🦋 The Merchant of Venice, 4:1
OK, Portia has won my heart. This scene is marvelous -- I am finding it really consuming to read, it has a command over my attention that the first half of the play did not, really -- I am suspending disbelief in the strangeness of the events recounted, hanging on the edge of my chair thinking What has Portia got up her sleeve and Oh, so that's it! when she plays her card. The trial scene up to Portia's entrance is just beautiful poetry. Check this out:
- SHYLOCK
-
...
So I can give no reason, nor will I not,
More than a lodged hate and a certain loathing
That I bear Antonio, that I pursue
A losing suit against him. Are you answered?
- BASSANIO
-
There is no answer, thou unfeeling man,
To excuse the current of thy cruelty.
- SHYLOCK
-
I am not bound to please thee with my answers.
- BASSANIO
-
Do all men kill the things they do not love?
- SHYLOCK
-
Hates any man the thing he would not kill?
- BASSANIO
-
Every offense is not a hate at first.
- SHYLOCK
-
What, would thou have a serpent sting thee twice?
- ANTONIO
-
I pray you, think you question with the Jew.
You may as well go stand upon the beach,
And bid the main flood bate his usual height;
You may as well use question with the wolf,
Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb;
You may as well forbid the mountain pines
To wag their high tops and to make no noise
When they are fretten with the gusts of heaven;
...
I'm seeing lots of possibly meaningless parallels to other works. Right now I'm thinking Wow, this is a great trial scene, I really liked the trial scene in Aguirre last night, I wonder if there's any connection... and Shylock begging the court to take his life with his property is reminding me of "Lady Waters and the Hooded One" -- but I don't think either of these has enough substance to make the basis for an actual thought...
posted afternoon of Saturday, December first, 2007
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