Poetry, Law, and The Pursuit of Perfection: Portia's Role in The Merchant of Venice

Rice University
Poetry, Law, and the Pursuit of Perfection: Portia's Role in The Merchant of Venice Author(s): Monica J. Hamill Source: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 18, No. 2, Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama (Spring, 1978), pp. 229-243 Published by: Rice University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/450359 . Accessed: 07/11/2013 13:41
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SEL, 18 (1978) ISSN 0039-3657
Poetry,Law, and the Pursuit of Perfection: Portia's Role in The Merchant of Venice
M O NI CA J. HA MILL
The Renaissance assumed an intimate relationshipbetweenpoetryand law: the ancientpoets, the foundlegislatorsamong ers of civilized society,were praised as the first men; the Renaissance poet, who endeavored tp move imperfect men to "as high a perfection"as theywere capable of,' feltthat his labors complementedthoseof the lawmaker.In The Merchant to lead charactersto their"true perfecof Venice, Portia's efforts tion" (V.i.108)2 are realized throughthe course of her own develIn the lottery episodes, the trial-scene, opment as poet-lawmaker. are Portia's uses of poetic language and fictions and thering-play, law. The happy fromher upholding and interpreting inextricable endings of all three actions, and of the play itself,depend on Portia's submittingherself to her father's will in the lottery, upholding Venetian civil law at the trial, and maintaining and the ring-bondin the final scene of the play. clarifying It is necessary to stressthe feelingof Shakespeare'sown timefor the vital connection between poetry and law because modern criticshave too oftenfailed to perceivethisrelationship.Northrop Frye, for instance, postulates an antithesisbetween comedy and moral law: "In comedy the moral norm is not morality but deliverance. . . The moral norm does not carry with it the vision of a free society."3Critics who share Frye's assumption have been unable to reconcile Portia's legal maneuvering as Balthazar with her actions as the lady of Belmont. Comedy "is of life aftershowing the moral machinery always asking amnesty, gettingin the way of life," C. L. Barberwrites."The machinery as such need not be dismissed-Portia is veryemphatic about not restingon the buoyantforceof a doing that. But social solidarity, collective life that transcendsparticular mistakes, can set the
'Sir Philip Sidney,An Apologie for Poetrie,Elizabethan Critical Essays, ed. G. GregorySmith (London, 1959), I, 160. 2All quotations fromthe play are fromthe New Ardenedition,ed. John Russell Brown (London and Cambridge, Mass., 1966). 3NorthropFrye, "The Argumentof Comedy," English InstituteEssays (1949), ed. Leonard F. Dean (New York, rpt. in Shakespeare:Modern Essays in Criticism, 1957), p. 87.
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machinery aside."4 But Portia's triumph over Shylock refutes Barber's argument:far fromsuggestingthat society'smoral and legal machinerymight be set aside, Portia vindicates Venice's foundationon law by using the law itselfto redeem Antonio. the trial,music inspirestwo conversations After about imperfection and perfection that should be consideredin an assessmentof all of Portia's actions. Lorenzo, speaking to Jessica about the music of the spheres,observesthatso long as "this muddyvesture of decay" closes in the soul, men cannot hear that immortal harmony (V.i.63 ff.). On hearing the music made by Portia's musicians, he praises the power that terrestrial music has over its listeners:"therefore the poet/ Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods," he muses, "Since naught so stockish,hard, and full of rage,/But music forthe timedoth change his nature" (79-82). When Portia hears the music, she is moved to meditateon the relativityof earthly perfection: "Nothing is good (I see) withoutrespect,-/ Methinksit [the music] sounds much sweeter than by day" (V.i.99-100).Men's glimpses of perfection are fortuitous and circumstantial:"The crow doth sing as sweetlyas the lark/ When neither is attended" (102-103). But it is precisely throughsuch contingencies,Portia recognizes,that "true perfection" may be realized:"How many thingsby season, season'd are/ To theirright praise, and true perfection"(107-108). Portia's belief that flawed creaturescan, in some sense, fulfill their yearnings for perfectionwas shared by the pre-eminent theologian of the time,Richard Hooker, and its foremost defender of poetry,Sir Philip Sidney. Hooker might be said to argue a of virtualperfectibility in his Laws of EcclesiasticalPolity. theory Although absolute perfectioncannot be realized on earth, he reasoned,all creatures possess an unlimitedcapacityforincreased in all things,thereis "an appetite or desire,whereby perfection: they incline to somethingwhich theymay be," he wrote; "and when theyare it, theyshall be perfecter than now theyare.... And because thereis not in the world anythingwhereby another therefore may not some way be made the perfecter, all thingsthat are, are good."5 Sidney also maintained that humanity could
4C. L. Barber,Shakespeare'sFestive Comedy:A Study of Dramatic Form and its Relation to Social Custom (1959; rpt. Princteton,1972), p. 186. 5Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Works,ed. John Keble, 7th ed., rev. by R. W. Church and F. Paget (1888; rpt. New York, 1970), I, 215.
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become "perfecter,"and argued that the poet was uniquely empowered to move men to that end by his art of delightful teaching:above all otherearthlymeans, he wrotein his Apologie for Poetrie, poetry is able "to lead and draw vs to as high a as our degeneratesoules, made worse by theyrclayey perfection lodgings, can be capable of."6 In the dialectic between imperfection and perfection, both the priestand the poet assumed that the inherently flawed natureof men required that civilized society be founded on law. Because some men are evil and all men are inclined towardssin, Hooker reasoned,laws are necessary, and theyare only perfect insofaras they are framed to deal with the worst actions that men are capable of: "unless presuming man to be in regard of his depraved mind little betterthan a wild beast, they [civil laws] do so to framehis actions, that theybe accordinglynotwithstanding no hindrance unto the common good for which societies are instituted:unless they do this, they are not perfect. Hooker's views of man and societywere shared by the Renaissance apolowho claimed that the first gists forpoetry, body of civil laws was created by the firstpoets, Orpheus and Amphion. Because the ancient poets "were aged and graue men, and of much experience in th'affaires of the world," George Puttenhamwrote,"theywere the first lawmakersto the people, and the first polititens, deuising all expedientmeanes for th'establishment of Common wealth, to hold and containe the people in order and duety by forceand vertueof good and wholesome lawes, made forthe preseruation of the publique peace and tranquillitie."8 In his translationof Horace's de Arte Poetica, Thomas Lodge celebrated Orpheus and Amphion as lawmakers who drove "the sauage men from wo[o]ds,/ And made them liue aright"; in their creation of the firstcivilized society,Orpheus and Amphion allayed the strife among men, made the gods known to them,and taughtthemthe law of marriage.9 Portia follows in the footsteps of the archetypal poetlawmakers.Although she certainly fails in the attemptto convert the "savage," Shylock,to beliefin a spiritualrealm,she does allay -to the strife that he createsand even forceshim "to live aright"
6Sidney,Elizabethan Critical Essays, I, 160. 7Hooker, Works. I, 240. 8GeorgePuttenham,The Arteof English Poesie, Elizabethan Critical Essays,II, 7-8. 9Thomas Lodge, Defence of Poetry,Elizabethan Critical Essays, I, 74.
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outwardconformity of behavior.In her final action, the ring-play, Portia leads the more civilized charactersto amend theirflaws: to teach the laws of love, she enables herself using her ring-fiction to exorciseher own jealousy and allows Antonio to transform his attemptto possess Bassanio into a gesture that expresseslove's ideal generosity. If absolute perfection remainselusive in theend, Portia has moved the various charactersto successfulpursuit of that "right praise, and true perfection"realizable by men.
II
Antonio representsperhaps Portia's greatestchallenge. Antonio's sadness suggestsa potentially dangerouslikenessto Shylock. Shylock is one "that hath no music in himself"(V.i.83), and his ineradicablesobriety leads him to a joyless end. Antonio is spared a miserabledestinybecause his sadness proves to be a temporary, amendable aberrationof temperament. Although Antonio himself cannot fathom the source of his melancholy, it is apparent even in I.i. that he is sad because Bassanio is about to leave him for his new love. Justas Shylock craves to possess the objects that he values, Antonio becomes increasingly desperateto possess the friendwhom he loves. His unconscious jealousy of Portia is most painfullyapparent at the trial,when his death seems imminent.Antonio resignshimselfto his death because he foreseesthat his sacrificewill forever cast Portia's love forBassanio into the shadow of his own greater love. "Commend me to your honourable wife," he instructs Bassanio, Tell her the process of Antonio's end, Say how I lov'd you, speak me fair in death: And when the tale is told, bid her be the judge WhetherBassanio had not once a love. (IV.i.269-273) Antonio's attemptto possess Bassanio proceedsfromboth men's initial misconceptionsabout love. When Antonio rouses himself in I.i. to ask Bassanio "what lady is the same/ To whom you swore a secretpilgrimage" (119-120), his question implies the cause of his sadness, but nothing more. In the friends'ensuing it is Bassanio who articulatesthe imperfect conversation, notions of love that will implicate both men in Antonio's near-tragedy. Bassanio invitesAntonio to thinkof his "pilgrimage" in terms of "all my plots and purposes/ How to get clear of all the debtsI
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owe" (I.i.133-134). When his firstattemptto couch his plea for more money leaves Antonio bewildered by his request for an "arrow," Bassanio proceeds to create an elaborate comparison between his pilgrimage and Jason's quest for the golden fleece, and then hints thathe needs Antonio to financehis undertaking. Bassanio's ambiguous language suggests that he is unable to reconcile his disparate conceptions of his quest as a pilgrimage and as a commercial venture.He clearly intends his image of Portia as the golden fleeceand his description of his suit to her as Jason's quest as idealizations of his love. But he also imagines thathis own worthwill be measuredby his "means," which leads him to define his quest as a mercantileenterprise: 0 my Antonio, had I but the means To hold a rival place with one of them ["many Jasons": suitors] I have a mind presages me such thrift That I should questionless be fortunate. (I i 173-176) Later in the play, when Bassanio finallywins his lady, Portia herselfwill fashion the language of money and commerceinto decorous metaphorsthat define the ideals of love. By then,however, Bassanio's initial desperationfor "means" will have led to Antonio's bondage to Shylock. However unwittingly, Bassanio makes Antonio feel compelled to buy his friendship at the cost of his principles ("Shylock, albeit I neitherlend nor borrow [I.iii.56 ff.])and, verynearly,at the cost of his life. All-absorbed in his love forPortia, he is insensitiveto Antonio's need to prove his own love. His feebleprotestcomes too late ("You shall not seal such a bond forme" [I.iii.150]), forAntonio readilyassentsto Shylock's proposal that he pledge a pound of his flesh as the forfeit for the money Bassanio needs. Antonio's plight, then, is the pathetic consequence of the flaws and blindness that are rooted in the very intensitywith which each of the two men pursues his love.
III
Portia's firstscene (I.ii.) immediatelyfollows Bassanio's idealized descriptionof Belmont and its lady. Although the atmosphere of Belmont is surely more rarefiedthan that of Venice, Belmont is a location that actually heightensour sense of men's situation in an imperfectworld. The vagaries of destiny,the of human errorare all constraintsof law, and the inevitability
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illustrated in the principal action that takesplace at Belmont,the casket-lottery. The lottery operates like destinyitself.Its apparent forceis to subject both Portia and her suitorsto chance, overriding Portia's presumable ability to choose her own husband and her suitors' ability to deservelove throughacts of heroism: "O me the word 'choose'! I may neither choose who I would, nor refusewho I dislike . . . is it not hard Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refusenone?" (I.ii.22-23; 25-26). Morocco also complains: But alas the while! If Hercules and Lichas play at dice Which is the betterman, the greaterthrow May turn by fortunefromthe weaker hand.
(II.i.3 1-34)
By consenting to participate in the lottery, Portia obeys her father'swill. Like the Venetian law that will appear to allow Shylock the pound of flesh, the lotteryis an apparently cruel mechanism that actually constitutes a benevolentbondage: Porto ensure thatshe would be won by tia's father devised the lottery a worthy suitor-one whom "you shall rightly love," Nerissa reassures her (I.ii.32). But the device is also an arbitrary stayagainst "madness the youth" (I.ii. 19): in this sense it is the despotic imposition of the dead father'swill over "the will of a living daughter" (I.ii.24). Vexed at this constraint,Portia dispels her anxietyover the lottery by mockingBassanio's imaginationof the her suitors, "many Jasons" who come to woo her. She caricatures and speaks of them as a parade of wooden men who pesterher with their quest: "Whiles we shut the gate upon one wooer, another knocks at the door" (I.ii.127-128). Portia is a better poet than Bassanio. Having mockedhis legend of "many Jasons," she shows her own more discriminating use of where heroic metaphorin the climacticepisode of the casket-plot, Bassanio makes his choice. Comparing Bassanio to Hercules, Portia stages his deliberationover the casketsas an heroic action: Now he goes With no less presence,but with much more love Than young Alcides, when he did redeem The virgin tribute,paid by howling Troy To the sea-monster.. ..
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. . .go Hercules! Live thou, I live-with much much more dismay, I view the fight,than thou that mak'st the fray. (III.ii.53-57; 60-62) In his discussion of Renaissance interpretations of the mythsof Hercules, Hallett Smith points out that all of the legends were thought to illustratemoral heroism; according to the mythographer Natalis Comes, for instance, "the storiesabout Hercules serveto encourage the strenuouslife,and Hercules himselfrepresents nothingother than that virtueand strength of mind which casts out all vices and conquers all voluptuous desires."'0Portia's imagination of Bassanio's choice as an Herculean feat" emphasizes that the heroic lover need not undertakeliterallydangerous exploits; as the inscription on the lead casket implies, love's heroism is a metaphor that expresses the lover's willingness to "give and hazard all he hath" (II.ix.21). Like Morocco and Arragon,Bassanio moralizes the inscription on the gold and silvercaskets.He wins the lottery not because he is a better moralistthan the othersuitors,but because he does not try to rationalize the choice of lead: "Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence,/ And here choose I" (III.ii.106-107). Its inscription, he realizes, "rather threaten'stthan dost promise is designed not to elicit precepts, aught" (III.ii.105). The lottery but to testdispositions;by accepting the risks and the challenge demanded by the lead casket, Bassanio shows his disposition to true heroism. Morocco's and Arragon's reflectionson the gold and silver caskets' inscriptionsare similar to Bassanio's, and they do not suitors.'2They suggestthat the two men are essentiallyunworthy choose wronglybecause, like Bassanio, theyfail to recognizethe
'0Hallett Smith, Elizabethan Poetry: A Study in Conventions,Meanings, and Expression (Cambridge, Mass., 1952), p. 295. "Smith, pp. 293-299, points out that the Renaissance's favoritelegend about Hercules was the storyof Hercules' Choice, "a legend in which the hero is shown deliberately choosing the kind of life he will lead" (p. 293); Hercules' decision to follow the path of Virtue ratherthan that of Pleasure signified,among other of the flesh.AlthoughPortia does not refer things,his conquest of the temptations to this legend,perhaps many membersof Shakespeare'saudience would have been inevitablyremindedof it. I2See Thomas Fujimura, "Mode and Structurein The Merchant of Venice," PMLA, 81 (1966), who argues that Morocco, like Shylock, is a "materialistic creature" who is taken with false values (p. 506) and that Arragon's flaw, like Antonio's, is hubris (p. 510).
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paradoxical character of these inscriptions. As Portia realizes, Morocco and Arragon are "deliberate fools! when they do choose,/They have the wisdom by theirwit to lose" (II.ix.80-81). Morocco is not wrong to describePortia as a "mortal breathing saint" whose worth is symbolizedby gold (II.vii.40 ff.). But his idealistic rationalization denies what the substitutefor Portia's All men portrait, the Death's-head,expresses:the factof mortality. and women,even Portia,will lie in "the obscuregrave" (II.vii.51). Nor does Arragon fail because he dares to "assume desert" (II.ix.51); love, itself,presupposes this. But the portraitof the blinking idiot warns that men must also recognize theirlimitations: "Seven timestriedthatjudgmentis,/ That neverdid choose amiss" (II.ix.64-65). by Shylock is announced at exactlythe Antonio's ensnarement moment when heroic metaphor appears to have come literally true: "We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece," Gratiano declares jubilantly (III.ii.240). "I would you had won the fleece that he [Antonio] hath lost," Salerio replies (241): realitypainfullyimpinges on the lovely fictionof the heroes' completion of theirquest. Portia can meet this challenge because she has used heroic myths poetically, as ideal truths-in Sidney's words"eitherbetter than Nature bringeth forth, or, quite a newe, formes such as neuerwere in Nature."'3The happy instanceswhen men's fantasiesof love and happiness do come true cannot annihilate that inevitablyshadow human joy. the wickednessand suffering fleeting, The momentswhen the ideal becomesreal are necessarily and are the more precious for that reason.
IV
Antonio's plight moves both Bassanio and Portia to show their mettle.When he learns of his friend'simminentdeath, Bassanio is the consequence of his immediately recognizesthat this tragedy own actions. "I have engag'd myselfto a dear friend,"he confessesto Portia, "Engag'd my friendto his mere enemy/To feed my means" (III.ii.260-262). When Bassanio sets offforVenice, he carrieswith him Portia's promise to provide however much gold Shylock might demand for Antonio's ransom: "Double six thousand [ducats], and then treblethat," she tells Bassanio, "Before a friendof this description/ Shall lose a hair throughBassanio's fault" (III.ii.299-301).
Elizabethan Critical Essays, I, 156. 13Sidney,
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More than simplya generousgesture,Portia's pledge justifiesher use of monetarymetaphors to define the nature of love. For instance,when Bassanio playfullyclaims her as his lottery-prize ("I come by note to give, and to receive" [III.ii.140]), Portia his fiscal imagery into language that expresses the transforms lover's desire to perfectherselfinto a gift that transcendsthe powers of reckoning:'4"foryou," she tells Bassanio, "I would be trebledtwentytimes myself," A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich, That only to stand high in your account, I might in virtues,beauties, livings, friends, Exceed account. (III.ii. 152-157) AfterBassanio has lefther to go to Antonio, Portia uses similar language to show that her love for Bassanio embraces Antonio too. Since Bassanio is her soul, she reasons, Antonio, his bosom lover, is the semblance of her soul (III.iv. 16 ff.). Her offerto ransom Antonio is the seal that ratifiesthis union of lovers and "How littleis the cost I have bestowed,"Portia concludes, friends: "In purchasing the semblance of my soul/ From out the stateof hellish cruelty!" (19-21).
v
The ideal of love's inclusivenessthat lies behind Portia's offer to ransom Antonio will inform her ring-play,where she will enable Antonio to save himselffromhis notion of love's possessiveness. But neitherlove nor gold can save Antonio fromShylock's "hellish cruelty." Portia denies Shylock's claim to the pound of flesh by answering the villain's own demands for of the law, "merelyjustice" (IV.i.335); by her strictinterpretation Portia not only redeemsAntonio fromhis bondage to Shylockbut also vindicatesVenice's bondage to law. of the symbolicdimensionsof the conflict Our understanding betweenPortia and Shylockis indebtedto those who have examthe ined the medieval paradigm that lies behind the trial-scene, debate between Justiceand Mercy over the issue of man's salvaof "the conflict '4See C. L. Barber'silluminatingdiscussion of the play in terms social use of it," Shakebetween the mechanisms of wealth and the masterful, speare's Festive Comedy, pp. 166-167.
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tion.5 In most medieval versions of the Heavenly Parliament, Justice and Mercy are divine beings who personifyGod's own One kind of comic exploitationof the paradigm "characteristics." was the variation known as the Processus Belial,16where Satan and the Virgin supplied the roles of Justiceand Mercy.As E. E. Stoll pointed out many yearsago, Shylock, too, is a devil-figure His demand thatAntonio pay the forfeit who travesties Justice.17 of his bond createsa tragicimpasse: if the law allows Shylock to take the pound of flesh,the court must award it, for the Duke cannot deny the course of justice. "If you deny me, fie upon your law!" Shylockgloats. "There is no forcein the decreesof Venice:/ I stand for judgment" (IV.i.101-103). A knowledgeof the Heavenly Parliamentenhances our understanding of Antonio's role. It is Antonio who plays the part of humanum genus: mankind,whose inherentlack of righteousness precludeshis rightto salvation. Traditionally,thedebate between Justiceand Mercywas resolvedby Christ's Atonement:the Godand so of himselfdischargedman's debt to Justice, man's sacrifice brought about the reconciliation of Justiceand Mercy. The eshis willingness to sacrifice sence of Antonio's Christ-likeness, himself to pay Bassanio's debt, is a measure of his own flawed
'5Hope Traver, The Four Daughters of God (Philadelphia, 1907), discussed the literaryhistory of the paradigm; Samuel Chew, The Virtues Reconciled: An Iconographic Study (Toronto, 1947) traced its iconographic history.Later critics the trialscene,and even the play in its entirety, have used thesestudiesto interpret allegorically.Although a critical discussion of the various allegorical schemes is to note that the most beyond the scope of this article, it is perhaps sufficient sensitiveallegorists have temperedtheir readings of the symbolic antithesesbetween Christianand Jewish,Mercyand Justice,Love and Law, by theirrecognibetweenthe symbolicand the human that finallymakes tion of the rich interplay irreducibleto "figures."E.g., Barbara Lewalski, "Biblical Allusion the characters and Allegory in The Merchant of Venice," Shakespeare Quarterly,13 (1962), in the way in which allegorical emphasizesthat Shakespeare "is fullyas interested dimensionsenrichthe particularinstanceas in the use of the particularto point to higher levels of meaning" (p. 328). In a more recentessay, "Launcelot and the Uses of Allegory in The Merchant of Venice," SEL, 14 (1974), Rene' Fortin one allegorical scheme with another suggeststhat Shakespearehas counterpointed to show the coexistenceof Love and Law: "The Merchantof Venicesuggeststhat, despite the truthcontained in its naive allegory of love, men can expect only in a world far too complex for naive allegory to be given full relativeperfection credit" (p. 270). '6The most extensivestudyof the Processus Belial is Hope Traver's "The Four Daughters of God: A Mirrorof Changing Doctrine," PMLA, 40 (1925), 44-92. Its applicability to The Merchant of Venice was firstsuggested by John D. Rea, "Shylock and the Processus Belial," Philological Quarterly,8 (1929), 311-313. "7E. E. Stoll, Shakespeare Studies (New York, 1927), p. 319.
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humanity.'8 His situationis the more pitiable because he, himself, recognizeshis inabilityto supply the partof Christ,the Sacrificial of his "tainted" condition is a cryof Lamb. His acknowledgment despair: "I am a taintedwetherof the flock,/Meetestfordeath" (IV.i.114-115). But it is Shylock who provides the most pathetic definitionof Antonio's role. His prostitutionof Justice makes of Christ'ssaving act: the a perverse Antonio's martyrdom travesty flawed Antonio's sacrificeof himselfsatisfiesnot the demands of divine Justice, but Shylock's savage desire to feedupon the Christian. Bassanio's fear lest malice bear down truth (IV.i.210) is an anguished protestagainst the curse that Venice's bondage to law appears to have laid on its citizens. But Portia comes to the courtroomarmed with the legal acumen needed to vindicate the law should Shylockpersistin his travesty of Justice.She disguises herself not as a figureof Mercy, but as Balthazar,a doctorof laws; she has preparedfor her role by seeking the advice of Bellario, a real jurist. Portia's demands for mercy are a deviationpresumably-from Bellario's directives.In her speech on "The her own role as quality of mercy" (IV.i.180 ff.),Portia perfects the Justice and affordsShylock one last chance to transform courtroom'stravesty of the debate betweenJusticeand Mercyinto a positive imitation of the Heavenly Parliament. Mercy is "an to God himself,"she explains, "And earthlypower doth attribute then show likestGod's/ When mercyseasons justice" (191-193).It is as an imperfect human being, ratherthan as divine Mercy,that Portia speaks of salvation. She includes herself among the flawed men and women whose own need for God's mercyinspires their charitytowardsone another: "we do pray formercy,"she points The deeds out, "And thatsame prayerdoth teachus all to render/ of mercy" (196-198). But Antonio is not saved throughthe pleading of Mercy.When Shylock maintains his own righteousness-"My deeds upon my head! I crave the law" (IV.i.202)-Portia redeems Antonio by awarding Shylock the strictjustice he has demanded: should he
'8Allegorists tend to interpret Antonioas a Christ-figure who is only incidentally flawed (see, e.g., Lewalski, pp. 331, 333, 339). I feel that this reading reverses Shakespeare'semphases. Essentally,Antonio fails to carryChrist's role because it is a humanly impossible burden; by having Antonio's longing to make a Christlike sacrifice of himselfexpresshis yearningforhuman love, Shakespeareexploits, and makes more poignant, the inherenthuman inadequacy that limits Antonio just as it would limit any man.
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shed one drop of Antonio's blood or cut more or less than exactly his life and one pound of flesh, she explains, he must forfeit goods.'9 In her argumentsfor mercy,Portia had suggestedlaw's spiritual functionof showing to all men their inherentlack of for"in the course of justice,none of us/ Should see righteousness, salvation" (IV.i.195-196); by preventingShylock from claiming the pound of flesh, she shows that law is also necessary to constrainthose evil-doerswho will not acknowledgethe spiritual realm. Having had Justice itselfdictate Shylock's defeat,Portia unearths a statute that allows her to renew her appeal for Mercy. Should an alien seek the life of a Venetian citizen,she explains, Venetian law directsthat half his goods be awarded to the injured partyand that his life lies at the mercyof the Duke. The Duke with a choice: Portia prompts for and Antonio are confronted mercy;Gratiano, for revenge. and beg mercyof the Por. [To Shy.] Down therefore, duke. Gra. Beg that thou may'st have leave to hang thyself. (IV.i.359-360) Por. What mercycan you renderhim Antonio? Gra. A halter gratis,nothing else for Godsakel (IV.i.374-375) Allowing Shylock his life, the Duke shows Venice's liberation from the apparent curse of its bondage to law by using his obligation to enforcethe statuteas a chance to show mercyto the The mercyAntonio renders signifies that his release offender. freeshim to discovermore tenable kinds fromthe role of martyr that his half of Shylock's goods be of self-sacrifice; directing by held in trustforLorenzo and Jessica,he shows that he is capable of genuinelydisinterested generosity. Critical debate about the quality of the Christians' mercyhas focused on Shylock's forced baptism. Assessmentsrange from Allan Holaday's denunciation of Antonio's "stupidity"in "forcJew an emptylabel"20to John Cooper's ing upon the embittered apology thatShylock'sbaptismwould have seemedan "altogether
'9See E. J. Tucker's excellent discussion of Portia's application of the law in light of ElizabethanCommon Law principlesof equity,"The Letterof the Law in The Merchant of Venice," Shakespeare Survey,29 (1976), 93-101. 20AllanHoladay, "Antonio and the Allegoryof Salvation," ShakespeareStudies, 4 (1969), 113.
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kindlyconversion" to Shakespeare's audience because it liberates him from the dilemma of the Old Law.2' Shylock,himself,implies that his "Christianity"will be an empty label. He is not in saving his soul, but submitsto baptismonly in order interested to save his wealth, "the means wherebyI live" (IV.i.373). The of Shylock shows theiressential Duke's and Antonio's treatment goodness, but the quality of their mercyis conditioned by the nature of its recipient.Mercycannot annihilate the existenceof of obduratemen: Shylockcan be the characters evil, nor transform forcedto submit to the externalrite of baptism, but cannot be compelled to his own salvation. At the end of Act IV, the reprobate is abandoned to his own misery,and our attention now focuses on Portia's effortto save the Christian communityof friendsand lovers from their own Shylockean tendencies. VI Portia completesher labors as In her final action, the ring-play, the she has practicedher artsof play, Throughout poet-lawmaker. within the constraintsimposed by law, destiny, true perfection Her ring-playforcesits participantsto and human imperfections. act out theiraspirationsto love within a plot thatembodies these of law. The intricacies The ring-bonditselfrepresents constraints. three of Antonio's that the announcement the plot, capped by course thatdestiny ships have safelylanded, suggestthe fortuitous Portia designs her own charts for each man. Most importantly, role to actualize, and then to exorcise,a Shylockeanconceptionof
love.22
Portia's role is a calculated posture of jealousy and hardmen's inevher assumptionof thesequalities reflects heartedness; in and excluterms of possession love itable tendencyto define even after towardsBassanio persists sion. Antonio's possessiveness Portia's the trial; it is evidentin his plea that Bassanio surrender ring to Balthazar, when he urges that his love, togetherwith "Be valued 'gainst your wife's commandeBalthazar's deservings,
2"JohnCooper, "Shylock's Humanity," Shakespeare Quarterly,21 (1970), 121. Horwich, "Riddle and Dilemma in The Merchantof Venice," SEL, 17 22Richard be seen as Portia's symbolicrestoration (1977), 191-200,proposes thatthe ring-play denied her by the of thecontroloverher destinythathad been seemingly to herself Although this reading is convincing,Horwich's failure to consider casket-lottery. the ring-dramaas a complex action investedwith multiple symbolicdimensions reduces Portia's rich device to merelya cruel game wherein she prolongs her and rejectionof Bassanio simplyin order to asserther own "power of bafflement choice."
242
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ment" (IV.i.447). Portia herself createdthe dilemma thatprompts Antonio's plea: arguing that "if your wifebe not a mad-woman," she "would not hold out enemy for ever/ For giving it to me" (IV.i.441; 443-444), Balthazar demanded the ring as paymentfor redeemingAntonio. Bassanio's surrender of the ring precipitates the quarrel that is played out in the ring-drama.By playing the role of "mad-woman," Portia admits her own inclinations towards jealousy and possessiveness;allowing herself to channel she exorcises them by acting them these impulses constructively, out in her fiction. Portia designs her role to vindicate the ideals of love she had articulatedin III.iii. and III.iv. Reconciling herself with Bassanio at Antonio's pledge of himselfas surety forhis friend, she stages her conversion from "mad-woman" to conciliated wife as the resolution of the latent conflict between Antonio and herself. Among the critics who have discussed this conflict,only John Hurrell has understoodthat Portia is essentially"no rival but a sharerin Bassanio's love, one whose claims are of such a different sort that he [Antonio] has nothing to fear from her."23 But Hurrell's statement that the revelationof Portia's part in the trial is responsible for Antonio's final acceptance of his friend'smarriage is based on a misreading of the play.24Portia does not reveal her disguise until after Antonio has made his pledge. It is Portia's own pretenseof rivalrywith Balthazar that affordsAntonio the chance to exorcise the possessiveness of his love forBassanio and his feelingsof rivalrywith Portia: seizing the opportunity, Antonio makes his pledge. Recalling his pledge of his body to Shylock,Antonio offers his soul as suretyfor Bassanio's marital fidelity: I once did lend my body for his wealth, Which but for him that had your husband's ring Had quite miscarried.I dare be bound again, that your lord My soul upon the forfeit, Will never more break faith advisedly. (V.i.249-253)
23JohnHurrell, "Love and Friendship in The Merchant of Venice," Texas Studies in Literatureand Language, 4 (1961), 340. Other criticswho discuss the conflictinterpret the ring-playas Portia's final triumphover Antonio: see Robert Hapgood, "Portia and The Merchant of Venice: The Gentle Bond," Modern Language Quarterly,28 (1967), 28-29; Lawrence Hyman, "The Rival Lovers in The Merchant of Venice," Shakespeare Quarterly,21 (1970), 112-115. 24Hurrell, pp. 339-340.
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one Antonio's pledge of his soul is an obviouslysymbolicgesture, his willingness to sacrificehimselffor his friend that transforms froman attemptto possess Bassanio into a gesturethat realizes of In response,Portia stagesthe turn-about love's ideal generosity. her assumed character:"you shall be his surety,"she tells Antonio, "give him this [ring],/And bid him keep it betterthan the other" (254-255).By having Antonio presentthe ring to Bassanio, transmitted Portia widens the significanceof the ring-metaphor: the ring becomes a giftthat ratifies to the husband by the friend, the ideal of love's inclusiveness. If the ring acquires a new symbolic dimension, it retains its a of all, the marriage-bond, first It symbolizes, initial significance. contract that stipulates the possessivenessof love. Accordingly, Portia creates the last knot in her series of tangled paradoxes to displaces its show the obvious point at which love's possessiveness generosity:at Bassanio's exclamation that this new ring is the same he gave Balthazar, Portia swears that the doctor lay with of the jest draws a gross rebukefromher her. Nerissa's repetition husband. "Why this is like the mendingof highways/In summer where the ways are fair enough!" Gratiano rails. "What, are we cuckolds ere we have deserv'dit?" (V.i.263-265).Disgusted thatthe into a common patternof love's women have fallen prematurely betrayal,Gratiano implies that vows of fidelityare the merely idealistic promises of young lovers. Bassiano's verysilence suggestshis own more loftyidealism. Having experiencedlove as the by Portia's confession realizationof his ideals, he is overwhelmed that she has betrayedtheir vows; as Portia implies, he is too and "amaz'd" to speak (266). At this point, Portia acquits herself paradoxes of Nerissa and resolvesall of the seeminglyinextricable her ring-plotby confessingher part at the trial: "Portia was the doctor . . ." (269 ff.). In the same speech, Portia tells Antonio that threeof his ships returnof his riches,which have come to harbor. The fortuitous Portia announces as if it were a recompenseforhis willingnessto sacrificethem,removesthe last vestigeof Antonio's role as martyr."I am dumb!" (279), he respondsto Portia's news, his earlier sadness displaced by an astonishmentthat declares a verysurfeit of happiness. His life and living returnedto him, Antonio can resume his pursuits as a merchantof Venice-but as one who is far happier and wiser in the ways of love. CharlestonHigher Education Consortium Charleston,South Carolina

Poetry, Law, and The Pursuit of Perfection: Portia's Role in The Merchant of Venice

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Poetry, Law, and The Pursuit of Perfection: Portia's Role in The Merchant of Venice

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Rice University

SEL, 18 (1978) ISSN 0039-3657

Elizabethan Critical Essays, I, 156. 13Sidney,

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