Portia For and Against

The Merchant of Venice is “about” judgment, redemption and mercy; the

supersession in human history of the grim four thousand years of unalleviated
justice by the era of love and mercy. It begins with usury and corrupt love; it
ends with harmony and perfect love. And all the time it tells its audience that this
is its subject.

This assertion by Frank Kermode is followed by the claim that to doubt this interpretation

“would take a determined effort to avoid the obvious.” 1 As one might expect, Kermode’s

effort at definitive pronouncement has hardly ended the argument. One is tempted to

rebel against such a reductionist view, and even suggest it is unworthy of a writer as

subtle as Shakespeare. In fact, if anything, interpretative opinion seems to have swung in

a completely opposite direction from the territory staked out by Kermode. His assurance

has been dissolved by critics, almost all of whom now dwell on the play’s unresolved

dualities. Certainty has given way to ambiguity. Indeed, Marjorie Garber, replying to

those who would argue that the play fails due to its ambiguities, claims that “the

ambivalence that an audience feels about this play is something built into the play and

emerging from it,” and, moreover, “if we feel this ambivalence—it is not because the

play fails but because it succeeds.”2 Defining this ambivalence more specifically, A.D.

Moody argues that the achievement of Merchant is that it “confronts us deliberately with

an image of our ordinary condition of moral compromise, of complacent spiritual

mediocrity.”3 Moody goes on to suggest that Merchant’s end in Belmont forces the

1
Frank Kermode, “Some Themes in The Merchant of Venice,” in Twentieth Century Interpretations of The
Merchant of Venice, Sylvan Barnet, ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1970), 100.
2
Marjorie Garber, Shakespeare After All, (New York: Anchor Books, 2004), 311.
3
A.D. Moody, “An Ironic Comedy,” in Barnet, ed. op. cit., 108.

1
audience to recognize that the “heaven of perfection” is actually a state of “cozy

amorality” that should be beneath our aspirations.

Our discomfort with the play as a whole naturally extends to its characters, and in

this regard, Merchant seems unusually rich in ambiguity. Is Antonio a good Christian or a

vicious anti-Semite? Is he a beneficent father-figure to Bassanio, or is he an aging and

lonely gay man desperately trying to maintain a hold on his young lover? Is Shylock hell-

bent on murderous revenge, or is he the victim of an oppressive culture that seeks to

marginalize, and even criminalize, his livelihood? Is Bassanio a reckless and exploitative

dissolute, or a loyal and good-natured friend? Even some of the minor characters raise

questions. How are we to view Jessica, as she elopes with her lover, and pillages her

father’s wealth? Are we attracted to or repelled by the hearty and swaggering bonhomie

of Gratiano, who also happens to be a prolific Jew-baiter?

Among these shifting characters, Portia appears whole and direct, unburdened by

moral uncertainties. She is surely the vessel of the state of grace that Kermode claims as

the play’s meaning. Moreover, from beginning to end, the audience is told exactly who

Portia is and what to think of her. Before she appears, Bassanio introduces her as “fair –

fairer than that word – / Of wondrous virtues” (1.1.161-2).4 Morocco calls her a “mortal

breathing saint” (2.7.40) and chooses the casket representing “what many men desire.”

For Lorenzo, Portia has “a true conceit / of god-like amity” (3.4.2-3). At the finale,

Antonio, as if Portia herself brought his ships to harbor, addresses her, “Sweet lady, you

have given me life and living” (5.1.286). And Lorenzo, again, offers his gratitude to

4
All line references from the text are from line notations in The Merchant of Venice, M.M. Mahood, ed.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

2
Portia for “drop[ping] manna in the way / of starved people” (5.1.293-4). The notion that

Portia is a goddess apparently starts within the play itself.

While no modern (or serious) critic would suggest that Portia is a goddess, some

have come close. For those like Kermode who see the play’s main duality as between

Judaic justice and Christian mercy, Portia represents the oracle of a new, more spiritually

forgiving morality. Suggesting she should be dressed in white as a symbol of “Christian

romance,” G. Wilson Knight goes so far as to suggest that Portia is channeling Jesus:

[Antonio’s] life is now subject to laws made only for money. Observe how Portia deals
with the absurd situation. She dispels the clouding precisions and intellectualities of the
law court [!] by a serene common-sense. This is something very much like the common-
sense of Jesus. Her Mercy speech exactly reflects His teaching. 5

Harley Granville-Barker argues that the “quality of mercy” set piece represents the “true

Portia,” and goes on:

To the very end she expands in her fine freedom, growing in authority and dignity, fresh
touches of humour enlightening her, new traits of graciousness showing, She is a great
lady in her perfect simplicity, in her ready tact, and in her quite unconscious self-
sufficiency.6

Ann Barton, a more recent interpreter, notes that against Shylock’s legalism, “Portia’s

triumph is really an indication of the insufficiency and mechanical nature of Shylock’s

own values, of how unworthy they were of the trust he placed in them,”7 and she goes on

to refer to Portia as “characteristically generous and full of gifts.”8 Portia’s use of the law

against Shylock is, in this reading, a recourse necessitated by his obdurate demand that

his bond be strictly enforced. While Barton acknowledges that Portia is hardly “full of

gifts” when it comes to sentencing Shylock and that the Venetians have glaring flaws, she
5
G. Wilson Knight, “The Ideal Production,” in Barnet, ed., op. cit., 93.
6
Harley Granville-Barker, “Portia” in The Merchant of Venice: A Casebook, John Wilders, ed. (London:
Macmillan, 1969), 72. Granville-Barker also makes much of Portia’s youth and girlish qualities, especially
in her relationship with Nerissa.
7
Anne Barton, Introduction to The Merchant of Venice in The Riverside Shakespeare, G. Blakemore Evans,
ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974), 252.
8
Ibid., 253.

3
nonetheless insists that the play is about opposing moral values, and an affirmation of

Christian love and forgiveness.

As has been noted by many critics, including Barton herself, the evident problem

with this interpretation is that Portia is utterly relentless in her prosecution of Shylock

after he denies her plea, and the text indicates no sign of remorse after his destruction.

John Wilders notes that “once she has Shylock in her grasp she is deaf to her own

eloquence.”9 Barton excuses Portia with the claim that she is justified hoisting him on his

own petard of legal literalism.10 We might accept this if Portia had let the matter rest after

requiring Shylock to shed no blood and take no more or less than a pound of flesh. But

she seems to gratuitously go further by accusing Shylock of threatening the life of a

Venetian citizen, despite that threat being contained in a consensual contract. This last

attack seems impossible to reconcile with the notion that Portia exemplifies mercy. 11

Alice Benston has posed additional questions concerning the notion that Portia

represents the Christian values of mercy against the Judaic emphasis on law and justice,

and her argument extends to an interpretation of Merchant that is radically at odds with

the Kermode thesis. If Portia’s plea for mercy is so decisive, why is it apparently

insufficient to settle the case? And further, why does the play not close at the end of the

9
John Wilders, “Introduction,” in Wilders, ed., op. cit., 20. Barton herself recognizes Portia’s failure to
“spare [Shylock] a thought” when it came to sentencing him; see Barton, op. cit., 253. See also Harold
Goddard, “The Three Caskets,” in Wilders, op. cit., 159: Referring to Portia ordering Shylock to his knees
to beg mercy of the Duke, “Mercy! This beggar’s mercy, though it goes under the same name, has not the
remotest resemblance to that quality that drops like the gentle rain from heaven.” Also, John Palmer,
“Shylock,” in Wilders, op. cit., 130.
10
Barton, op. cit., 252.
11
As if in answer to this objection, Portia has recently been portrayed as feeling regret following her
courtroom performance. One recent example of this is the 2001 television production in which Trevor
Nunn sets Merchant in Weimar Germany , with Derbhle Crotty as Portia. Another Portia, Deborah Findlay,
who played her with the RSC in 1987, has written that she thought the trial’s “outcome saddened her. It
isn’t a pleasant victory.” She goes on to say that “Portia and Nerissa are sickened by the experience.” See
her essay, “Portia,” in Players of Shakespeare 3, Russell Jackson and Robert Smallwood, eds. (Cambridge
University Press: Cambridge, 1993), 64, 65.

4
court scene with the victory of Antonio and his coterie, and continue on to an entirely

unrelated fifth act? Dismissing the mercy theme, Benston argues that the structure of

Merchant is built around not one trial but three, with Portia the crucial participant in

each. In Benston’s reading, the casket scene puts Portia on trial as she resists the

temptation to abrogate her father’s will and choose her own husband. The trial of Shylock

is an affirmation of the necessity of civil law as the foundation of commerce, and that

“we must observe that it is justice—law—not mercy that prevails under Portia’s direction

at the trial.”12 Finally, in the resolution of the ring trick, Portia puts Bassanio on trial for

ignoring his marital vow. The unifying theme of Merchant is the “protection of the law”

and Portia is the vehicle Shakespeare uses to advance this argument; at the play’s

conclusion:

Civil law has been reaffirmed in Venice and natural law in Belmont. Contract and the
courts, the inviolability of personal oaths, and the law of natural succession for the
furtherance of life have been assured. 13

Finally, far from being an alternative to the law, mercy is a “higher virtue” and “must not

function until after adjudication is made and justice is dispensed.”14 Mercy and law are

complementary, operating on different planes.

Benston’s argument offers strong affirmation of Portia’s iconic status in the

feminist legal community. Picking up themes from Carol Gilligan, Erika Rackley finds a

“different voice” in Portia’s approach to the law, and notes that Portia’s “open

acknowledgement of her strategic goals and desired end is not only successful, but also

deeply subversive.” Rackley continues:

12
Alice N. Benston, “Portia, the Law, and the Tripartite Structure of The Merchant of Venice,”
Shakespeare Quarterly, 30 (1979), 375.
13
Ibid., 385.
14
Ibid., 375.

5
 The recognition of Portia as a constrained activist not only requires the
recognition of the importance of the lawyer’s self, but also a reassessment of the
desirability and role of impartiality and neutrality within adjudication. 15

It is difficult to read this statement—which clearly represents an agenda well beyond

Shakespearean interpretation—without thinking that extolling Portia’s lack of neutrality

undermines Benston’s claims. Indeed, while it is perfectly permissible, indeed required,

that an attorney zealously represent his or her client, Portia does not appear at Antonio’s

trial as his attorney. She is there as a judge, or at least as an expert assistant to the Duke.

Rackley is quite correct that Portia’s presence is “deeply subversive,” and intentionally

so. How do we square Portia’s biases (to say nothing of her conflict of interest) with the

claim that she represents justice and the law? One can question Benston further by

inquiring how Portia, as representative of the law, could countenance Antonio’s demand

for Shylock’s conversion, which was clearly outside the law’s boundaries. And why

would she not only turn a blind eye, but embrace and further enrich Lorenzo and Jessica

after they financed their squandering self-indulgence with thievery? One is compelled to

conclude that Portia as a representative of either mercy or justice is, at best, problematic.

Those who view Portia as more of this world than the world of abstractions tend

to be less flattering. One critic has referred to her as the “playgirl of the Elizabethan

world,”16 and refers to her hypocritically “wiping out” Shylock shortly after praising

mercy. Garber asks, “Is Portia a heroine, or a spoiled darling, a bossy self-regarding

manipulator who treats Shylock with unwarranted cruelty, despite her finer words about

the quality of mercy?”17 Geraldine James, who played Portia opposite Dustin Hoffman’s

15
Erika Rackley, “Reassessing Portia: The Iconic Potential of Shakespeare’s Woman Lawyer,” Feminist
Legal Studies, 11 (2003), 40-1.
16
Fred Hechinger, “Why Shylock Should Not Be Censored,” New York Times (March 31, 1974) quoted in
Lawrence Danson, The Harmonies of The Merchant of Venice (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978),
4.
17
Garber, op. cit., 303.

6
Shylock, has said that she initially rejected the part because, “I didn’t like her. I found her

rather insufferable.”18 Moody and others note the deep irony of Portia in Belmont,

disconsolate and straining at the bonds of her father’s decree, and acidly derisive in

assessing her suitors, compared with Portia in Venice, disguised as a doctor of law and

advocating self-sacrifice. Moody even suggests that this disguise might actually cloak a

mercenary motive in her high-minded oratory; he suspects that

What we have seen in her is perhaps literally mercenary, and that her appearance as
Justice and Mercy has been a most deceiving disguise. There is then a possibility that
Portia has outdone even the Venetians in subverting religion to her own worldly will,
reducing its supreme principle of generous love to something nearly its opposite. 19

He concludes by asking whether anyone can believe that Portia loves Shylock as she

loves herself or her Christian friends.

More concerned with the structure of Shakespeare’s comedies than with specific

characters, C.L. Barker does not characterize Portia in detail, but he does suggest, aptly,

that Portia’s emphasis on mercy comes easily to a girl “richly left.” Barker notes that

“one can be troubled by their [the Portia-Bassanio group] being so very very far above

money.”20 Knight too remarks on Portia’s riches, suggesting that her “serene disregard of

exact sums has something supernal about it.”21 F. Scott Fitzgerald was apparently not the

first to notice that the rich are different from you and me, and Portia’s obliviousness to

money stands in stark contrast not only to Shylock, but also to Antonio’s crowd who,

Antonio himself aside, seem addicted to spending more than they have and devising

18
Quoted by Mervyn Rothstein, “For Actress in ‘The Merchant,’ Hatred of Portia Turns to Love,” New
York Times, January 2, 1990.
19
Moody, op. cit., 103.
20
C.L. Barker, Shakespeare’s Festive Comedy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959), 190. It is
worth noting that Barker’s statement seems far more applicable to Portia than Bassanio and his group, who
are not wealthy and whose attitude toward wealth is oriented mainly toward carousing.
21
Knight, op. cit., 92.

7
schemes, legal and otherwise, to underwrite their profligacy. But, regarding Portia,

gracious generosity comes painlessly when you have money to burn.

Harold Bloom also remarks on Portia’s above-it-all posture, but far from Knight’s

image of serenity, he emphasizes her mischievousness and blithe hypocrisy; the passage

is exemplary of Bloom’s stylish idiosyncrasy, and is worth quoting at length:

Portia, the play’s center, is far more complex and shadowed than ever have I seen her
played as being. Herself a sophisticated ironist, she settles happily for the glittering gold
digger Bassanio, contemptuously sentences poor Morocco and Aragon to celibate
existences, and is delighted with her Belmont and Venice alike. More even than the
vicious Gratiano, she incarnates the “anything goes” spirit of Venice, and her quality of
mercy cheerfully tricks Shylock out of his life’s savings in order to enrich her friends. …I
do suggest that Portia, who knows better, consistently is delighted to fail all her own
finely wrought self-awareness. Her moral fiber is Jamesian, but her sense of the high life
wryly allows her to settle for Bassanio and tricksterism. She is rather wonderful bad
news, a slummer by joyous choice. …She is at worst a happy hypocrite, far too intelligent
not to see that she is not exactly dispensing Christian mercy, except by Venetian
standards.22

One might note that it is hardly surprising that Bloom has never seen Portia portrayed in

this fashion; if for no other reason, an actress would have to be capable of exceptional

comic subtlety.

Bloom’s joyfully caustic irreverence is almost equaled by Harold Goddard, who

emphasizes Portia’s persistent self-dramatization. The three major motifs—the caskets,

the trial, the ring trick—are characterized as “intrinsically spectacular, histrionic or

theatrical – or all three in one.” Each comprises a drama all its own, with Portia at the

center of each. “What sort of heroine does all this demand? Obviously one with the

temperament of an actress, not averse to continual limelight. Portia is exactly that.”23

Thus, upon hearing that Bassanio’s friend is in trouble, it’s Portia to the rescue, disguised

and costumed, thirsting to assume center stage. Once on that stage in the Venetian court,

22
Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, (Riverhead Books: New York, 1998), 177-8.
23
Goddard, op. cit., 157.

8
rather than dispose the matter quickly, as she is surely able to from the start, she plays the

matter out for maximum suspense, torturing Antonio and teasing Shylock in the process,

only to let the hammer fall with “Tarry a little.”

Why didn’t she invoke immediately the law prescribing a penalty for any alien plotting
against the life of any citizen of Venice instead of waiting until she put those she
supposedly loved upon the rack? The only possible answer is that she wanted a spectacle,
a dramatic triumph with herself at the centre. 24

Playing Portia with the RSC in 1987, Deborah Findlay also recognized Portia’s tendency

to build prolonged suspense, to posture grandiloquently—“I stand for sacrifice”—and to

“dramatize and mythologize her life in moments of crisis.”25

One is tempted to respond to Goddard by reminding him that we’re not talking

about real life, that Portia is a character in a play, so of course there is drama and

suspense. Would we have it any other way? If she drags out the trial to the point where it

is almost unendurable, that’s for us, the audience. It seems bizarre to complain about the

lead female character of a play being overly dramatic. Yet, Goddard does have a point:

Portia is self-involved, even narcissistic, but she is something more: she is a superb

politician. She is endowed with an irrepressible drive not only to be at center stage, but to

control the events on that stage, and she has the personal power to do so. There is not a

character in the play that she does not destroy or dominate. The theme of her political

prowess runs throughout the play.

Echoing Antonio, Portia enters with what appears to be world-weary ennui, “By

my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world” (1.2.1). Garber argues that

Portia is expressing a sense of emptiness and purposelessness, and this interpretation

seems justified when Nerissa replies as if Portia’s good fortune is too much for her.26 Yet,
24
Ibid., 158.
25
Findlay, op. cit., 59.
26
Garber, op. cit., 286. Nerissa replies that “They are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve.”

9
the reason for Portia’s malaise is not as mysterious as Antonio’s, and she soon explicitly

reveals the source of her unhappiness: she does not have control over her own life, nor a

means of getting it:

But this reasoning is not in the fashion to choose me a husband, O me, the word
‘choose’! I may neither choose who I would, nor refuse who I dislike, so is the
will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father. (1.2.19-21)

Nerissa’s attempt to reassure Portia of the virtuous wisdom of her father, and the

likelihood that she will love the winner of the casket lottery, apparently falls on deaf ears,

as Portia changes the subject to the gaggle of suitors that have gathered. The world that

Portia is “aweary of” is one that denies choice and power to a young woman, and as we

soon see, one that is filled with her inferiors. As Nerissa points out the suitors, her

willfulness is twice displayed as she threatens to abort the lottery: “I shall never requite

him” (1.2.52-3) she says of the French lord, and “I will do anything, Nerissa, ere I will be

married to a sponge” (1.2.81-2) regarding the Saxon duke. Portia strains to be free of the

process imposed on her. Her unhappiness with the lottery persists into her introduction to

Morocco. No doubt sensing Portia’s disinclination to marry a man of his “complexion,”

Morocco asks her not to “mislike” him. Discreetly evading his race, Portia replies that it

makes no difference what she thinks because

In terms of choice I am not solely led

By nice direction of a maiden’s eyes.
Besides, the lottery of my destiny
Bars me the right of voluntary choosing
But had my father not scanted me…(2.1.13-7)

I think that Benston is correct in interpreting the casket scene as a trial revealing Portia’s

ultimate acquiescence to the law as embodied in her father’s will, but there is no

mistaking the intensity of the reluctance and unhappiness in her resignation. It would be

hard to claim that Portia is affirmatively answering the call of duty. Alternatively, there is

10
no sign of petulance or child-like willfulness. Portia is not a brat. She reacts as a young

woman of intelligence—and some pettiness in reacting to Morocco—who can quickly

size up those entering her orbit, and who chafes at being unable to act on those

impressions.

This theme continues into her encounter with Bassanio. Fearing that he will select

the wrong casket, she is torn between whether to “teach [him] how to choose right” or to

remain silent. Her frustration boils over with:

O these naughty times

Puts bars between the owners and their rights!
And so though yours, not yours. (3.2.18-20)

Again, Portia protests her inability to choose, to exercise her rights. She would be

Bassanio’s, but it is not her decision, nor his. As she realizes that Bassanio will select the

lead casket, the depth of her frustration reverses into a barely controllable exultation

(3.2.108-114), followed by Portia’s great speech in which she offers herself to Bassanio.

In her triumph, she is overcome with a grateful self-deprecation and a wish to be able to

offer him more, and she seems to surrender herself completely:

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. (3.2.163-7)

Mark Van Doren remarks on this speech that it exudes a love and generosity that are the

“natural language” of the Venetians, and he continues: “Portia’s surrender to Bassanio of

‘This house, these servants and this same myself’ is absolute.”27 Only those who are

carried away by Portia’s fervor would accept this statement, but while the reader might

lose himself in her graciousness, Portia gathers herself precisely at this point to make
27
Mark Van Doren, “The Merchant of Venice: An Interpretation,” in Wilders, ed., op. cit., 93. Emphasis
added.

11
clear that the gift of herself and all she owns is not absolute and unconditional. Contrary

to the custom in which the man offers the ring, it is Portia who does so, making clear that

Bassanio will forfeit everything she has given him if he does not keep faith:

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. (3.2.171-4)

It might be claimed that this is merely a dramatic device which sets up the fifth act, but it

is clearly more than that: Portia is giving herself an exit, a means of retaining control, if

Bassanio strays. Moreover, as Karen Newman has explained, the gift itself is a signal of

Portia’s power:

Portia’s declaration of love veers away in its final lines from the exchange system the
preceding lines affirm. Having moved through past time to the present of Portia’s pledge
and gift of the ring, the speech ends in the future, with a projected loss and its aftermath,
with Portia’s “vantage to exclaim on” Bassanio. Here Portia is the gift-giver…and in
doing so wins prestige and power.28

Portia’s terms in giving the ring to Bassanio amount to an Elizabethan pre-nup in which

she assures that he will never be able to take possession of Belmont without her. Having

come with “worse than nothing,” Bassanio, of course, accepts Portia’s terms. For all of

her apparent submission, Portia has assured that her marriage to Bassanio will be an

equal partnership.

With the arrival of Salerio and news of Antonio’s plight, Portia immediately

asserts her authority as an equal and demands to see the letter:

With leave, Bassanio, I am half yourself

And I must freely have the half of anything
That this same paper brings you. (3.2.247-9)

Bassanio is forced to confess his indebtedness, and, that said, he and Salerio proceed to

wail and gnash their teeth about Antonio’s vulnerability to the perfidious Shylock. Jessica
28
Karen Newman, “Portia’s Ring: Unruly Women and Structures of Exchange,” Shakespeare Quarterly 38
(1987), 25-6.

12
pitches in to denounce her father’s murderous intent. In this atmosphere of despair and

feebleness, Portia asks two concise questions of Bassanio—is Antonio your friend, and

how much does he owe—and, upon learning that a mere three thousand ducats is at stake,

she takes command. Portia’s sentences are uniformly in the imperative voice, as she

states a plan and directs Bassanio: Pay whatever is necessary! Marry me at once! Leave

for Venice! Bring Antonio back here! Don’t be so glum! And finally, “Dispatch all

business and be gone” (3.2.320). As the scene concludes, Portia has shown herself to be

utterly dominant and ready to apply her resources to achieve her ends. Is it any wonder

that Lorenzo, even before anything has been accomplished, proclaims her “noble and true

conceit / Of god-like amity” (3.4.2-3)? He is already in her thrall.

We soon learn that Portia’s resources are not only financial. Bellario, an eminent

lawyer in Padua, is her cousin, and she sends a servant off to get his legal advice, and

return with “notes and garments” (3.4.51). There is no evidence in the text to explain why

Portia decides to disguise herself and enter the trial as Bellario’s protégé. Is this the

moment that Bloom refers to as “tricksterism”? Or is she driven, as Goddard claims, by

her insatiable need for the limelight? Both theories are plausible enough, but I would

propose an alternative rooted in the so-called rule of triadic interaction: the friend of my

friend is my friend; the enemy of my friend is my enemy; the enemy of my enemy is my

friend. This adage, which has cross-cultural roots in the Bible, Chinese proverbs and

Islam,29 is a cardinal rule of politics, and is invoked by Portia as she prepares to leave for

leave for Venice:

This Antonio,
Being the bosom lover of my lord,
Must needs be like my lord. If it be so,
29
Exodus 23:22 “I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you.” In Islam, a
hadith from Sahih Bukhari: “I (Allah) declare war against the enemies of my friends.”

13
 How little is the cost I have bestowed
In purchasing the semblance of my soul
From out the state of hellish cruelty! (3.4.16-21)

While Portia’s impulse is clearly to rescue the friend of her friend, she certainly also

believes that there is a need for her intervention. One assumes that she could recognize in

Antonio’s letter an unmistakable mood of despair—he asks only for Bassanio’s

comforting presence, not his help—and she probably recognizes that Bassanio is in fact

unequipped to provide meaningful assistance beyond solace.

As earlier noted, critics have argued that Portia unnecessarily prolongs the trial to

achieve maximum dramatic effect and to maintain her role as the center of attention. Yet

it is at least as plausible to view Portia’s approach in more strategic terms. I would

suggest that, knowing she holds all the legal cards against Shylock, Portia’s approach is

to offer him the opportunity to escape her trap by accepting recompense and ending his

suit. By urging that Shylock show mercy to Antonio, she herself is being merciful to

Shylock. She is offering him an escape with a handsome profit. Following her “quality of

mercy” speech, Portia twice more opens the way for Shylock to relent:

Shylock, there’s thrice thy money offered thee. (4.1.223)

Be merciful:
Take thrice thy money; bid me tear the bond (4.1.229-30)

Shylock, having no idea how much he is at risk, persists in his claim. Left with no

alternative but to reaffirm his contractual right, Portia now tests his intent to murder

Antonio:

Have by some some surgeon, Shylock, on your charge,

To stop his wounds, lest he do bleed to death. (4.1.253-4)

14
When Shylock denies even this, and she is fully convinced that Shylock intends to follow

through, only then does Portia stop the action with “Tarry a little, there is something else”

(4.1.301).

Portia’s legal strategy is a classic political effort to use diplomacy as a way of

avoiding war, to test the opponent’s intentions, and then, when convinced of the

opponent’s implacable hostility, going into battle with every weapon at one’s disposal.

Arguably, she has baited a trap for Shylock and has been insincere in her suggestions of

mercy, but it scarcely matters. Shylock takes the bait, and Portia proceeds to destroy him.

She first uses his own literalism against him. When he tries to reverse and accept the

previously offered payment, she rejects the proposal as already having been offered and

refused. Finally, when he thinks he can walk away merely with a financial loss, she

delivers her final attack, invoking the law against an alien trying to take the life of a

citizen. Shylock is defenseless as Portia pointedly notes that he was about to enact this

crime before the court, and states that the penalty is that half his assets are surrendered to

the state, the other half to the intended victim, and that the Duke has discretion to

condemn him to death. Though the Duke spares his life, Antonio forgoes his payment and

demands Shylock’s conversion. As noted earlier, Portia offers no objection to Antonio’s

demand for this extra-legal penalty, which is difficult to reconcile with the claim that

Portia represents mercy or Benston’s argument that Portia is a representative of law.

Portia merely asks, “Art thou contented, Jew?” (4.1.389); the question contains a

devastating irony after what has just occurred. Far from any display of remorse, Portia

thus twists the knife in her opponent. Portia has scored an impressive political victory in

behalf of her friends, but arguably, she has done much more than that: with Venice

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apparently facing the dilemma of upholding its laws, crucial to its commercial success,

and protecting a prominent Christian citizen against an outsider, she has enabled the

Duke and Venice’s establishment to have it both ways. Venice’s laws and its citizen have

been preserved.

However, the politics of Portia’s private relationships remain to be resolved. First,

she accrues no personal benefit from vanquishing Shylock unless Antonio and Bassanio

know that Balthazar was her in disguise. And second, the trial made it clear that Antonio

has an extraordinary hold over Bassanio that is well beyond the bounds of conventional

friendship. Portia has enabled the defeat of the enemy of her friends, but in doing so, she

has discovered that both Bassanio and Gratiano have expressed their willingness to

sacrifice their wives (and in Bassanio’s case, himself as well) if that would convince

Shylock to release Antonio from his bond. Both she and Nerissa express sardonic alarm

following these statements, and by demanding their rings in compensation for their

services, they confirm that their husbands place a secondary value on their marriages and

on them vis-à-vis Antonio. Bassanio and Gratiano must be confronted.

Portia’s entrance in the fifth act suggests that she is troubled and preoccupied with

revealing her disguised role in the trial:

Portia That light we see burning in my hall.

How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.30
Nerissa 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… (5.1.89-95)

30
In the Cambridge edition, this line is footnoted with a comparison to Matthew 5.14-16: “Let your light so
shine before men, that they may see your good works.” It is noted that this line would have been very
familiar from the Communion service.

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Is this an idle rumination, or is Portia concerned that her good deed is being outshone by

Antonio’s? Is she not suggesting that Antonio is the “substitute,” still shining for his loan

to Bassanio, and not yet dimmed by Portia’s greater service? Portia continues, “Nothing

is good, I see, without respect” (5.1.99), and then shifts the metaphor to birds, saying that

the song of the crow is equal to the lark “when neither is attended” (5.1.103) and

nightingale would not sound superior to a wren if drowned out by geese. There is a clear

sense of frustration in these lines, as Portia considers how to lift her disguise and receive

the credit she deserves.

As the scene evolves, it is Nerissa who leads the way, demanding of Gratiano the

whereabouts of her ring. Gratiano responds with dismissive crudeness, and Portia has her

opening. After she scolds Gratiano and suggests that Bassanio would never part with his

ring, he too is forced to confess, though with far more contrition. Because she now

recognizes Antonio as a rival, she is unimpressed by Bassanio’s claim that gratitude had

to be shown for his liberation. After a withering rebuke—“Even so void is your false

heart of truth” (5.1.189)— and teasing accusations of infidelity (which may contain more

truth than Portia knows), Bassanio is completely diminished and without a defense.

Antonio too is forced to apologize for his role. Only then does Portia reveal her ruse,

noting the inevitable result: “You are all amazed” (5.1.266). Indeed! Despite her self-

deprecating modesty at the close of the casket scene, Portia cements herself as the

dominant figure of Belmont, with Bassanio and Antonio forced into positions of guilt and

gratitude. In playing the politics of both the public and private arenas of Venice and

Belmont, Portia has proved herself unmatched.

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 Four major interpretative themes have been advanced to explain Portia: Portia the

Goddess, Portia the Judge, Portia the Amoral Ironist, and Portia the Drama Queen. I have

suggested Portia the Politician. Compelling arguments have been presented to explain

and justify these portrayals. By the same token, evidence is presented as corrective to any

single reading of her character. Confronted with wide range of divergent opinion and

debate, one might be tempted to suggest that the character fails for lack of integrity, that

Portia is fatally incoherent. Yet this is surely wrong because our intuitive response to

Portia is that, even within the fairy tale setting of Belmont, there is plausibility in her

restless and intelligent energy. That we can envision her as real, perhaps even sense that

we have met women like her, reveals a profound truth about what Shakespeare has done

in developing her. Here as elsewhere, he convinces us of the multi-dimensionality of

human character, that the different facets of our existence, our contradictory ideals and

impulses, are constitutive of human wholeness, and are the stuff of our tragedy and

comedy.

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 Bibliography

All references from the text are to The Merchant of Venice, M.M. Mahood, ed.
Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Barber, C.L. Shakespeare’s Festive Comedy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959

Barnet, Sylvan, ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of The Merchant of Venice.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1970

Barton, Anne. “Introduction to The Merchant of Venice” in The Riverside Shakespeare

Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974

Benston, Alice N. “Portia, the Law, and the Tripartite Structure of The Merchant of
Venice.” Shakespeare Quarterly 30 (1979), 367-85

Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. New York: Riverhead Books,
1998

Boose, Lynda E. “The Comic Contract and Portia’s Golden Ring.” Shakespeare Studies
20 (1988) 241-54

Bulman, James. The Merchant of Venice. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991

Coolidge, John R. “Law and Love in The Merchant of Venice.” Shakespeare Quarterly
27 (1976), 243-63

Danson, Lawrence. The Harmonies of The Merchant of Venice. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1978

Findlay, Deborah. “Portia” in Players of Shakespeare 3. Russell Jackson and Robert

Smallwood, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993

Garber, Marjorie. Shakespeare After All. New York: Anchor Books, 2004

Hankey, Julie. “Victorian Portias: Shakespeare’s Borderline Heroine.” Shakespeare

Quarterly 45 (1994), 426-48

Lyon, John. The Merchant of Venice. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1988

McGinn, Colin. Shakespeare’s Philosophy. New York: HarperCollins, 2006

Newman, Karen. “Portia’s Ring: Unruly Women and Structures of Exchange.”

Shakespeare Quarterly 38 (1987), 19-33

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Ozark Holmer, Joan. The Merchant of Venice: Choice, Hazard and Consequence. New
York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995

Rabkin, Norman. Shakespeare and the Problem of Meaning. Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1981

Rackley, Erika. “Reassessing Portia: The Iconic Potential of Shakespeare’s Woman

Lawyer.” Feminist Legal Studies 11 (2003), 25-44

Rothstein, Mervyn. “For Actress in ‘The Merchant,’ Hatred of Portia Turns to Love.”
New York Times (January 2, 1990)

Wheeler, Thomas, ed. The Merchant of Venice: Critical Essays. New York: Garland
Publishing, 1991

Wilders, John, ed. The Merchant of Venice: A Casebook. London: Macmillan, 1969

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