17. Book Reviews XIII: Shakespeare

The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare


The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare
12/11/2025
Notes
1. Movies and plays can include scenes where actors and actresses just talk to each other, in different settings, naturally. Their speech can sometimes be scripted, and sometimes be improvised, or done without preparation. These were common elements of plays in Shakespeare's time.
1-b. Movies and plays can include elements including: humor, tragedy, and action.
2. I am to learn: I do not know.
2-b. ado: difficulty, trouble.
3. pageants: floats in street processions; elaborately decorated barges.
4. wind: breath
5. but even now...worth nothing: one minute worth a lot, the next minute worth nothing.
6. We'll make...on yours: we'll find time for you whenever you are available.
7. old wrinkles: wrinkles that come with age; many wrinkles, from laughing.
8. creep...peevish: contract jaundice through bad temper (Jaundice was believed to result from an excess of bile, which made one peevish).
9. dumb: silent
10. neat's: maid not vendible: a woman who cannot be sold on the marriage market.

11. By something...grant continuance: by displaying a rather more grand style of life than my modest means would allow me to continue.
12. come...debts: discharge with honor the large debts.
13. from...warranty: your love gives me authorization.
14. spend but time: waste time
15. richly left: who has inherited riches
16. Cato's...Portia: The historical Portia was daughter to the Roman statesman Cato and wife to Brutus, leader of the conspiracy against Julius Caesar.
17. Colchos' strond: the shore of Colchis on the Black Sea, where, in Greek mythology, Jason and the Argonauts went in quest of the Golden Fleece.
18. I...sake: I have no doubt that I will get it either on my credit as a merchant or from friends.
19. surfeit...much: fall ill through overeating.
20. to be seated in the mean: to be located in the middle between excess and want.

21. comes...hairs: acquires white hairs more quickly.
22. meshes: nets, snares.
23. good parts: achievements.
24. weeping philosopher: Heraclitus of Ephesus, who wept at people's consuming desire for riches.
25. have...English: speak little English.
26. proper man's picture: the picture of an ideal man.
27. dumb show: someone who does not speak (literally, a part of the play presented without speech)
28. he borrowed...able: he let the Englishman slap his ear and, instead of defending himself, swore that he'd pay him back later.
29. make shift: find a way. casket: small ornamental chest for holding jewels and other valuables.
30. deep: tall

31. Sibylla: the Sibyl, to whom Apollo granted as many years of life as there are grains in a handful of sand.
32. Diana: goddess of chastity.
33. ducats: Venetian gold coins.
34. bound: obligated by a legal bond to repay.
35. In Venice Bassanio goes to Shylock, a Jewish moneylender, to borrow, in Antonio's name, 3,000 ducats...Shylock insists that the bond is a kind of joke, a "merry bond." Bassanio distrusts Shylock, but Antonio, confident of the success of his trading expeditions, agrees to sign the bond.
36. sufficient: as a guarantee or security; in supposition: uncertain.
37. Rialto: the Exchange, where merchants gathered
38. squandered: scattered (perhaps imprudently)
39. assured: satisfied (Shylock, in the following line, uses assured to mean "financially guaranteed.")
40. the habitation...into: The gospels describe Christ (your prophet Nazarite) driving devils out of madmen and into a herd of swine.

41. publican: collector of Roman taxes and enemy of the Jews (In Luke, Jesus tells of a publican whose humility justified him in God's eyes.)
42. low simplicity: humble foolishness.
43. gratis: without interest.
44. usance: interest.
45. catch him...the hip: have him at my mercy (The term comes from wrestling.)

12/11/2025
Text
1. Antonio: In sooth I know not why I am so sad...
2. Solanio: Be with my hopes abroad. I should still be plucking the grass to know where sits the wind.
3. Solanio: Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman, Gratiano, and Lorenzo. Fare you well.
4. Gratiano: You look not well, Signior Antonio...They lose it that do buy it with much care. Believe me, you are marvelously changed.
5. Gratiano: Let me play the fool. With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come, And let my liver rather heat with wine Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
6. Lorenzo: I must be one of these same dumb wise men, For Gratiano never lets me speak.
7. Bassanio: Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice.
8. Antonio: Well, tell me what lady is the same...That you today promised to tell me of?
9. Bassanio: But my chief care Is to come fairly off from the great debts Wherein my time, something too prodigal, Hath left me gaged.
10. Bassanio: To you, Antonio, I owe the most in money and in love...

11. Bassanio: In Belmont is a lady richly left, And she is fair, and fairer than that word Of wondrous virtues.
12. I did receive speechless messages. Her name is Portia, nothing undervalued To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia. Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth. For the four winds blow in from every coast.
13. Bassanio: O my Antonio, had I but the means To hold a rival place with one of them...That I should questionless be fortunate!
14. Antonio: Go presently inquire, and so will I. Where money is, and I no question make To have it of my trust, or for my sake.
15. Portia: By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world.
16. Portia: If only to do were as easy as to know what were good to do...
17. Portia: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done that to be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.
18. I may neither choose who I would nor refuse who I dislike.
19. Nerissa: First, there is the Neapolitan prince.
20. Nerissa: Then is there the County Palatine.
21. Discusses acting fast without thinking about the consequences.
22. Portia: I had rather be married to a death's head with a bone in his mouth than to either of these.
23. Portia: God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man.
24. Portia: He is every man in no man.
25. Portia: If I should marry him, I should marry twenty husbands! If he should despise me, I would forgive him, for if he love me to madness, I shall never requite him.
26. Nerissa: What say you then to Falconbridge, the young baron of England?
27. Portia: You know I say nothing to him, for he understands not me, nor i him. He hath neither Latin, French, nor Italian...
28. Portia: That he hath a neighborly charity in him, for he borrowed a box of the ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay him again when he was able.
29. Nerissa: How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony's nephew?
30. Portia: Very vilely in the morning, when he is sober, and most vilely in the afternoon, when he is drunk. When he is best he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst he is little better than a beast.

31. Portia: I will do anything, Nerissa, ere I will be married to a sponge.
32. Nerissa: You need not fear, lady, the having any of these lords. They have acquainted me with their determinations, which is indeed to return to their home and to trouble you with no more suit, unless you may be won by some other sort than your father's imposition depending on the caskets.
33. Portia: If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as Diana unless I be obtained by the manner of my father's will.
34. Portia: And I pray God grant them a fair departure!
35. Nerissa: Do you not remember, lady, in your father's time, a Venetian, a scholar and a soldier, that came hither in company of the Marquess of Montferrat?
36. Nerissa: True madam. He, of all the men that ever my foolish eyes looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady.
37. Servingman: The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take their leave. And there is a forerunner come from a fifth, the Prince of Morocco, who brings word the Prince his master will be here tonight.
38. Portia: If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good heart as I can bid the other four farewell, I should be glad of his approach. If he have the condition of a saint and the complexion of a devil, I had rather he should shrive me than wive me.
39. Shylock: Three thousand ducats for three months, and Antonio bound.
40. Shylock: Antonio is a good man.
41. Bassanio: Have you heard any imputation to the contrary?
42. Shylock: I understand, moreover, upon the Rialto, he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for England, and other ventures he hath squandered abroad.
43. Shylock: I will be assured I may. And that I may be assured, I will bethink me.
44. Yes, to smell pork! To eat of the habitation which your prophet the Nazarite conjured the devil into!


A Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare




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