Tammy’s Reviews > The Merchant of Venice > Status Update

The Scot wants to box the English baron with the French for his surety. I think there might be a political comment in that for it was written during QEI’s reign. The German is a drunkard. When sober, he’s a little lower than man. When drunk, a little higher than beasts. CHAIN of BEING. She could put a glass of wine on the wrong casket to solve that problem. Nerissa tells her that they have told her their selections.

The Neapolitan prince can only talk of horses and she wonders if his mother played false with the blacksmith. Count Palatine is melancholy and she’d rather marry a dead guy. The French lord doesn’t know who is his and seems to have many personalities and she thinks he’s mad. She cannot understand the English baron and he seems to have bought a different item of his ensemble from a different country.

AI SII In the first act, we meet the male lead (Bassiano) and, in the second act, we meet the female lead (Portia). It opens like a fairy tale and Jane Austen. Instead of an entail, she is required to marry according to her deceased father’s will. He set up three caskets ( Her friend Nerissa doesn’t think she is bad off because she’s rich but then she wonders if the middle way is better (moderation).

Being the good freind that he is, Antonio offers to get credit so that he can help Bassiano win Portia. Again, if we are thinking of Portia as an image of Christ, how many times are we dragged down by trying to help someone who is lost?

Arrows are intereting for they evoke the rays of the sun but also of the huntress Diana, the moon. Antonio tells him that my purse is your purse. The imagery around Portia is interesting. She lives at Belmont (beautiful mountain -- paradise on Earth?). She is rich and fair and all value her worth. Suitors have come from all over to win her hand. She has sunny locks as bright as the golden fleece.

Antonio asks Bassiano how his secret pilgrimage went. I wonder about Portia. Is she an image of Christ? Bassiano moans that he has gone into debt and disabled his estate to win her. Don’t we all try to win God’s favor by proving ourselves worthy? Does Bassiano imply base as in lower in status? He explains his situation with the metaphor of losing arrows. He keeps losing them and his friend keeps bailing him out.

The younger two call the three “worthier” and “good” but it can be taken two ways. They really are better OR they are the opposite and the youngers speak like two-faced Janus. I’m watching a college production on youtube (Thomas Aquinas College 4/1/2026) and they choose the comic route. Gratiano asks to play the fool and he also seems to be comic relief in this trio. After some foolish talk, Gratiano and Lorzenz go.

AI SI Previewing for next year. Antonio is a wealthy merchant of Venice who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, for all his assets are out at sea. He denies it to two of his younger friends, so they think he is in love, which he denies. They describe all the signs of love according to the Elizabethan convention. Three of his rowdy friends show up, and the younger ones take off.