Oh, if you only knew the big secret!

ACT V.

This, of course, is the knifing act.

Seated is Shylock before an hour-glass, and trying to count the grains of sand as they glide through.

Oh, if you only knew the big secret!

You remember that in that original play Antonio’s ships are lost merely.  Bah! we manage better in this matter:  the ships come home, but they are empty,—­emptied by the pirates; though why those Adriaticians did not confiscate the ships is even beyond the Greek Chorus, who says, “They were very polite.”

At last all the sand is at rest.

Crack,—­as punctual as a postman comes Andronic; and as the Venetians are revolting against the flesh business, about which they seem to know every particular, Andronic brings a guard of the just Doge’s soldiers to keep the populace quiet while the business goes on;—­all of which behavior on the merchant’s part my friend the Chorus pronounces to be stupid and suicidal.

Then comes such a scene!—­Andronic calling for Ginevra, and the Jew calling for his own.

Breast bared.

Then thus the Jew:—­

“Feeble strength of my old body, be centred in this eye and this arm!  Thou, my son, receive this sacrifice, and tremble with joy in thy unknown tomb!”

Knife raised.

Oh, if you only knew the big secret!

And I do hope you have not forgotten that Honorius went away to fight the Adriatic pirates.

For, if you have forgotten that fact, you will not comprehend Honorius’s rushing in at this moment from the Adriatic pirates.

Yes,—­but why did he go amongst them?

The big secret, in fact.  If Honorius had not gone, why, I suppose
Shylock would have had his pound of man.

As it is, Honorius and his paper—­which latter has also come from the pirates—­do the business.

Why, the whole thing turns on the paper.  How lucky it was Honorius went amongst the pirates!

Honorius has vanquished the chief of the pirates,—­who was named Arnheim,—­and that disreputable widower, just before his last breath, gave Honorius the said paper,—­though why, it is not clear.  And—­and this paper shows that ANDRONIC IS THAT SON STOLEN AWAY FROM SARAH, DECEASED, AND SHYLOCK,—­THAT SON, NOT ONLY THE IMAGE OF ABEL, BUT OF MOSES, TOO.

Great thunderbolts!

Then, very naturally, (in a play,) in come all the characters, and follows, I am constrained to say, a very well-conceived scene,—­’tis another appeal to filial love.  The Jew would own his son, but he remembers that it would injure the son, and so he keeps silent.  I declare, there is something eminently beautiful in the idea of making the Jew yield his wealth up to Andronic, and saying he will wander from Venice,—­his staff his only wealth.  And when, as he stoops to kiss his son’s hand, Ginevra (who of course has come on with the rest) makes a gesture as though she feared treachery, the few words put into the Jew’s mouth are full of pathos and poetry.