5 March 2002

 

Love, Friendship, and Debt in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice

 

By Jason Preu

 

            Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (1598) is a comedy.  The Elizabethan audience for whom the play was written no doubt took delight in watching the Christian characters as they successfully humble the play’s overbearing antagonist, Shylock, and then traipse off to enjoy the bliss of married life.  Central to the play’s “comedic” outcome is the character of Portia who, by play’s end, could very well claim herself to be “The Merchant of Venice.”  Her sly brokering reverberates throughout the play, affecting most of the characters at one point or another.  Portia wants a marriage and a marriage she will get.  The effects of her mercantilism, however detrimental they are to Shylock, ultimately come to bear most heavily upon Antonio and Bassanio’s relationship. 

            The first scene of the play quickly establishes the depth of Antonio and Bassanio’s relationship.  As Bassanio grieves over his debts, Antonio barely bats an eyelash when he responds, “My purse, my person, my extremest means / Lie all unlocked to your occasions” (1.1.138-39).  Antonio is so devoted to Bassanio that he will not refuse him, even after Bassanio asks him to finance a trip to Belmont to play suitor to Portia.  Antonio seems stuck in a catch-22 situation.  Having already promised to assist Bassanio in every way possible, Antonio’s love obliges him to help.  Never mind that in providing such help, he sets himself up to be ousted from the close position he occupies next to Bassanio. 

            After this scene, the audience is then introduced to Portia.  Bound by her dead father’s will to have her married off in a most peculiar fashion, Portia is as initially dissatisfied with her lot as Antonio is with his.  Portia has nothing but criticism for every suitor that Nerissa mentions.  Her interest quickens, however, when Nerissa reminds Portia of Bassanio.  She recalls him as someone who might be worthy of her affections.  He also might provide a way for Portia to honor her father’s will while allowing her to actually be in love with the man she must wed.  Here the calculating begins.  For, if Bassanio does prove worthy, nothing will stand in the way of Portia’s marriage to him; not the pound of flesh that Antonio pledges to Shylock or the life bond between Antonio and Bassanio that pound of flesh represents.

            The blood-shadowed bond that Antonio makes with Shylock in exchange for the loan has a hidden clause.  In addition to financing Bassanio’s trip to Belmont, the bond also forms an unspoken contract between Antonio and Bassanio that offers an audience something tangible by which to measure the two’s relationship.  Never mind whether this relationship is homosexual or homosocial, the demonstrative result is the same:  Antonio puts his own flesh on the line for the sake of Bassanio’s happiness.  While Portia’s machinations during the latter part of the play seem fueled by a self-interested love, Antonio’s willingness to help seems mostly altruistic.  No doubt that one factor in Antonio’s decision is the overwhelming confidence he has in his financial stability.  Is the contract between the two Christians a one-sided affair, forced upon Bassanio by Antonio?  Bassanio does protest the terms of the bond when he tells Antonio, “You shall not seal to such a bond for me / I’ll rather dwell in my necessity” (1.3.150-51), to which  Antonio boldly responds, “Why, fear not, man; I will not forfeit it” (152).  Bassanio’s love for his friend is indicated and his opposition to the bond seems based upon Antonio’s welfare should something go awry.  Antonio’s good will wins out in the end and the three-part bond between Shylock and Antonio and Bassanio and Antonio is secured.  In the end, it is this bond that Portia must dissolve in its entirety before she can truly claim Bassanio as her own.

            To her credit, Portia does love Bassanio.  It is this love that underscores her gratuitous offer to buy out Antonio’s bond to Shylock.  This is a fine example of Portia’s skill at bargaining.  Note how she plays on Bassanio’s love for lavishness when she makes an unbelievable offer – “Pay him [Shylock] six thousand and deface the bond. / Double six thousand, and then treble that” (3.2.298-99) – and makes for Bassanio a fine display of her willingness to help (as well as her abundant financial reserves).  Before this exchange can come to pass, however, all Bassanio need do is marry Portia.  Then he can rush to Venice to offer his help and support to Antonio.  Portia even goes so far as to add a bit of icing to this already delectable treat when she promises that, after the wedding, Bassanio, “shall have gold/to pay the petty debt twenty times over” (3.2.305-06). 

            When Antonio’s letter is read aloud Portia can judge the depth of the affectionate river that runs between these two men.  Antonio’s language is such that she realizes that even if Bassanio weds her, she will have to see to it that the life bond between Antonio and Bassanio is dissolved before Bassanio is hers completely.  Thus, she doesn’t even wait for Bassanio to ask her permission to go.  She bids him go at once to his friend’s side as she will need a bit of time to prepare for her legalistic coup de grace; a feat that will leave no question as to where Bassanio’s allegiance lies and to whom he is truly indebted. 

            Antonio’s trial becomes the true proving grounds for Portia’s love and cunning.  Shylock’s claim to have his bond honored is thwarted by Portia’s deft interpretation of the bond’s terms.  She knows that if Antonio is killed so too is Bassanio, as Bassanio still considers Antonio more valuable than her: 

                        Bassanio:         Antonio, I am married to a wife
                                                Which is as dear to me as life itself;
                                                But life itself, my wife, and all the world,
                                                Are not with me esteem'd above thy life:
                                                I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all
                                                Here to this devil, to deliver you.

                        Portia :             Your wife would give you little thanks for that,

                                                If she were by, to hear you make the offer.  (4.1.277-84)

            Portia secures the upper hand once she finds the loophole in Shylock’s bond.  The ensuing debacle over who is in possession of the wedding ring highlights the struggle over who has a rightful claim to Bassanio, Portia or Antonio.  Portia emerges the victor through a multi-level (financial, physical and emotional), convoluted series of transactions. Ben R. Schneider, Jr. traces the development of debt within the play thusly:

Antonio stakes his life for Bassanio. Bassanio owes Antonio not just three thousand ducats but his own life in return for Antonio's risking his. Bassanio owes his fortune to Antonio, who enabled him to court Portia. Portia owes her husband to Antonio, the enabler. She pays him back by saving his life at the trial. Now Antonio owes his life to the "lawyer" who saved it. Therefore, he commands Bassanio to give up the ring. Now Antonio owes Bassanio for sacrificing the ring (Portia). Portia pays her debt to Antonio by forgiving him. She does this by giving him the honor of returning the ring to Bassanio. He reciprocates the favor by promising to make sure that it stays on his friend's finger (thus giving her his friend). And when he puts the ring back on Bassanio's finger Antonio repays Bassanio for sacrificing Portia so that he could repay the lawyer who saved his life which he risked when he borrowed money to give Bassanio so that he could woo Portia.

While Schneider offers examples of incurred debt not examined in this paper (as well as different motives for certain characters’ motives), his outline does well as a pointed illustration of how the characters’ debt threads the tale.  

            As Schneider suggests, Portia’s struggle against Antonio for Bassanio’s affection is abated when the ring is returned. Antonio doesn’t take full leave of Belmont, however, until he hears that his merchant ships are docked in Venice and business as usual can commence.  He then leaves Belmont in an abrupt, expedient manner.  Considering that he is leaving Bassanio behind, his exit is surprisingly devoid of any farewell sentiment.  This suggests that Antonio is fully conceding to Portia any claim he may have to Bassanio in friendship or other matters.

            Portia’s maneuverings, skill and love for Bassanio aid her in squeezing Antonio out of the picture.  Much as the Jew, Shylock, is left alone at play’s end to ponder his fate, so too is Antonio exiled from his dear friend’s person and made to pursue his business interests alone.  Portia’s handiwork can be seen at work from before Bassanio attempts the casket test up through the final line of the play, where her cunning removal of any threats to her husband’s loyalty underscore Gratiano’s last declaration, “Well, while I live I’ll fear no other thing / So sore as keeping safe Nerissa’s ring” (5.1.305-06).

Works Cited

Greenblatt, Stephen, gen. ed.  The Norton Shakespeare.  Based on the Oxford Edition.  New

York:  Norton, 1997.  All quotations from Shakespeare’s works are taken from this edition.

Schneider, Ben Ross, Jr.  “Granville's Jew of Venice (1701):  A Close Reading of Shakespeare's

Merchant.”  Materials for the Construction of Shakespeare's Morals: The Stoic Legacy to the Renaissance.  10 October 2001.  25 February 2002 <http://www.stoics.com/granville_stuff.html.>