Summary of MOV ACT 3-Scene 1

Act- III Scene- 2
Summary of Act III scene 2:
Act III Scene 2
Analysis
In Belmont, Portia begs Bassanio to delay before making his choice among the caskets. If he chooses incorrectly, she will lose the pleasure of his company.
Though she refuses to break the terms of her father’s riddle of the caskets, she confesses that if it were up to her she would give herself to him entirely.
Bassanio, though, is tortured by the uncertainty of waiting, and convinces her to let him try the riddle.

Portia is so strictly bound by the legal rules in her father’s will, that she must abide by whatever happens even if it means that she loses the man she loves.
Portia instructs that music should be played so that, if Bassanio chooses incorrectly, he will at least make a “swan like end.” The song commences: “Tell me where is Fancy bred, / or in the heart, or in the head…” Bassanio stands before the caskets debating his choice for some time. First he rejects gold: “hard food for Midas, I will none of thee”; then silver, “pale and common drudge ’tween man and man”. Finally, Bassanio chooses lead.

The last word of every line in the song rhymes with “lead.”
Portia has found a way to clue
Bassanio in to the right answer without breaking the rules of the riddle of the caskets.
Whether Bassanio picks up on the clue is unclear, but this is not the last time that Portia displays a keen legal mind.

Swan Song: There was a belief that the mute swan sings before its death.
In modern English, the phrase Swan Song indicates A final gesture or performance, given before dying or retirement.
Bassanio opens the lead casket. Inside, he finds a painting of Portia and a poem praising the wisdom of his choice. Bassanio turns to Portia, insisting that he must also have her consent, if they are to marry. Portia reassures him: “Myself, and what is mine, to you and yours / Is now converted”. As a symbol confirming her love, she gives him a ring, with which he must promise never to part. Bassanio is almost too happy to speak: “Only my blood,” he tells her, “speaks to you in my veins” .
Just as Jessica converted to
Christianity for Lorenzo, Portia describes her entire self, and all her wealth and belongings, as converted to Bassanio. Love is connected both to transformation and economic ownership.
With his metaphor of speaking to Portia with the blood in his veins, Bassanio connects love to the description of humans as animals that Shylock used to define human beings in 3.1.

Who is the new suitor who has come to seek Portia’s hand in marriage?
Bassanio

Why does Portia wish for Bassanio to wait for sometime before making his choice?
She pleads with Bassanio to hold back from making his choice immediately. She is worried that she may lose him if he chooses the wrong casket.

How is Portia’s demeanor with Bassanio different from that with her other suitors? What new side of Portia are we seeing? Give support for your answer from the text.
Here we see a very different Portia to the one we saw in earlier scenes and her treatment of Bassanio is quite different. In the earlier scenes she showed little emotion but now she begins with a long speech in which she urges Bassanio to wait before making his choice. Her previous confidence and contempt are no longer seen. She had urged her other two suitors to choose quickly and clearly was happy at their departure but now she pleads with Bassanio to hold back from making his choice immediately. She is worried that she may lose him if he chooses the wrong casket. She clearly loves him and wishes she were free to choose her own mate. She longs to be able to tell him which casket to choose but that would be to break her vow to her father – something she would never do.

1. Why is there a new emphasis on music?
2. What does ‘fancy’ refer to here? (attraction)
3. What is the meaning of ring fancy’s knell?
4. What do the first two lines of Bassanio’s speech after the song signify? (He has understood that outward appearances should be disregarded also, providing examples.)
5. Explain the lines:
‘There is no vice so simple but assumes Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.’
‘Thus ornament is but the guiled shore to a most dangerous sea, the beauteous scarf veiling an Indian beauty; in a word, the seeming truth which cunning times put on to entrap the wisest.’
6. Explain the following expressions: stayers of sand- a stay is a rope used in the rigging of a ship. If this rope is not of a good quality, it is unreliable. So cowards are as false as unreliable stayers of sand. beards of Hercules and frowning Mars- Hercules symbol of strength. Mars , God of war. The cowards pretend strong and brave. valours excrement: brave man’s beard beauty is purchased by the weight: cosmetics and false hair could be bought by the ounce.
7. Explain the figure of speech: livers as white milk: metaphor
8. Comment on the reference of gaudy gold and Midas.
9. Why is lead refer to as ‘paleness’? (because it is lighter than the metals, gold and silver)
10. Why does Portia want Bassanio to “tarry” or wait?
Portia speaks oddly about ownership. What does Bassanio “own”?
Portia is forsworn. To whom?
Is it true, then, that she is all Bassanio’s?
11. What does Bassanio want to do?
Why?
“Happy torment” is an oxymoron. What does it mean?

12. How does Bassanio respond to Portia’s pleas?

(He wants to take the test at once and cannot bear to wait any longer to win the hand of the woman he loves and he feels to wait longer than necessary is torture for him:
“For as I am, I live upon the rack.”

13. Portia orders that the ceremony of choosing the caskets should begin and says that if Bassanio’s love is true then he will choose correctly. She calls for music to sound while he makes his choice. Look at lines 43-50 and explain the imagery here.
The first image that Portia uses compares Bassanio to a swan dying upon a river of tears if he chooses the wrong casket and loses her
If he is successful the music will be seen as a fanfare for a newly crowned monarch or the music that wakes a summoning him to marriage She also compares herself here to a sacrificial virgin who was chained to a rock but rescued by Alcides (Hercules) from a sea monster. She then directly calls Bassanio by the name Hercules as she tells him to make his choice. A song is sung whilst Bassanio makes his choice.
More Questions:
1. How is Bassanio’s choosing different from Aragon’s or Morocco's?
How does Portia give him hints?
2. Which casket does he choose?
Why does he choose it?
Why are these caskets and Portia’s picture a good metaphor for the role of money in this play?
3. Where do Bassanio’s deliberations lead him in terms of choosing the casket? The logic of his argument leads him to reject the gold and silver caskets and he picks the leaden casket. Portia knows that he has chosen the correct casket and in her aside reveals her joy.

“O love be moderate, allay thy ecstasy,
In measure rain thy joy, scant this excess!
I feel too much thy blessing, make it less
For fear I surfeit.”
(Act III, Scene ii, lines 111-114)

Bassanio opens the casket and in it finds a picture of Portia. He too is overjoyed. The words on the scroll inside the casket bears out Bassanio’s approach to his task.
“You that choose not by the view
Chance as fair, and choose as true:
Since this fortune falls to you,
Be content, and seek no new”
(Act III, Scene ii, lines 131-134)

4. Bassanio kisses Portia and can hardly believe his good fortune until she confirms their engagement. Look at this section from where Bassanio has read the scroll (line 139) to the end of Portia’s speech (line 174). Make a note of all the words or references here which use the language of commerce or money.
Here are some you might note:
• Bassanio’s comment “Until confirm’d, sign’d, ratified by you” makes the engagement sound like a commercial contract
• Portia uses the language of money and wealth when she comments on her own value being increased “ten thousand times more rich”
• Which would make her stand “high in your account”
• She hopes that she might “in virtues, beauties, livings, friends /
Exceed account”
• She also refers to the “full sum of me”.

5. Portia then submits herself completely to Bassanio and gives him everything she possesses. She seals this bond with a ring. What important condition does she attach to this ring?
Ans. She tells Bassanio that if he ever gives the ring away it will be a sign of the ruin of his love. He swears that he will wear the ring always and would only be parted from it in death.

6. What surprise announcement does Gratiano now have to make?
He announces that he too has been successfully in love and that he and Nerissa are also going to marry. It seems that Gratiano had fallen in love with Nerissa as soon as he had seen her.
“You saw the mistress, I beheld the maid”
(Act III, Scene ii, lines 197-198)

Read the following passage and answer the questions: You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,
Such as I am: though for myself alone
I would not be ambitious in my wish,
To wish myself much better; yet for you
I would be trebled twenty times 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: but the full sum of me
Is sum of nothing; which, to term in gross,
Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractised:
Happy in this, she is not yet so old
But she may learn; happier than this,
She is not bred so dull but she can learn;
Happiest of all is that her gentle spirit
Commits itself to yours to be directed,
As from her lord, her governor, her king.
Myself and what is mine to you and yours
Is now converted: but now I was the lord
Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,
Queen o'er myself; and even now, but now,
This house, these servants, and this same myself, Are yours, my lord: I give them with this ring;
Which when you part from, lose, or give away, Let it presage the ruin of your love, And be my vantage to exclaim on you.

1. According to this passage, what now is Bassanio’s?
2. What does Portia give him at the end?
Is Portia happy with herself?
When she first answers Bassanio, does she talk about money?
3. How was Portia “unschooled”?
From what you have seen of her, would you agree with that statement?
4. What does the word “exclaim” mean in the last line?
What “claims” have been spoken of earlier?
If she “ex-claims” Bassanio, what might that mean?
With the ring, who owns whom?
Questions:
1. What does Bassanio promise to do, if he loses the ring?
2. What does Gratiano announce?
3. What are the two couples going to “bet” on?
4. What other couple enters the happy scene?
5. Salerio brings news. What is it?

6. This light and joyful mood is soon changed though with the entry of
Lorenzo, Jessica and Salerio with a messenger from Venice. What news do they bring?
Salerio gives Bassanio a letter from Antonio. As Bassanio starts to read the letter Portia immediately sees that it contains some terrible news. Bassanio explains that Antonio had funded his expedition to Belmont and now Antonio’s ships have all been shipwrecked and he is in debt. Salerio adds more bad news to this by telling them that Shylock is pursuing Antonio, wishing to take his bond. Many people, including even the Duke himself have tried to persuade Shylock to forfeit the bond but he has refused and, legally, he is entitled to it.

7. What information does Jessica have to add to Salerio’s news?
She tells them that when she was with her father she had heard him swear to Tubal and Chus that
“…he would rather have Antonio’s flesh
Than twenty times the value of the sum
That he did owe him”
(Act III, Scene ii, lines 286-288)

8. What solution does Portia offer to this situation?
(First of all she and Bassanio must marry but then he must go directly to Venice. She will give him the money to repay the bond, even paying “the petty debt twenty times over”. Having settled this he must then bring Antonio back with him to Belmont.)

9. What is your impression of Portia here?
We have noted that she immediately takes control of matters and quickly organises things. In her closing words, though, the worlds of love and money are, once again, brought together.
“Since you are dear bought, I will love you dear”
(Act III, Scene ii, line 313)
Act III scene 3
Questions:
1. What has happened at the beginning of this scene?
The scene opens in a street in Venice. Antonio had been arrested and it is clear that Shylock has begun the process by which he means to take his revenge on him.

2. Antonio tries to plead with Shylock but how does Shylock respond?

Shylock refuses to listen to Antonio and it soon becomes clear to
Antonio that his pleas are in vain and that Shylock insists on keeping to the terms of bond. Antonio realises that further pleas are useless and that Shylock hates him and seeks his death –
“He seeks my life, his reason well I know;”
(Act III, Scene iii, line 21)

3. What is the reason according to Antonio?
(Antonio says that Shylock hates him because on many occasions he has paid the bond for people who have fallen into debt with Shylock:
“I oft deliver’d from his forfeitures
Many that have at times made moan to me”
(Act III, Scene iii, lines 22-23)

4. Solanio hopes that the Duke will not allow Shylock to take his pound of flesh but what is Antonio’s view?
Antonio knows that the Duke must administer the law: “The Duke cannot deny the course of law” and the law says that Shylock can take his pound of flesh. If the Duke denied Shylock what was rightfully his by law this would undermine the whole reputation of the state. Venice’s wealth depends on trade with many nations and if the Duke was to make exceptions to the law it would undermine the trustworthiness and integrity of the whole state.

Act-III Scene-4- 5
What favor does Portia request of Lorenzo?
Who is Bellario?

Explain the lines:
But if you knew to whom you show this honour,
How true a gentleman you send relief,
How dear a lover of my lord your husband,
I know you would be prouder of the work
Than customary bounty can enforce you.

Questions:
Why does Lorenzo praise Jessica?
What do we know of Lorenzo’s feelings of his master? Give evidence from the passage.

2. I never did repent for doing good…………..Must needs be like my lord.

Question
What does Portia believe about the characteristics of lovers?

Explain the lines:
How little is the cost I have bestowed
In purchasing the semblance of my soul
From out the state of hellish cruelty!
Answer: In that case, the money I’ve sent is a small price to pay to rescue someone who resembles my Bassanio, who’s like my own soul.
OR

Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
1. Which makes me think that this Antonio, Being the bosom lover of my lord, Must needs be like my lord. If it be so, How little is the cost I have bestow’d In purchasing the semblance of my soul From out the state of hellish cruelty! This comes too near the praising of myself; Therefore, no more of it hear other things.
Questions:
1. What makes Portia think that Antonio “must needs be like my lord”?
2. What is meant by “the semblance of my soul”? What is the relationship between “the semblance of my soul” and Portia’s own soul?
3. What cruelty is referred to in the extract? Why is it called “hellish”?
4. Which duties does Portia assign to Lorenzo in this scene? Why would matters work smoothly for Lorenzo during Portia’s absence?
5. What excuses does Portia give for leaving Belmont with Nerissa? Why do you think that she gives this excuse?

2. Now, Balthazar, As I have ever found thee honest-true, So let me find thee still. Take this same letter, And use thou all the endeavour of a man In speed to Padua: see thou render this Into my cousin’s hand, Doctor Bellario:
Questions:
Who is Balthazar?
What does Portia ask him to do?
How does she ensure that Blathazar will not cheat her? (Portia by telling Balthazar that he is honest and faithful to her, and she trust that he will continue to be so.)

3. Portia: Come on, Nerissa. I have work in hand That you yet know not of: we’ll see our husbands Nerissa: Shall they see us?

4. PORTIA
They shall, Nerissa, but in such a habit
That they shall think we are accomplishèd
With that we lack.

5. That men shall swear I have discontinued school
Above a twelvemonth.
Answer: I’ll tell twenty lies like that, so men will think I graduated from school at least a year ago.
Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
Launcelot Yes, truly; for, look you, the sins of the father are to be laid upon the children; therefore, I promise you, I fear you. I was always plain with you, and so now I speak my agitation of the matter: therefore be o’ good cheer; for, truly, I think you are damned.

Questions:
1. What does Launcelot mean by saying:
a. The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children?
b. I speak my agitation of the matter?
2. Why does Launcelot tell Jessica that she is ‘damned both by father and mother’?
3. How does Jessica hope to escape damnation?
4. How would Jessica becoming a Christian affect the food supply?
5. What does Lorenzo accuse Launcelot of after the former comes into the scene?
6. How does Lorenzo describe Launcelot’s extensive vocabulary and its use?