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rJ^H :e QmEDAHEEHQLASTIC ^ISCEQirasi.SEHPER;iacniElI$ •^m. QUASI • CBflS -HORITUHTIS VOL. XXIII. NOTRE DAME, INDIANA, MAY 3, 1890. No. 34- [Copyright.] other, type of womanhood. She is not less Portia.* womanly than Cordelia; she is less reticent, less sensitive, less humble, but not less truthful, less BY MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, LL. D., constant, or less firm in principle. Professor of English Literature in the University of Moreover, the circumstances which have Notre Dame. helped to mould Portia's character were very I hope you will forgive me for repeating a different from those that almost crushed the statement which I have made before. It is this: heart of Cordelia. Portia was the only daugh that a poet may be judged by the reverence he ter of a rich man, the heiress of Belmont, and shows to womanhood. It has always seemed to celebrated both for her beauty and her learning. me that if I had ever been placed in the position Learned women were not scarce in Italy in the of Tom Moore's hero, who went out in search of sixteenth century, and there were many who a religion, I should have chosen that in which could read Latin as easily as they played the womanhood had the most elevated place. In lute. Bassanio compares her hair to that golden all religions, except in Christianity, women have fleece which Jason went in search of, and says been degraded by order of the gods. It is only that many Argonauts went in search of her. in the highest form of Christianity that we find But her father has left a strange will; and the a woman not only called blessed, but crowned conditions of this will make Portia weary of her Queen of Heaven. life. These conditions are that she shall marry the man who chooses a certain casket. There Similarly, we find in the greatest of all poets are three of these caskets: one is of gold, bear that the truest womanliness is exalted. In Dante, ing the inscription, in Calderon, in Milton, in Shakspeare, all the qualities that go to make up the gentle or the " Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire;" valiant woman are iound. But most of all in another is of silver, with the legend, Shakspeare. " Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves;" If we had any doubt that Shakspeare was a and still another of lead, with the line, Christian, it would be dispelled by a study of " Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath." the women whom, to the honor of the mother One of these contains Portia's picture. But that bore him, he depicted. Cordelia, though which one? Portia knows, but she has sworn she lived in Pagan times, could not have been not to tell the secret; all the suitors who come conceived by a poet who had not appreciated to Belmont, drawn thither by her beauty and the effect of Christianity on character. Corde wealth, are informed of the strange test. This lia is entirely a womanly woman. She is the uncertainty is very trying; and when she sums one soft, silvery ray of moonlight that shines up the qualifications or disqualifications of the through the ragged storm-clouds and horrid applicants in talk with her maid Nerissa, we murkiness of the tragedy of "King LeaV." feel that her lot is not enviable, in spite of her Portia, in "The Merchant of Venice," is an- apparently exalted position in the world. We can imagine Portia attired in the costume * Lecture delivered before the pupils of St. Mary's of her time—a robe of white satin, perhaps. Academy. 534 THE NOTRE DAME SCHOLASTIC, flowing to the ground, confined by a girdle of clever young noble, true, honorable and honest pearls, with a stifif ruff of Venetian lace of a yel-' enough to wish to pay the debts he has reck low tint, around her neck, which the fashionable lessly incurred by living beyond his means. ladies of the sixteenth century liked in their Antonio, the merchant-^—and Venetian mer lace. She had probably the red, golden-tinted chants were as honored and as rich as princes in hair which the -Venetians most admired, and those days—is Bassanio's devoted friend. He she was doubtless tall and somewhat stately in has lent him money over and over again^ with her movements. That she was witty, you soon an open hand and an affectionate heart. Again find out. That she would hold her own in a. Bassanio goes to him. He tells him of Portia; contest of words with any of the suitors who she, the virtuous, beautiful, and wealthy lady would marry her, you soon suspect. of Belmont, who has so many suitors, would not Nerissa, the familiar waiting maid, consoles he is sure, be indifferent to him if he should Portia as best she can. She names the suitors appear among them. But he must rival in one by one. Portia scorns the Neapolitan prince; splendor of -apparel and train the princes and he talks of nothing but horses. And then there nobles who approach her. If he marry Portia, is the Count Palatine! "He doth nothing,but he will not only get the flower of the world, but frown." Portia says: "I had rather be married he will be able to pay his debts. Antonio cares to a death's head with a bone in his mouth than nothing about the latter contingency, but he to either of these!" Nerissa then mentions the loves his friend so well that he will sacrifice all French lord, Monsieur Le Bon. "God made for him. And if we have any fault to find with him," Portia answers,)" and therefore let him pass Bassanio, who is very bright and amiable, it is for a man." She objects to the volatility of this that he should have calculated at all on Portia's gentleman. "He is every man and no man: if wealth. a throstle sing, he falls straight a-capering; he There is no calculation about Antonio; he is will fence with his own shadow." The young as generous as Portia herself. But his ships are German is too fond of Rhine wine. Nerissa all at sea, and he has nothing on which he can smiles and speaks of the young,Englishman, raise enough money to fit out his friend in splen Faulconbridge. What say you to him? "I say dor worthy of his quest for the magnificent lady nothing to him," she answers, "for he under of Belmont. However, he tells Bassanio to go stands not me nor I him." He, like the English into the city at once to see whether some money of his time and of other times, can speak nei cannot be borrowed. Bassanio goes to Shylock ther Latin, nor French, nor Italian; and Portia, the Jew, and asks for three thousand ducats— like the Italians of all times, speaks very little that is, in our money, over fifty thousand dol English; she laughs, too, at the oddity of the lars. Shylock, after some hesitation, offers to English lord's dress and his manners—things lend Antonio the money, provided he will agree, which furnish the French and the Italians with if he fail to pay the debt, to let the Jew cut a subjects of ridicule to the present day. The pound of flesh from his body. Bassanio refuses Englishman, who is so satisfied with himself to accept the money on such terms, but Antonio when among "beggarly foreigners," was in the insists, and so the bond is signed. sixteenth century, and is to-day, a human crea If there is a blot on the character of Antonio ture whose singularity of attire and eccentricity it is his treatment of Shylock. It has been said of conduct they do not even attempt to under that Antonio in sneering in public at the Jew, stand. The four suitors will iiot accept the in covering him with reproaches, acted in ac test, Portia's father has set for them, and they cordance with the spirit of the age. But we are about to take their leave as the Prince expect more from Antonio who holds the world of Morocco arrives. "If I could bid the fifth only as the world; who is grave and even sad; welcome with so good a heart as I can bid the who does not put his.heart in his riches. The other four farewell, I should be glad of his ap spirit of the sixteenth century was one of intol proach." Nerissa recalls Bassanio, a Venetian, erance of the;-Jews.. They were persecuted, a scholar, and a soldier, who had visited Belmont sheered at, even massacred. The Christians of in the train of the Marquis of Montferrat, and the time seemed to have forgotten their Chris Portia, with a sigh, remembers that he is wor tianity, and that Our Lord Himself, through His thy of the kind things Nerissa says of him. Blessed Mother, was of the Jewish blood. Not In the meantime, this Bassanio has not for long before the time in which Shakspeare's gotten Portia. Bassanio is a young gentleman drama showed us Antonio and Shylock, the cry of Venice who has been more generous to others "Hep! Hep!" had rung through Europe. It than just to himself. He is a good-hearted, meant death to the Jews. The streets of nearly THE NOTRE DAME SCHOLASTIC. 535 every large city ran with their blood.

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