Characteristics of Women Part 6

Have by some surgeon, Shylock, on your charge, To stop his wounds, lest he do bleed to death!

SHYLOCK.

Is it so nominated in the bond?

PORTIA.

It is not so expressed--but what of that?

'Twere good you do so much, for _charity_.

So unwilling is her sanguine and generous spirit to resign all hope, or to believe that humanity is absolutely extinct in the bosom of the Jew, that she calls on Antonio, as a last resource, to speak for himself. His gentle, yet manly resignation--the deep pathos of his farewell, and the affectionate allusion to herself in his last address to Ba.s.sanio--

Commend me to your honorable wife; Say how I lov'd you, speak me fair in death, &c.

are well calculated to swell that emotion, which through the whole scene must have been laboring suppressed within her heart.

At length the crisis arrives, for patience and womanhood can endure no longer; and when Shylock, carrying his savage bent "to the last hour of act," springs on his victim--"A sentence come, prepare!" then the smothered scorn, indignation, and disgust, burst forth with an impetuosity which interferes with the judicial solemnity she had at first affected;--particularly in the speech--

Therefore, prepare thee to cut off the flesh.

Shed thou no blood; nor cut thou less, nor more, But just the pound of flesh; if thou tak'st more, Or less than a just pound,--be it but so much As makes it light, or heavy, in the substance, Or the division of the twentieth part Of one poor scruple; nay, if the scale do turn But in the estimation of a hair,-- Thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate.

But she afterwards recovers her propriety, and triumphs with a cooler scorn and a more self-possessed exultation.

It is clear that, to feel the full force and dramatic beauty of this marvellous scene, we must go along with Portia as well as with Shylock; we must understand her concealed purpose, keep in mind her n.o.ble motives, and pursue in our fancy the under current of feeling, working in her mind throughout. The terror and the power of Shylock's character,--his deadly and inexorable malice,--would be too oppressive; the pain and pity too intolerable, and the horror of the possible issue too overwhelming, but for the intellectual relief afforded by this double source of interest and contemplation.

I come now to that capacity for warm and generous affection, that tenderness of heart, which render Portia not less lovable as a woman, than admirable for her mental endowments. The affections are to the intellect, what the forge is to the metal; it is they which temper and shape it to all good purposes, and soften, strengthen, and purify it.

What an exquisite stroke of judgment in the poet, to make the mutual pa.s.sion of Portia and Ba.s.sanio, though unacknowledged to each other, anterior to the opening of the play! Ba.s.sanio's confession very properly comes first:--

Ba.s.sANIO.

In Belmont is a lady richly left, And she is fair, and fairer than that word, Of wond'rous virtues: sometimes from her eyes I did receive fair speechless messages;

and prepares us for Portia's half betrayed, unconscious election of this most graceful and chivalrous admirer--

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 Marquis of Montferrat?

PORTIA.

Yes, yes, it was Ba.s.sanio; as I think, so he was called.

NERISSA.

True, madam; he of all the men that ever my foolish eyes looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady.

PORTIA.

I remember him well; and I remember him worthy of thy praise.

Our interest is thus awakened for the lovers from the very first; and what shall be said of the casket-scene with Ba.s.sanio, where every line which Portia speaks is so worthy of herself, so full of sentiment and beauty, and poetry and pa.s.sion? Too naturally frank for disguise, too modest to confess her depth of love while the issue of the trial remains in suspense, the conflict between love and fear, and maidenly dignity, cause the most delicious confusion that ever tinged a woman's cheek, or dropped in broken utterance from her lips.

I pray you, tarry, pause a day or two, Before you hazard; for in choosing wrong, I lose your company; therefore, forbear awhile; There's something tells me, (but it is not love,) I would not lose you; and you know yourself, Hate counsels not in such a quality: But lest you should not understand me well, (And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought) I would detain you here some month or two Before you venture for me. I could teach you How to choose right,--but then I am forsworn;-- So will I never be: so you may miss me;-- But if you do, you'll make me wish a sin, That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes, They have o'erlooked me, and divided me: One half of me is yours, the other half yours,-- Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours, And so all yours!

The short dialogue between the lovers is exquisite.

Ba.s.sANIO.

Let me choose, For, as I am, I live upon the rack.

PORTIA.

Upon the rack, Ba.s.sanio? Then confess What treason there is mingled with your love.

Ba.s.sANIO.

None, but that ugly treason of mistrust, Which makes me fear the enjoying of my love.

There may as well be amity and life 'Tween snow and fire, as treason and my love.

PORTIA.

Ay! but I fear you speak upon the rack, Where men enforced do speak any thing.

Ba.s.sANIO.

Promise me life, and I'll confess the truth.

PORTIA.

Well then, confess, and live.

Ba.s.sANIO.

Confess and love Had been the very sum of my confession!

O happy torment, when my torturer Doth teach me answers for deliverance!

A prominent feature in Portia's character is that confiding, buoyant spirit, which mingles with all her thoughts and affections. And here let me observe, that I never yet met in real life, nor ever read in tale or history, of any woman, distinguished for intellect of the highest order, who was not also remarkable for this trusting spirit, this hopefulness and cheerfulness of temper, which is compatible with the most serious habits of thought, and the most profound sensibility. Lady Wortley Montagu was one instance; and Madame de Stael furnishes another much more memorable. In her Corinne, whom she drew from herself, this natural brightness of temper is a prominent part of the character. A disposition to doubt, to suspect, and to despond, in the young, argues, in general, some inherent weakness, moral or physical, or some miserable and radical error of education; in the old, it is one of the first symptoms of age; it speaks of the influence of sorrow and experience, and foreshows the decay of the stronger and more generous powers of the soul. Portia's strength of intellect takes a natural tinge from the flush and bloom of her young and prosperous existence, and from her fervent imagination. In the casket-scene, she fears indeed the issue of the trial; on which more than her life is hazarded but while she trembles, her hope is stronger than her fear. While Ba.s.sanio is contemplating the caskets, she suffers herself to dwell for one moment on the possibility of disappointment and misery.

Let music sound while he doth make his choice; Then if he lose, he makes a swan-like end, Fading in music: that the comparison May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream And watery death-bed for him.

Then, immediately follows that revulsion of feeling, so beautifully characteristic of the hopeful, trusting, mounting spirit of this n.o.ble creature.

But he may win!

And what is music then?--then music is Even as the flourish, when true subjects bow To a new-crowned monarch: such it is As are those dulcet sounds at break of day, That creep into the dreaming bridegroom's ear, And summon him to marriage. 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. I stand here for sacrifice.

Here, not only the feeling itself, born of the elastic and sanguine spirit which had never been touched by grief, but the images in which it comes arrayed to her fancy,--the bridegroom waked by music on his wedding-morn,--the new-crowned monarch,--the comparison of Ba.s.sanio to the young Alcides, and of herself to the daughter of Laomedon,--are all precisely what would have suggested themselves to the fine poetical imagination of Portia in such a moment.