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Merchant of Venice, I3r

Editorial note

This page from Act 5 Scene 1 depicts the end of Lorenzo's speech to Jessica about how people should be moved by music. The rest of the scene shows Portia and Nerissa returning to Portia's home, talking about a candle they see and music they hear, until Lorenzo comes out and recognizes Portia's voice.

The overwhelming focus on sound and sight intrigued me considering the play's theme of racial difference. Shylock's famous speech includes an allusion to sight ("hath not a Jew eyes?"), and characters such as the Prince of Morroco and Lancelet's Black lover reveal the racialized interplay between 'light' and 'dark'. This reading foregrounds Shakespeare's use of racialized visual imagery. Alongside visuality here is aurality, where sound seems to influence and even overlap with sight. Highlighting this relationship between sound and sight prompts a deeper inquiry into how The Merchant of Venice racializes its characters beyond skin colour.

I transcribed the passage using a 4-part color-coding spectrum: words most strongly associated with light are white, words associated with light are yellow, words most strongly associated with darkness are black, and words associated with darkness are dark grey. Using a spectrum captures how Portia and Nerissa compare not only light against dark, but light against light and dark against dark. I have made the majority of the text gray, to make the light/dark words stand out. These words are also bolded for ease of reading. Because this reading relies on understanding a word's connotations, I have standardized spellings to make comprehension easier for the reader. Classical allusions, as well as words less obviously associated with light or dark, will be explained in the notes so readers can grasp the visual subtleties at play.

the motions of his spirit are dull as night,

and his affections dark as Erebus;1 

let no such man be trusted: mark the m u s i c.

 

      Enter Portia and Nerrissa

 

Portia: That light we see is burning in my hall:

how far that little candle throws his beams, 

so shines a good deed in a naughty world.

 

Nerrissa: When the moon shone we did not see the candle?

 

Portia: So doth the greater glory dim the less,

a substitute shines brightly as a King

until a King be by, and then his state

empties itself, as doth an inland brook

into the main of waters: m u s i c hark.

 

Nerrissa: It is your m u s i c Madam of the house?

 

Portia: The Crow2 doth s i n g as sweetly as the Lark3

when neither is attended: and I think

the Nightingale if she should s i n g by day

when every Goose is c a c k l i n g, would be thought

no better a M u s i c i a n than the Wren?4

How many things by season, seasoned are

to their right praise, and true perfection:

Peace, how the moon5 sleeps with Endymion,6

and would not be awaked.

 

Lorenzo: That is the v o i c e, 

or I am much deceived of Portia.

 

Portia: He knows me as the blind man knows the C u c k o o by the bad v o i c e? 7

 

Lorenzo: Dear Lady welcome home?

 

Portia: We have been praying for our husbands welfare, 

which speed we hope the better for our words:

are they returned?

 

Lorenzo: Madam, they are not yet:

but there is come a Messenger before

to signify their coming?

Image credit: Rare Books & Manuscripts Department, Boston Public Library, copy G.176.16. The most excellent historie of the merchant of Venice. First Quarto. London: 1600.

Citing this page: Shakespeare, William. The Merchant of Venice, I3r. London: 1600. Cacodemon Digital Shakespeare. Edited by [your names]. Source edition: Rare Books & Manuscripts Department, Boston Public Library (copy G.176.16). http://cacodemonshakespeare.com/comedies/merchant/i3r.

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Notes

  1. In Greek religion, Erebus is the god of the underworld and the personification of darkness.
  2.  Crows are closely associated with darkness due to their dark feathers.
  3. Larks are associated with daytime because they tend to sing in the morning; an early riser is often called a 'lark', a term that originated in the 1500s (see OED sense 3). Here we see an overlap of sound and sight - larks symbolize morning because that is when we hear their songs, making sound essential to their visual symbolism.
  4. This line moves from a bird associated with the night (the nightingale), a bird with no strong relation to night or day (the goose), to a bird associated with the day (the wren). Within this shift from night to day, the language abounds with sound (sing, cackling, musician), suggesting sound has the potential to transform an object's lightness/darkness. However, the line's content advocates separation between light and dark: if the nightingale sings in the wrong time, her song will be diminished. Thus this line also uses sound to reify the differences between light/dark.
  5. Although Nerissa calls the moon a bright light earlier in the passage, Portia associates moon more with sleep and the night. Therefore, I coded the two 'moons' in this passage different colors, which has interesting implications for how 'real' classifications of light/dark even are.
  6. In Greek religion, Endymion is a shepherd-prince cast into eternal sleep by Zeus because the moon goddess, Selene, fell in love with him.
  7. Another overlapping of sound with sight; here, Portia likens Lorenzo to a blind man and herself to a cuckoo, a bird renowned for the sound they produce. Even without sight, Lorenzo call tell who Portia is by her voice, suggesting sound plays a role in a person's (racialized) identity.
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