The Merchant of Venice Newspaper Article - Portia and the caskets

by vickysong1625 (student)

By Victoria Song in Edinburgh While the richly left lady, Portia, awaits the casket challenge in Belmont, she is furious about her dad’s will. Portia’s dad has left a system, so the suitor who chooses the correct casket gets to marry her. This limits the choice of who she wishes to marry. In a short amount of time, Portia had been greeted by one of the suitors, Prince of Morocco. Portia recognises his virtues of a man and a prince. Portia dislikes his skin colour and hopes he loses, while Prince of Morocco tells Portia to “not judge him by his appearance”. Faced with three caskets (Lead, Silver and Gold), Prince of Morocco has the right to choose whichever he thinks is correct, bearing in mind that Portia had told him that there is a picture of her in the

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correct casket. Portia reminds him, that if he chooses the wrong casket, he must remain unmarried forever. Morocco is attracted by the richness of the gold casket, which promises “what many men desire”, but he finds within it an image of a death's head and a scroll. Morocco fails as he cannot imagine hazarding all in pursuit of happiness and he judges the gold casket by its appearance. “I have too griev’d a heart to take a tedious leave: thus losers part,” Prince of Morocco, told the Venizia Courant. To conclude the failure of the casket test, Portia adds that all other men who share the Prince’s complexion will also choose the wrong casket. The second suitor, Prince of Arragon, arrives and uses his luck to choose the right casket. If the Prince of Arragon chooses the wrong casket, he swears an oath upon Portia, that he must never tell what casket he chose, never marry a woman again and must leave Belmont immediately. Prince of Arragon is faced with the same three caskets ordained by Portia’s father. He rejects the lead casket as it is unworthy and the gold as the inscription promises “what many men desire”, and he feels himself to be more superior to the common citizens. He selects the silver casket which is wrong and inside, it contained a goggle-eyed doll with a scroll. “Did I deserve no more than a fool’s head?” asked Prince of Arragon, as he concluded his visit to Belmont. The last suitor, one that Portia had been hoping he would come to try the casket test, was a close friend to Antonio and one who came all the way from Venice. Bassanio was his name and he had asked Antonio beforehand to loan a sum of money to travel to Belmont in order to win Portia. Antonio agrees, but is unable to loan the sum of money himself because his own money is all invested in a number of trade ships that are still out on the sea. So Antonio suggests Bassanio to loan from the city’s usurer, Shylock, for the 3000 Ducats and name Antonio as the loan guarantor. Reading out all the inscriptions carefully, he finally chose one casket. Bassanio rejects the gold and silver caskets as he distrusts the luxury appearance. Instead, he chooses lead with the inscription: “Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath”. Bassanio decided to choose the winning casket containing a portrait of Portia and a scroll because he figured out that the point of the inscription is to consider that “it’s what the inside that counts” and that “looks are deceiving”. Winning both the casket test and “fair” Portia, Bassanio says: “Madam, you have bereft me of all words. Only my blood speaks to you in my veins.” Bassanio and Portia promise each other that Bassanio’s problems are also Portia’s problems, and that the day Bassanio takes the ring off, is the day he dies. .