act 4 scene I:
The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea;
Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence ‘gainst the merchant there.My deeds upon my head! I crave the law,
The penalty and forfeit of my bond.
The disguise of Portia
As Lee Lady says in his article about Portia, in particular, her disguise. He asked the question of why Portia appears in the courtroom as a man, instead of having a true legal expert in the scene.
This is good to point out, because the character of Portia is one that has not be involved in the Shylock plot, so seems to be more appart.
Well, I totally agree with him when he says that in a simple way, ‘the story would lose its point’. It is true, because in some way, Portia would have lost the model of heroine (specially Shakespearean heroine) that she has for a lot of critics in this play.
In addition, Lee Lady also says that the fragment in which Portia is giving Mercy Speech ‘ is the defining moment when we realize that she is noble and courageous(and much more intelligent than anyone else in the courtroom)’.
This is true, like at the beginning of the play Portia seems no so intelligent, more like ‘thinking in other things’, and, in this rising moment that she gives the speech, we see a more intelligent woman.
Sources:
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~lady/lit/shakespeare/portia.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portia_(Merchant_of_Venice)
http://shakespeare.mit.edu/merchant/
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