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.So Morocco chooses the golden casket and finds a skull inside.Apparently many men desire gold and, in searching out their heart's desire, find death instead.He loses and must leave forthwith.… he shall pay for thisIn Venice, Jessica's elopement has been carried through.Shylock has discovered the loss of his daughter, together with the money and jewels she has stolen, and is distracted.He suspects Lorenzo and is sure that he is escaping by way of the ship that is taking Bassanio (along with his friend, Gratiano) to Belmont.A search of the ship reveals nothing, but Shylock is nevertheless convinced that Antonio, the friend of Lorenzo, is at the bottom of it.Solanio tells the tale, mimicking the distracted Shylock, who has gone raging through Venice crying for justice against those who stole his daughter and his ducats.The boys of Venice run after him, mocking, and Solanio himself thinks it is all terribly funny, and so, no doubt, did the Elizabethan audience.The modern audience, if Shylock is played properly as the tragic character he is, is very likely to find it not funny at all, and to find themselves sympathizing with Shylock Instead.Solanio does say one thing rather uneasily:Let good Antonio look he keep his day,Or he shall pay for this.—Act II, scene viii, lines 25-26The forfeit of the pound of flesh had been set in a moment of extreme irritation on Shylock's part.If it had come to the touch it is conceivable that Shylock might have relented.But now, maddened by the conspiracy to rob him of possessions and daughter by the very men (as he was convinced) to whom he had supplied necessary money, he could scarcely be expected to want anything but revenge-revenge to the uttermost.And while the thought of the kind of revenge he anticipates is not something we can sympathize with, it is something we can understand if we can bring ourselves to occupy his shoes for a moment in imagination.The Prince of Aragon …And in Belmont there comes another suitor.Nerissa announces him to Portia:The Prince of Aragon hath ta'en his oath,And comes to his elections presently.—Act II, scene ix, lines 2-3Aragon was the name of a region on the Spanish side of the central Pyrenees to begin with.It was ruled by the kings of Navarre (see page I-422), but in 1035 Sancho III of Navarre left Aragon to his third son, separating it from his kingdom.Independent Aragon then expanded southward at the expense of the Moors, who at that time controlled much of Spain.By the middle of the fifteenth century Aragon occupied the easternmost fourth of what is now Spain.Most of the rest was occupied by the kingdom of Castile.In 1469 the heir of Castile was an eighteen-year-old girl named Isabella, while the heir of Aragon was a seventeen-year-old boy named Ferdinand.It seemed natural to arrange a marriage.In 1474 the girl became Isabella I, Queen of Castile, while her husband ruled jointly with her as Ferdinand V, King of Castile.In 1479 the old King of Aragon died and Isabella's husband also became Ferdinand II of Aragon.The two lands were united to form modern Spain and were never separated again.The union was followed by the final defeat of the southern remnant of the Moors in 1492.In that same year Christopher Columbus' first voyage laid the foundation for Spain's vast overseas empire and made her the first true world power.Although Aragon thus vanished from the map as an independent power a century before The Merchant of Venice was written, its name remained green in the minds of Englishmen.Ferdinand and Isabella had a daughter who became a famous and, in her time, popular queen of England-Catherine (or Katherine) of Aragon (see page II-754).The Prince of Aragon is displayed as a far less attractive character than Morocco.For one thing, he is proud, but then this was taken as a national characteristic of the Spanish stereotype.And, no doubt, the happy accident that Aragon resembles "arrogant" helped Shakespeare choose the title.The Prince of Aragon dismisses the leaden casket at once since lead is beneath his dignity.The golden casket offers him what many men desire and that is not for him either, since he is not satisfied with what "many" men desire.He is special.The silver casket has a legend, reading:"Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves."—Act II, scene ix, line 35Aragon recognizes no limits to his own deserts and chooses it.He finds it contains the caricature of a fool's head.Only a fool, in other words, places too high a value on his own deserving, and Aragon loses too.… the Goodwins.But now things suddenly turn black for Antonio.Even when Solanio had been mocking Shylock's grief-stricken outcries two scenes earlier, his friend Salerio had spoken of rumors concerning lost merchant vessels.Now the news is more specific and more damaging [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]