After Dr. Roderigo Lopez, the Queen’s physician, was accused by Don Antonio of Portugal, and executed June 7, 1594, on the charge of being bribed by the King of Spain to poison Queen Elizabeth, the story of a Shylock’s defeat and the rescue from his clutches of an Anthonio had just enough relevance to be popular without definiteness enough to be obtrusive.

ACT I

SHYLOCK’S “MERRIE BOND”

Why is Anthonio sad?  Is it presentiment?  Is it, despite his unselfish willingness to furnish forth Bassanio to sue at Belmont for Portia, some sense of loss in friendship through this love?  Anthonio and Bassanio may be considered as examples of that devoted friendship illustrated by Valentine’s feelings towards Protheus in “The Two Gentlemen of Verona.”

The group of young and gay courtiers circling about the two friends bring them into brighter relief.

Unlike Protheus, though perhaps younger and less wrapped up in the sense of friendship than Anthonio is, Bassanio is worthy of such regard.  Do the “faire speechless messages” he has received from Portia’s eyes and his praise of her as “nothing undervalued to Brutus’s Portia” tell the cause of his quest better than what is said of her wealth?  Notice that even what he says of that is as a mere grace of her person:  “her sunny locks Hang on her temples,” etc. (I. i. 177-181).

What reasons had Shylock for hating Anthonio?

Does Anthonio’s demand that he lend the money to him as an enemy justify the terms of the bond?

Is Bassanio right in distrusting, and wrong in accepting such a bond?

The long pedigree of Jewish and Christian antipathy and its illustration in this bond by the characters that are its exemplars.

What is to be gathered of Portia in this Act before she meets again with Bassanio?

QUERIES FOR DISCUSSION

Are Anthonio and Shylock more individual than typical?

Does the Act close with assurance of good luck or foreboding of bad?

Is Bassanio a fortune hunter?

Is he to blame for what follows?

ACT II

PORTIA’S CASKETS

Why is Jessica’s story intertwined with Portia’s?  What dramatic purposes does it serve?  Are Jessica and Launce alike justified in leaving Shylock?  Why? (See Introduction to the Play in First Folio Edition for suggestion).  Is the Jew’s lament for his daughter although piteous, inadequate.

Is the choice of the gold and the silver by the Moor and Spaniard significant of their natures?

What reason is there to find in the symbolism and the persuasion to choice each suitor employs that Portia’s father has used the wisdom of a seer in prescribing the choice from the three caskets?

QUERIES FOR DISCUSSION